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Josie Dew |
Josie Dew is an English cyclist, author and cook. Her 'day job' is in catering, but she frequently indulges in long cycle trips (such as circumnavigating Britain or Japan - or crossing the Sahara on her bicycle whilst suffering kidney problems!) and then writes a humorous biographical book detailing her experiences. She lives near Portsmouth, England.
In Cycling Plus in 1999, she said:
| “ | "I work as hard as I can when I'm in England. I do nothing but work sometimes. And I'm lucky, too, because I've also managed to earn my passage by cooking on a ship going to the Azores. I've been cooking for as long as I remember. Other girls wanted girlie presents when they were young but I just wanted cooking books and spanners, and useful things like that. I've never ever had a job where I've had to be sophisticated or a businesswoman or anything like that. Now I live on my cooking, and the books help and I give lectures and so on."1 | ” |
Cooking started subsidising cycling when she was 15 and by 17 it paid for her first big trip, around the coast of Britain, inspired by a tour of the Isle of Wight when she was 10. By September 2005, she'd biked through 48 countries.2
She crossed Europe with her boyfriend, which led to her first writing success, Wind in my Wheels. After her boyfriend was injured in a crash she began travelling alone, which she prefers,3 despite those who find it strange.4
| “ | "It's got huge advantages, because people can't do enough for you. They offer to take me in for the night and they come and talk to me and I get to know people all over the place. There was a dangerous time in eastern Europe when I was locked in a man's flat and he tried to rape me and I had to escape, but that could have happened at any time. Otherwise everyone has been exceptionally kind, except that I've lost count of the flashers. I had three in a day in Switzerland once."1 | ” |
In March 2007, Long Cloud Ride, her book about New Zealand was selected among the top 10 writer's reads by Geographical.5 In 2008, Dew was invited to open the Sustrans Cycle Route 88, a bike path that runs from Pagham Harbour Nature Reserve to Chichester Canal and was more than twenty years in the making.6
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