Potholes and Pavements: A Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network

SHORTLISTED FOR THE VICKI ORVICE AWARD FOR WOMEN'S SPORTS WRITING 2025

'Just wonderful – two wheels good, Laura Laker brilliant. Part travel diary, part love poem to Britain's cycle network ... it's difficult not to be inspired by this fabulous book.' Jeremy Vine

What if getting around the UK didn’t rely on cars? What if safe, joined‑up cycle paths actually took us somewhere useful?
That was the dream behind the National Cycle Network — nearly 13,000 miles of routes stitched across the country by a group of Bristol idealists back in the 1970s.

Journalist Laura Laker sets out to ride the network end to end, tracing its origins, exploring its highs and lows, and discovering what the NCN really looks like today. Along the way she asks the big questions:
Why is this huge piece of national infrastructure run by a charity? How did it become so patchy, political and underfunded? And what does it say about the UK’s relationship with cycling that even its CEO once admitted, “we’ve had enough of it being crap, we need to fix it”?

Her journey takes her from the Cairngorms to Cornwall, the Pennines to the South Wales coast, uncovering beauty, frustration, adventure and unexpected friendship. She rides with big names like Chris Boardman and Ned Boulting, meets the people who rely on the NCN every day, and digs into the messy politics that shape how — and whether — Britain chooses to move.

In a country where most trips are under five miles and two‑thirds of people say they want to cycle more, Laura’s mission is simple: can we make the dream of safe, accessible cycling a reality?