Whoooaaa! Pedal, pedal, pedal. And breathe. Nearly stacked it into a culvert on a tricky bend.  I’d not been on my old mountain bike for a little while and had never ridden it with a saddlebag, handlebar bag and small rucksack on. ‘Discretion is the better part of valour’ has now become my trip motto. Chamois cream is now my skincare product of choice. New lungs and quads are now top of my Christmas list.

I exaggerate though. Nick and I are exploring local bridleways and country lanes starting from our home in South Northamptonshire bound for an overnight camp in the Cotswolds. With so many recent twists and turns during this pandemic regarding travel and social distancing a self sufficient, self-propelled trip from home felt like the right kind of adventure for us in sunny September.

It’s approximately 55km to the campsite, for us that’s 4.5 hours riding time, and that feels plenty for a first foray into bikepacking. We’re fully self-sufficient with tent, sleeping kit, stove and dehydrated food plus wedges of homemade flapjack.

You can gaze over the berry laden hedgerows and squish through the yellow spray of crab apples.

Our old hardtail mountain bikes are perfect for this. But we have diverged on tyre choice, Nick’s knobbly tyres are great on the occasional muddy or deeply gravelled sections, my slicker tyres gobble up the tarmaced sections quicker (but did make culvert dipping more of a possibility). We put the route together using our knowledge of our local bridleways supplemented with studying ordnance survey maps and the sustrans website. Nick plotted the route on strava and this helped us iron out the most extravagant ups and downs and directional kinks.

I’ve never been a fan of crazy paved, gravel strewn bridleways trudging straight on to the horizon to bisect yet another country lane. But now I’m a convert. Tedium is replaced by the thrum of bike tyres. You can gaze over the berry laden hedgerows and squish through the yellow spray of crab apples. Fields of stubble follow maize, then wheat, then sheep, then cows. On the crests the wind powers you past stands of trees and there in the lee the swallows glide, gobbling up the dislodged bugs. A church spire needles the skyline then is lost in the green trees and fields as you sweep down the hillside, past the blackberry pickers, to bridge hop in the bottom of the valley.

The campsite in Whichford, 7km north of Chipping Norton, is perfect. It is located on the site of a Norman castle, surrounded by a moat with a small stone circle. Its otherworldliness chimes well with our current altered reality. Beyond the light dappled orchard are nice loos and showers, both heated to sub-tropical temperatures and, in non-COVID times, a campers’ kitchen. Next time we’ll bring some firelighters so we can load up the fire basket with the available logs, toast marshmallows and try not to burn holes in the tent. Oh, and earplugs. St Michael’s church bells keep you on track with chimes every 15 minutes. All night. Plus the owls. Hopefully next time too we’ll pay a visit to the pub, or the straw kitchen cafe but for now our evening menu was: lentil cuppa soup, spicy kabuto noodles in a pot, ready mix custard with added crumbled choccie bars and lots of cups of rosie lee.

We refine our route for our return. An early start in the misty morning is startling for both ourselves and the rabbits. Soon we are rolling back through the fields and Cotswold stone villages. Passing through Swalcliffe; alongside the oak dotted parkland by Broughton; crossing the brook at Bodicote; then, in quick succession, across the M40, the Oxford canal and the Cherwell; and finally through our local haunts of Farthingstone, Halse, Radstone, Silverstone and Whittlebury. A final ridiculously bumpy stretch of bridleway drops us a few pedal strokes from home. Local bikepacking adventure complete. Time for a cup of tea and a long hot bath.

You should try everything once except incest and morris dancing.

Sir Thomas Beecham