Matt Rendell Writer A long challenging ride through beautiful scenery in a small group is the sort of shared experience

Matt Rendell, Writer A long, challenging ride through beautiful scenery in a small group is the sort of shared experience that yields lasting friendships. I’ve ridden in Europe, Australia and Latin America, but my favourite cycling destination is a country which lives its cycling tradition with incredible intensity: Colombia My wife and I have just returned from our annual trip. Cycling to Victoria was fine, and then we got the train to Dover and a boat to Ostend. Bruges is only about 16 miles from there but instead of finding a quiet route along a canal, we found ourselves negotiating huge roundabouts and dual carriageways, with pantechnicons bearing down on us. Then when we got to Bruges the streets were all cobbled which is not great for cycling, and then it started pouring with rain. For the return journey we put the bikes on the train to Ostend, where the wind was blowing so hard that all the crossings had been cancelled. The changing landscape and architecture were wonderful to see.

But I think my favourite ride was when I did the Dunwich Dynamo – an all-night ride from London to the Suffolk coast. I lived near Epping Forest when I started cycling, back in the early 1990s, and the first time I cycled through it I discovered what a wonderful smell it has I was an impoverished journalist We’d just had a baby, and I cycled to save money. But what I especially love about it is that you experience where you are going much more than if you were in a car. The Van Eycks were lovely though.Deborah Moggach’s latest novel, ‘These Foolish Things’, is published by Chatto, price £12.99 Tony Farrelly, Editor, ‘Cycling Plus’ Cycling just gives me a sense of freedom You’re not tied to anything You can go anywhere, any time and you know you’ll get there You’re not even tied to the road.

At Dover we joined a train full of drunken Brits before finally making it back to Victoria. Everyone was being sick and the captain kept coming on the tannoy saying, “We’re nearly there”. We hitched a lift to Calais with a coach-load of booze cruisers and caught the only ferry going. Motorists, though, get their own back by almost always winning any car-bike contretemps; I have the scars to prove it. Which is why the National Cycle Network is a joy, providing often-segregated and mostly safe routes through and between towns and cities. The finest stretch for anyone with a bit of long-distance experience is from Pitlochry to Inverness, a stunningly beautiful 100-mile ride that is just possible on a long summer’s day (but not when a northerly wind is blowing) Just don’t get smug about it. Sir Rocco Forte, Hotelier I never cycled until I took up triathlon four years ago Now it’s the thing I love best.