Most of the content on this site is about bike touring, and that’s because it is pretty much my favourite aspect of bike riding.
I ride to work on week days, I ride every Saturday, I try to never have a week where I don’t ride a bike. But unless I am bike touring or planning a bike tour, something’s missing in my life.
2026 has been different. I had heart issues which started to make themselves known in November-December last year, and soon after New Year I went into hospital with atrial fibrillation and symptoms which suggested imminent heart failure.
And a week or so later I emerged after having a couple of arteries widened, and since then I have had a couple more cardio procedures, to ensure my continued living presence on this planet.
So that’s nice. I’m fine to commute to work on my lovely e-bike.
What does that mean for bike touring? Well, my riding at present is somewhat restricted, not directly by my heart health, but secondarily through the medication which makes sure my heart gets an easy ride.
Of all the medications that I am currently taking (and their name is legion), the one which affects bike riding is metoprolol. It’s a beta blocker, which works by “relaxing blood vessels and slowing heart rate to improve blood flow and decrease blood pressure”.
What that means is that your heart can barely get above a canter. For me, the maximum heartrate I’ve seen lately is about 115bpm.
And if you are a bike rider, you know that if you looked at your heart rate monitor and it says 115, you are just cruising along, barely raising a sweat.
So that’s me on the bike at the moment. Just cruising along.
But Andrew, why don’t you just try harder?
The answer is that when you try to go harder you just don’t. And about 15 seconds later you sit back on the saddle and say ‘where has all my power gone?’ And there’s a dull ache in your arms and legs that seems to be related to lack of circulation of blood.
So this might not rule out touring. It just means I need to adjust my expectations around how far and how hard I can ride each day.
I am in the middle of my own self-conducted tests around that right now, with the idea that maybe I can do one gentle tour before the year 2026 slips away entirely. And how are those self-conducted tests going? To be honest, not so great.
After this ride, which was not at all a difficult ride, I got home and needed quite some couch time before Annette and I could leave the house for a social appointment with a friend.
So, maybe watch this space, but probably don’t get your hopes up. It might be a while before a “proper” tour is back on my agenda. Sorry Emma, sorry Fi, sorry to all my other touring companions.