MY 1986 BICYCLE tour of the UK was the start of my cycletouring. I had always loved cycling, but a few years previous, a friend of mine mentioned how he wanted to go abroad to cycle around. He would load his things into these things called 'panniers', he would hang these panniers on a rack which was attached to the back of his bicycle, and cycle around on his bike that he had brought from home. This idea never left my mind.

In the meantime, back during my high school years, my great Uncle Frank Bird and his wife Marjorie had come to Canada to visit family. He was born in Tichborne, ON, had gone off to war and had been injured in Italy. Back in the UK in a hospital to convalesce, he met Aunt Marjorie, a nurse. They married and Uncle Frank lived the rest of his life in the UK. But he also had a strong love of his home country.

When he came to visit his sister, my grandmother Sadie Harris (nee Bird) in 1984, he suggested that I come to visit some day.

These paragraphs explain the destination and the means of travel. The decision on the exact timing came in late 1985 or early 1986. I started university in 1984 at the University of Toronto. There was nothing I liked about that year of school besides calculus, and how much I liked being away from Toronto on weekends. Though I passed my year, the next year I transferred to the University of Western Ontario in London, ON, to study electrical engineering. I loved it, but it was a lot of hard work. To rest my brain and regenerate, during that first year at UWO I would take a break and pore over travel guides and maps of the UK penciling out a route that connected all sorts of places I had dreamed of visiting. Sometime while going over the maps it suddenly clicked - I would go after the semester finished as a reward for a successful year and for finding a course I loved.

Back in 1986 there was not the internet of today. I used a traditional travel agency to book my ticket - a flight on British Airways from Toronto Pearson airport, YYZ, to Heathrow over six weeks, from the end of April to the beginning of June.

Not knowing what to do, I asked my friend who had cycle-toured about getting a box for the bike - he suggested any bike shop, so I easily picked one up at Rainbow Cycles, London, ON. I knew nothing about panniers, but again, that same friend, Mark, suggested Bloor Cycle in Toronto, where I picked up a set of inexpensive ($69.95 at the time) Sunset Camping panniers. Though not near the quality of today's Arkel panniers, they have held out quite well, and I still have them, and have toured with them across Europe and in Cuba. The one change to them I have made was to change the rack clips on them to Arkel clips which work much better than the original ones.

These last-minute purchases at Bloor Cycle with my Dad had me geared as well as I could. My bike. Rack. Panniers. Windbreaker. AM/FM Walkman. Good to go. My dad took me right to the doors of the airport. This is where the original journal starts. I wrote it back in 1986, and the only changes are within square brackets to add additional explanation at some points.