I also think that, one's own personal freedom notwithstanding, it's just a courtesy to tell anyone who may care that you are disappearing of your own free will. Leaving a letter or a phone message or something. It won't stop them worrying, but at least police resources won't be tied up in looking for someone who doesn't want to be found.
Good point!
Yes - if I were to disappear I'd certainly make sure that
I found myself at first thinking 'well, if I were challenged to do something I'd done when I was younger - an all day ride out over the moors, say, on a horse - I would prepare myself with proper clothing and resources and everything. And then I found myself remembering doing it, and finding it so easy that I can imagine that I would, even twenty years later (although on a different horse, of course), just think it would be a piece of cake and getting myself into trouble. Maybe there's that mechanism cutting in again that we were discussing elsewhere, where the mind 'smooths over' unpleasant or frightening events and puts it all at a kind of distance? Which prevents the conscious mind from reasoning that an intervening twenty (or thirty or forty) years may have blunted our physical abilities somewhat.
Off the subject a bit, but this crosses my mind now and then. I drive a car, not a truck, so if I did hit anyone I'd know.
How astute! That's certainly possible. What the Bill'd call 'old-fashioned policing', i.e. looking at the details.
More good points there.
I was just about to post the BBC link when Bigphoot beat me to it.
I assume that with the three years that have elapsed since he disappeared his family wouldn't have been expecting a happy outcome. Maybe it might come as some relief to them that his body has actually been found.
He lived just two miles from me, so it's a case that I've been wondering about ever since he went missing.
In a way, if I was going to cycle it (which I wouldn't, as basically I'm a lazy b****r), I think I'd prefer to do so as night. The road would be a lot quieter and conditions cooler. Provided that I had great lights, hi-viz, etc. I think that It'd feel safer than doing it in daylight when there's going to be more cars, lorries, caravans, etc. on the road.
As a kid when my extended family went on holiday to the north of Scotland (Tongue/Thurso/Wick) we'd travel up overnight. In Summer the Highland roads are a lot more pleasant then than during the day.
I wonder if, in the case of Tony Parsons, whether it's a trip that he'd maybe made in the past (i.e. many years ago) and he believed that he would still be capable of it despite the passage of time. If one is an inexperienced cyclist I don't imagine that a 100+ mile, overnight journey is what you'd choose as your inaugural trip.
Puts me in mind of an episode of the 70s comedy series The Likely Lads where the two protagonists find that a cycle ride that they'd casually done as young men is a lot more challenging in middle age:
From IMDb:
Yup, cycling clothes are no good for keeping you warm once you stop pedalling. On Monday I went for a brisk ride and then had to dump the bike, chuck a coat on and go straight out in the car. I was out about an hour and when I sat down to take my boots off, was suddenly absolutely freezing.
This happens to me after a run, if I don't come home, get showered and changed. Many's the time I've come back from running really warm, thought I'd just pop out and run a few errands and, no matter how many clothes I put on when I get back again, once I'm cold, I'm then cold for the rest of the day.
