Kinesis Bicycles Ambassador - Jo Burt

Jo has mixed up his riding ever since he planned his early mountainbike rides to finish in time for the Tour de France highlights, he’s so old that the Tour de France was just half an hour of highlights. He’s ridden and raced mountainbike, road and cyclocross bikes with equal amounts of enthusiasm and mediocre success since then and more recently has been mostly riding his Kinesis Tripster AT as that’s a glorious mix of all of them mushed together.

A keen advocate of riding straight from the door

A conviction helped significantly by having the South Downs right at the top of the road, he drifted into long distance road riding almost by mistake and has done many substantial rides including half a TransContinental and a full TransAtlanticWay, experience that helped him (with the input of many other far more accomplished riders) write and illustrate a book on the subject. Since then he’s done a lot of gravel rides and events all over and across England, Wales, Scotland, France, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Canary Islands.

When he’s not riding a bike he works as a freelance illustrator and writer, mainly in the cycling realm but will do anything anyone asks for. He’s also worked in several bike shops, been a bike guide, helped organise bike races and events, been a cycle clothing model and designer, and basically a lot of other things with 'bicycle' in the title. His hobbies include eating and lying down.

Go The Distance

Quite a simple plan really, ride to the ferry, do a loop around Northern France of about 250 kilometres, ish, get the ferry back, ride home. Borrow the route from a long distance cycling partner, he knows a good route, thanks Gav. It doesn’t have to be Epic, just a big day out, and just a bit different.

There’s something beguiling about this kind of riding; carry everything you need, look after yourself, spend a lot of time in your own quiet little self-propelled bubble before slipping briefly into other people’s hurried lives while you stock up on snacks, fizzy drinks and grab a coffee before slinking back out. A scrap of paper with a list of places where this might happen but happy to scavenge wherever the chance arises in opportune bakeries and petrol stations.

Pushing yourself a bit with little fuss or posturing because there’s no-one even watching to care, there is simply ground to cover calmly and efficiently. A constant gauging of energy in the legs and go the distance left to go and gently tapping it out. Just getting on with it, it’s a bit hard but it’s not hard. If you can ride 10 miles you can ride 20 miles. If you can ride 20 miles you can ride 50. If you can ride 50 miles you can ride a hundred and if you can ride a hundred miles then you can ride round the world. It’s really that simple.

A SHORT FILM - Go The Distance: Jo Burt / GTD / Le Havre, France

Film: Oliver Townsend Photos: Rupert Fowler