Cycling in Britain: Tour de freedom The TfL map led us to the Grand Union Canal, in the shadow of the Marylebone flyover. The bikes rolled from tarmac to towpath, through an urban portal to join a reflective thread of water that uncurled through the metropolitan chaos of streets and buildings. As our tyres whispered past the needled spire of St Mary Magdalene, a rainbow striped the blue-black sky. According to our TfL "Escape map" we'd be with the Grand Union all the way out of London. It was one of the most extraordinary bike rides I've had in England. We cycled past a gas works, the multiple rail sidings of the "North Pole International Depot," Wormwood Scrubs prison, various industrial sites, a cemetery and a golf course. At one point we were just a mile or so from Heathrow airport. All that, with a foreground of dappled water, herons and twitching reeds. Towpath pedalling imposes a sedate cadence on cyclists; one misjudged swerve and you're in the drink. Provisionally, it also prevented me from being left behind by an overeager 16 year-old. At nine that morning we reached the cast-iron aqueduct that marks the border of Greater London and rode off the edge of the TfL map, beneath the M25 and past our first arable field. The canal took us to Slough, where it terminated in a thicket of bulrushes beside a builders" merchant. The roads were still quiet, so we postponed joining the National Cycle Network back-roads and took the old Bath road west to Reading, where we got so badly lost that we had to use an iPhone compass and the advice of a prison officer leaving his night shift, keys a-jangling, to unlock the mysteries of the maddening road system. Kit spotted the small blue adhesive NCN sign, and we turned for a second time that morning into a parallel world. Route 4 promised to guide us the whole way from Reading to Bath, mostly off-road. For the next few hours we were on the towpath of the Kennet and Avon Canal as it stretched languidly westward through sunlit boughs and water meadows. A pub appeared at the right moment for lunch, and a tea shop popped up behind a hedge in the warm afternoon, just as my legs were beginning to scream for scones and gallons of tea. We reached Newbury too late for the shops, and were resigned to skipping supper when the teenager scented a faint whiff of burgers on the evening breeze, and was gone with a clacking of briskly shifting gears. So we cycled into the setting sun, backpockets bulging with fast food, and unrolled our sleeping bags on the crest of the Downs. According to the gadget on Kit's handlebars, we'd pedalled 82 miles since leaving home. Nicholas loads up with tea and scones Next morning, damp with dew, we flew at Tour de France velocity down to Hungerford ("Appropriate name!" yelled the teenager) and ordered a pair of full English breakfasts at a family-run tea room called the Tutti Pole. I was ready to linger till elevenses and try the cakes but my companion - having inhaled a full English in one breath - was eager to pedal. Route 4 led us out of Hungerford on a thin lane framed with fluttering beech leaves. It was a wonderful day to be on a bike. You could feel the warmth of summer through the handlebars. We were climbing over the swelling roof of Wessex, over the watershed between eastern and western England; leaving Berkshire and entering Wiltshire. Vignettes from an earlier England drifted by: the sails of a distant windmill; a man opening a lock gate; the village of Great Bedwyn, with its ruddy brick cottages and Dickensian bakery selling lardy cake. An outstanding lemon drizzle cake was available a couple of miles farther on, in the tea room attached to the Crofton Beam Engine. In canal history, Crofton is up there with the Anderton boat lift and Pontcysyllte viaduct. Crofton's steam engines were built 200 years ago to pump water to the highest point of the Kennet and Avon Canal, as it ascends lock-by-lock over the crest of the 450ft watershed separating Reading from Bristol. The engines are kept in working order by a team of volunteers. Every push rod and brass dial glints with mechanical virtue. By way of contrast, my bike had developed a creaky crank ("Sure it's not your knees, Dad?"). With minutes to spare before closing time, we made Devizes, where the kind proprietor of Bikes 'n" Boards applied his crank tool to my bottom bracket and vanquished the creak. View over Cheddar We woke in long grass somewhere in west Wiltshire. Kit said: "Let's go to Bath." So we took the towpath west into wooded hills, riding beside a continuous line of moored narrowboats roofed in flowerpots and firewood, almost to the centre of the city. Unshaven, unwashed, we went to the Roman baths and stood on a lip of footworn sandstone fighting the urge to dive in, fully clothed. You have to travel from London to Bath under your own steam to discover how far apart they are. I understood the pleasure Roman travellers must have enjoyed as they sank into the soothing, warm waters. The thought alone was enough to induce faintness. Bath was a turning point in our ride, from westward to southward, and from easy to eye-popping. No gentle towpath led on to Devon. Instead, there were country lanes that climbed abruptly into Somerset, a county of topographical extremes. In driving rain we hauled ourselves over the alpine foothills of the Mendips and then - after a welcome night in beds with friends in Bruton - found ourselves rolling painlessly across the Somerset Levels, a fenland of pollarded willows and long, straight dykes called rhynes. Muchelney Abbey appeared through a veil of silver drizzle. We were tired, hungry and grimy, and the old monastery offered shelter, coffee and biscuits. If Henry VIII hadn't levelled the place in 1538, it would be one of the wonders of the West Country. But the stone ground plan of the monastery is still etched into the grass. The Somerset Levels ended with a wall of hills more than 600ft high and a road like a plank leaning on the sky. As soon as Kit disappeared from sight, I climbed off the bike and pushed. The top of this climb was an airy ridge marked on the map as Windwhistle, and this is where we joined a Roman road to swoop from the cloud to the sunlit shores of Devon. The National Cycle Network had another treat for us at Axminster: a new cycle route from the edge of town all the way to the lapping waves of the English Channel at Seaton. It was a good moment, sitting on the seafront with fish and chips before a still, blue bay. London seemed far away; thousands of pedal revolutions in the past. We pottered on that evening, through the old smugglers" village of Beer, to flower-decked Branscombe, then up again to Salcombe Regis as dusk snuffed the sunlight from the woods. The descent into Sidmouth was so steep that the brake blocks melted. After a night under the stars above the English Channel, we picked up Route 2 of the National Cycle Network, which took us along an abandoned lane beside the River Otter to a disused railway track that sneaked into the backdoor of Exmouth, where we carried the bikes onto the passenger ferry across the mouth of the Exe estuary. The seaside at Sidmouth South Devon basked under a Mediterranean sun. The English Riviera resorts of Dawlish, Teignmouth, Torquay and Torbay seemed more foreign than usual, with their piers and promenades and stuttering traffic. The final night in sleeping bags was spent in the deep blackness of moonless Devon countryside, and at dawn on the sixth day out of London, we pedalled into Totnes, parked the bikes outside the Royal Seven Stars Hotel, and ordered two breakfasts. With extra toast. Bikes are back. Britain's 16 gold medals in the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, and a first ever Tour de France victory have shown the way to a new generation of cyclists. Membership figures for the racing organisation British Cycling increased by 26,000 over the past year, up 50 per cent since Sir Bradley Wiggins won the Tour. And it's not just middle-aged men in Lycra; the success of Lizzie Armistead, Laura Trott and Victoria Pendleton has helped to double female membership in the past two years. If you are considering following Wiggo and Lizzie on the roads there has never been a better time to get involved, but a long-distance cycle tour should only be undertaken if you are a fit, experienced cyclist on board a roadworthy machine. The country's leading cycle touring organisation is the Cyclists" Touring Club (0844 736 8450: ctc.org.uk), which offers insurance, cycle training courses, advice and so on. Young persons" membership (under 18) costs £16 and adult membership is £41. British Cycling is the national governing body for cycle racing in Great Britain. It supplies several membership packages (gold, silver and bronze), which offer benefits such as discounts, racing licences and accident insurance (0161 274 2000; britishcycling.org.uk). Regional maps of the National Cycle Network can be bought from shop.sustrans.org.uk. Free local cycling guides for London are available from tfl.gov.uk. The best scale of general map for cycling is the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Landranger series, which shows all rights of way. Wild camping requires experience and suitable equipment (a sleeping bag, waterproof bivouac bag and sleeping mat). In England and Wales wild camping is possible in some areas but you need the permission of the landowner. Responsibilities of visitors to the countryside of England and Wales are laid out in the Countryside Code at naturalengland.org.uk. In Scotland you are allowed to camp on most unenclosed land (visitscotland.com), but you must follow the guidelines laid out in the Outdoor Access Code (outdooraccess-scotland.com). More secure and comfortable are organised campsites. A wide variety of campsites can be found on the website pitchup.com. Campsites in National Parks are listed at nationalparks.gov.uk. Youth hostels are a great alternative to camping and save you carrying camping luggage on the bicycle (yha.org.uk). For those with bigger budgets, bed and breakfasts provide you with a good meal before pedalling starts each day; there is a good selection at sawdays.co.uk. The best bike shops between London and South Devon are: Bikes 'n" boards, 121 Southbroom Road, Devizes, SN10 1LY (01380 729621; bikesnboards.co.uk). John's Bikes, 82-84 Walcot Street, Bath BA1 5BD (01225 334633; johnsbikes.co.uk); the workshop is at 74 Walcot Street (01225 464207). Knobblies Cycle Shop, 107 Exeter Road, Exmouth, EX8 1QE (01395 270182, knobbliesbikes.co.uk); Knobblies also has hire bikes for use on the superb ride along both shores of the Exe estuary and along the disused railway line to Budleigh Salterton.