Tom Cartledge > Quotes

“Not in the glossy snapshots or the wide-eyed goodbyes—but in the mundane moments soaked in frustration and diesel fumes.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“It was April 1st, but winter hadn’t got the memo.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“It started, as many disasters do, with a long weekend in North Yorkshire.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“The euphoria of escape gave way to frozen socks, cheap Lidl sandwiches, and the suspicion we might’ve bitten off more than we could chew.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“There’s something about a cold morning — the way it bites into you, sharp and uninvited, like a stray dog testing your resolve.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“You don’t really leave home when you first set off. Not fully. You pedal away, sure—legs shaking, a forced grin plastered to your face—but you’re still tethered by invisible lines: texts from Mum, mental checklists, the echo of the last warm bed. It takes a few hundred miles for the world to start peeling the layers off.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“Our goal, admittedly ambitious and slightly absurd, was simple: three countries in a day, with the uncharted Serbian countryside as our final destination.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“Now, here we were—two scruffy cyclists, half-broke, half-lost, and wholly unprepared—rolling into the heart of it.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“It takes a few hundred miles for the world to start peeling the layers off.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“This was a place that had seen too many boots tramp across its soil, too many names carved into its skin.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“The moment you get robbed, the world doesn’t slow down. It speeds up.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“Snow clung to the hills like dust on old velvet.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“Harrogate wore its quirks like a badge of honour. Genteel parks. Overpriced tearooms. Pensioners in tartan, and the faint pong of Victorian delusion still wafting from the Royal Pump Room like a sickly memory.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“We needed something madder. Bigger. Dumber. A jaunt to the main vein.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“It was sausage for breakfast and bread that could knock a man out.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“There’s something about border towns that tastes like spilt liquor and cigarette ash. They rarely greet you with a smile. More like a shrug, a raised eyebrow, maybe a tax. And crossing from Slovakia into Hungary felt exactly like that: like the end of a party we were never really invited to. Gone were the manicured roads and apologetic drivers of the West. In their place: cracked tarmac, sun-faded billboards, and a lingering Cold War hangover you couldn’t quite shake off. It was perfect.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India

“No detailed plan, no fixed accommodations—just our bikes, a map, and the thrill of roads that stretched on like unwritten stories.”
― Tom Cartledge, SaddleSore: From England to India