From the International Dictionary of Cycle – errandonnee; everyday tasks undertaken by cycle
Every year, Mary G of the hot blog Chasing Mailboxes runs two wonderful challenges to get riders out tto enjoy the everyday simplicity of being a-wheel. They are coffeeneuring in Novemberand errandoneuring in March. Me and the Bird had a ball completing the 2017 coffeeneuring challenge. I’m still debating what I liked most about the coffeeneur – the really brilliant sew-on patch or the excuse to ride and visit 7 coffee shops in 7 weeks, consuming 7 mochas minimum. So participating in the 2018 errandonnee challenge was a no-brainer, staritng 20thMarch and ending 12 days later
Me and her generally run household errands by bike or bike with trailer, so we would be doing something that we enjoy and are adept at. As with anything that ends in ‘-euring’ or ‘-donnee’ there are a few simple rules to make things more interesting. For this, the main rules are 30 miles need to be covered over the course of running 12 errandonnees and you couldn’t score any category more than twice. The categories are;
Personal care
Personal business
You carried what!
Arts & entertainment
Store
Non-store
Social call
Work
Peaceful everyday actions
Wildcard
The Bird commutes by bike to work Monday through to Friday but a trapped nerve causing severe drop foot meant that during the errandonnee window, there was no commute by bike. Despite this, we did enough errandonnees for the challenge;
Personal care | Doctors appointment | Pharmacy |
Personal business | Bank | |
You carried what! | Small tree & groceries | Garden Centre goodies |
Arts & entertainment | ||
Non store | Post Office | recycling |
Social call | coffeeneuring | |
work | ||
Store | Health food shop | Supermarket |
Peaceful everyday actions | Ruff stuff in suburbia | photography |
Wildcard | Harrow Civic Amenity Site |
Every task used the ever-faithful Scotti withTardis-capacity old Karrimor panniers and the Gecko collapsible trailer.
Peaceful everyday actions – we loved this category. Running errands by bike helps give a sense of peace, relaxation and wellbeing that other methods of transport don’t. Riding the rough stuff bridleway to the garden centre had the tranquility of the countryside while still in the outer limits of greater London. A moment of peace that most locals don’t get to enjoy while whizzing around in their cars. We are privileged to live in Pinner which dates back to forever and is a combination of old and newurban living. The opportunity to stop, admire, exhale and capture the historic and natural beauty of the area are always present; opportunities that the Bird always likes to take. The errandonneur let her again celebrate the arrival of spring with clumps of daffodils on the local farm.
Errandonnee distance – 40 miles
20 March 2018 | 5.0 | |
21 March 2018 | 15.1 | |
24 March 2018 | 30.2 | |
27 March 2018 | 15.5 | |
65.8 | km |
For the full set of photos click here