The Free Wilders Bike Ride

A Thousand Miles Beyond Convention

A 1,000-mile bike ride without wearing clothes! I'll dance around the words that properly describe this bike ride, for fear that the internet's algorithms might flag my site and place it in a category where it absolutely doesn't belong! Because this was a wholesome adventure that brought people together through shared values, a sense of adventure and a desire to have some fun.

Early 2022, and it looked like we were finally going to be released from COVID restrictions. Me and Sadie sat in a pub in Sheffield and wondered how we should celebrate. We wanted to do something meaningful, so we decided on a charity fundraising mission. I'd always wanted to do a decent bike tour, but we couldn't decide which ride to do.

We talked about charities and agreed that Rewilding Britain and MIND best represented our values. So I looked on the Rewilding Britain website, and there it was in huge letters: "Think Big. Act Wild."

Well, there's no bigger bike ride in the UK than the End to End, from John O'Groats at the tip of Scotland to Land's End at the tip of Cornwall. And surely the wildest way to do it would be without clothes?!

A few conversations later, followed by months of planning, social media engagement and promises about what we were about to do, four of us set out on two tandem bicycles.

Sadie and I headed to our starting point at John O'Groats in Scotland, while Neil and Hannah headed to theirs at Land's End in Cornwall. We headed south, they headed north. We crossed paths in Bristol — not because we were faster, but because their start date was more than a week after ours! We continued to Land's End, and they made their way north towards John O'Groats.

The Free Wilders project was about much more than cycling without clothes. It was an opportunity to challenge assumptions about our bodies, explore our relationships with the natural world, and encourage conversations about body acceptance, mental health and the social expectations we often take for granted.

And we managed to raise a few thousand pounds for the charities — around £5,000 altogether!

It was an extraordinary adventure. Cycling a thousand miles on a tandem is a challenge on its own, never mind doing it in the nip! But above all, it was a journey that revealed to me the kindness of strangers. We received support, beds for the night, breakfasts delivered by people on their way to work, and even a lunchtime picnic left behind a hay bale in a farmer's field for us to enjoy.

The journey attracted national media attention, including appearances on ITV's This Morning and Channel 5's Jeremy Vine, giving us opportunities to discuss the motivations behind the project and the wider issues it raised. Scroll down to watch the videos.

We're proud of what we achieved, the conventions we challenged, the money we raised, and the conversations we helped start. Many times on the internet & social media, I saw the comment "I'd never heard of Rewilding Britain". They had now! And the conversation around body shame reinforced our belief that social conventions deserve to be questioned. And we learned that people are generally kinder than we sometimes give them credit for, and that a little unconventional thinking can lead to extraordinary experiences.

The Free Wilders project remains an important part of who we are. It reflects values that continue to shape our work: environmental responsibility, body freedom, respect for others, and a willingness to question social conventions that we often accept without thinking.