Irish writer Dervla Murphy (1931–2022) made the bicycle a companion to both travel and writing. A bicycle and atlas received for her tenth birthday inspired a dream of India. In 1963 she cycled there; the journey became the basis of “Full Tilt”, published in 1965.
This was no isolated youthful adventure. In 1992, aged sixty, Murphy bought a mountain bike and spent four months travelling from Kenya to Zimbabwe. That journey later became “The Ukimwi Road”. Reading, keeping notes and talking to the people she met were essential parts of her work.
Murphy’s example invites cycle travellers to measure a trip in more than kilometres. A plan can also include reading about the region, time for an unplanned conversation and a few evening notes. A diary preserves what a route line cannot show: voices, impressions and questions that remain after returning home.