Footloose and car-free

When considering how to write a blog post about living in a car-free household for nearly three years (this is our third winter), it was hard to decide how to approach it. Then, when chatting with a friend who is interested in reducing his car use, it became clear. All Ian really wanted was some information and tips on how we do it. That way, hopefully, we can avoid preaching and just write something useful.

That is what will follow but let’s start by setting the scene. We are a two-adult household. No kids. We live rurally, with our closest major amenities and onward travel options around 5 miles away. There is no bus service of much use to us, although the recent addition of the Worcestershire On Demand bus service has piqued our interest. One of us works from home and the other works six miles away, up a big hill. We are both involved in several groups and activities across the week, which has included playing in a brass band in Birmingham (~30 miles away) once a week, and associated concerts across the county and beyond.

We once had a small car and a van on the drive. We now have an electric cargo bike in the shed for big loads and two acoustic bikes (non-electric) for pretty much everything else. It’s fair to say that we are as surprised as anyone how easy the transition has been for us. We’ll touch on this a bit when covering our tips and tricks…let’s start!

Plan plan plan (to do less)

Planning has taken on a new level of importance. In fact, it’s the single most important thing underpinning all this. Gone are the days of dumping a load of stuff in the van and setting off ten minutes later. Sometimes the planning has to be meticulous and relies on many modes of transport. For us, facilities such as the cycle parking at Crowngate Shopping Centre or the ease with which we can get bikes on and off a train make a huge difference. The complexity of all this inevitably slows us down. We can no longer run multiple distant errands in one day, using the van as a dumping ground for kit. When one of us would travel from our village to play at a bandstand in Stratford-upon-Avon, it would involve 30 miles of cycling, punctuated by a train journey, all with a baritone horn in tow. That doesn’t leave much time for anything else. The day would revolve around that one performance and the travel to get there and back. We’d enjoy a nice, and well deserved, meal together afterwards. You just have to lean into it. It’s a sort of enforced mindfulness, while everyone else rushes about doing all the things.

Panniers

We pretty much always have at least one pannier on our bikes. This simple hack means you can carry any gear you might need and grab some groceries on the way home from work.

The big shop

This brings us on to doing the big shop. We tend to split our shopping more than we used to, grabbing stuff as we go, rather than relying on a regular supermarket trip, but we do still do a big shop once a month or so. Sometimes we do this with four panniers across our two acoustic bikes but more often we turn to our e-cargo bike and trailer. We bought a Tern GSD and Pashley trailer with the money we got from selling the van. That may sound extravagant but it has been perfect for bridging the gap between what our acoustic bikes and our van could do. A quality trailer is particularly game-changing because you can carry loads of heavy stuff without altering the handling of the bike too much. Obviously, even with the trailer, the cargo bike can’t carry as much as the van, and planning is once again key, but it’s surprising what it can do and we find it way more fun than fetching stuff in the van. It’s like a game to see what we can do with the cargo bike, and we get lots of smiles and waves in the process.

Our cargo bike with a box full of groceries and three rolls of loft insulation - bound for Callow End

Yes, but…

Sometimes we need a van. At one point my gran fell ill and needed to be moved into care. Moving her stuff was not a job for a cargo bike. We hired a van (we like Brookhire in Malvern and have used HiyaCar a bit too) to take hundreds of her possessions to the local charity shops. Even more critical was the event that led to this, when my gran fell over one night. What do you do in an emergency? That’s a common question when considering going car-free. In fact, it’s probably the question that looms largest for most, however unlikely this is to cause issues in reality. In our case, we had planned for this. We had two friends living close to my gran who initially went to attend to her, and two in our village who had said we could borrow a car in an emergency. I called one of them and we arrived at my gran’s house (85 miles away) a couple and a bit hours after we were alerted to her fall. We are very grateful for the help we received. It wasn’t much fun but due to our planning, our not having a car on the drive had no real impact.

Car clubs deserve an honorable mention here. We have chosen the less formal arrangement outlined above, but we know many people that have used Malvern Hills Car Club and Enterprise Car Club in Worcester to provide another option. Malvern Hills Car Club even has a pickup available, so you don’t have to own one for the rare occasion such a vehicle is of any use.

Two become one

Some jobs by bike are just easier when shared. Taking a huge load to the tip or collecting DIY items sometimes becomes a joint (ad)venture, just to make it easier and to provide each other with some support. We’ll generally make it into some sort of outing, grabbing a drink (and cake) or visiting a museum en route.

Beck getting a lift into town with me so she can return with our bike and trailer after I catch my train

Clothing

I can take or leave the old Wainwright adage that “There's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.”. Cycling all year round definitely isn’t as cosy as sitting in a car with aircon and heated seats, no matter what you wear. That said, some choice layers, decent gloves, buffs and waterproof socks regularly come in handy. Neoprene overshoes even get an outing on the coldest winter mornings. Our layers include hooded merino wear and a decent waterproof jacket. We rarely cycle with waterproof trousers because it’s hard to get any air flow, so we find you get wet from the inside out. We are trying out ponchos currently.

Once again, planning comes into play here. Sometimes, you’re going to get wet and cold. Sometimes you’re going to get sweaty and red in the face. If you need to look presentable at the other end, adding in some time for a wash and taking a change of clothes has to be factored in. One of us has tackled this the other way round, by engineering out the occasions where looking presentable is necessary…but that may not be realistic for most.

This may all sound like a load of hassle but again, it’s about slowing things down and doing less. In exchange, you get year-round exercise and fresh air, you get to experience the changing of the seasons (viscerally), and you can turn your heating thermostat down at home too, because suddenly 16°C feels warm!

Trains

If we need to go a long way, we get on a train. The cost can be prohibitive, but we use a Two Together railcard (and sometimes a fare splitter) to reduce this and we are quids in from nearly three years of not owning a car.

Depending on our plans we either take our bikes on the train or leave them locked up at a secure cycle parking facility. The former is probably the greatest cause of stress that we experience related to not having a car. Different train companies have very different approaches to bikes on their trains, ranging from the awful (GWR’s infamous cupboards that exclude all but the most able of passengers with the skinniest of bikes) to the wonderful (Greater Anglia’s service with level boarding, space for six bikes, clearly marked carriages and station signage, and even information on the trains as to which side the platform will appear at each station). This all assumes you can get your bike into the station at all. Two of the three stations serving Worcester are woeful. Shrub Hill has no lift, and the new (opened February 2020) Worcestershire Parkway has the most inexplicable and inaccessible bridge conceivable, when approaching using the designated route. It’s either a case of lugging your bike over that, or riding on a horrible stretch of road.

The Orange Lump dwarfed by the bonkers steps that greet you when arriving at the rear of Worcestershire Parkway Station

You’ve probably guessed by now that to stop all these variables tripping you up, you have to plan plan plan. This can be as simple as avoiding certain train operators, or at least researching in advance what you will be faced with. Or sometimes we leave our bikes in town and come back to them later.

We each have a LiteLok, which is all but angle-grinder proof, and we feel that somewhere like Crowngate’s cycle parking is secure enough for our needs. We choose not to insure our bikes against theft, due to the cost, preferring instead to try to avoid having them stolen in the first place. We do insure our bikes against third party claims…and for breakdown!

Insurance and breakdown cover

We have third-party liability insurance, through our membership of Cycling UK. More remarkably, we have cycle breakdown cover through the Environmental Transport Agency. Their cover is great and provides some extra peace of mind where mechanical failure, or even unmendable punctures, are concerned. We’ve yet to call upon it but at only £24 (each) per year, it seems worthwhile, and it supports their wider campaigning too.

Hopefully, reading this has been useful to Ian, and anyone else wishing to reduce their car use. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Clearly living rurally without a car is a particularly radical step but we’re honestly amazed how relatively easy it has been…with a dose of planning. As we’ve found it an almost entirely positive experience, we’ve been meaning to write about it for a while, but we weren’t quite sure how to do so without sounding holier than thou. We hope we’ve managed to do this and welcome any comments, questions, or your tips!

We recently published a somewhat different / complimentary take on this on our Bimbling By Bike website, which will soon be dedicated to documenting our world bike tour.