I’m riding through the flatlands of rural Lincolnshire. My bike computer is back at home and my phone is turned off. A cyclist could easily get lost here.
However, I’m somehow navigating a 100km loop using ‘natural navigation’ – a rewarding technique, part Sherlock Holmes, part Bear Grylls, which draws on the rich clues provided by nature itself.
The midday sun shows me where south is, as do the plump berries on the sunnier southern side of a hedge.
Piles of dung under a tree suggest that sheep have been sheltering from the summer sun on the shaded north side. Later on, lowering clouds warn me of imminent rain.
But the wind-sculpted shape of nearby trees suggests the prevailing winds here will give me a turbo-tailwind home.
Even the birds, puddles, church spires and satellite dishes offer clues to cyclists who learn what to look for.
Yes, there are easier ways to get around, but none quite so fun. The best bike computers have brought new benefits, but stripped away old pleasures.
Technology makes navigation simpler, and helps us to explore new locations. But it also encourages a bland submission to nagging digital arrows, and a blinkered insulation from the natural world.
GPS devices can also fetter our adventurous instincts, greeting every spontaneous spin up an intriguing lane with a tantrum of angry beeps.
In our desire to know exactly where we are, we’ve forgotten the joy of working it out for ourselves.
By using natural navigation, however, cyclists can enjoy a more intimate bond with the landscape and feel the cerebral thrill of decoding clues.
This is an important safety skillset, too. Be honest – if your GPS died on a remote ride, could you find your way home?
Enter Tristan Gooley
The man to thank for my nascent navigation skills is Tristan Gooley, the author of best-selling books including The Natural Navigator, The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs, The Natural Explorer and The Secret World of Weather.
A trove of information for hikers and cyclists alike, his books reveal how to navigate by using Holmesian observations and deductions about the sun, land, clouds, winds, trees, plants and animals.
If you’re planning on chasing a Strava PB today, this is not for you. But for leisurely weekend spins and bikepacking trips, natural navigation is a new thrill.
As Gooley writes: “The natural navigator puts more into a land journey than other travellers, but returns with a basketful of observations and sensations that pass others by.”
Gooley says ‘natural navigation’ injected renewed joy into his own adventures.
“I was doing journeys which, on paper, were incredible, but with conventional navigation, I was losing the love,” he tells me.
“These amazing journeys felt less exciting than a walk in the park – and that might chime with cyclists who feel a bit ‘head down’ when they ride. I knew basic things, such as the sun is due south in the middle of the day.
“But over the past 20 years, my knowledge has blossomed – and the psychology is fascinating. I’ve spoken to experts who understand the wiring of our brains, and we’ve evolved to do this… We wouldn’t exist if our ancestors hadn’t been good at this.”
Because natural navigation is an evolutionarily rewarding skillset, it leaves your synapses tingling. When I now spot a clue on my rides, the buzz is electrifying.
“From the simple act of gaining a sense of where you are by looking at a cloud or tree, the brain rewards that learning with neurochemicals that say, ‘This knowledge is the difference between life and death,’” says Gooley.
“The second we see things and decode them, it blows the dust off that part of the brain that’s been sitting idle. Natural navigation encourages us to look – and it rewards us for looking.”
Ready to give natural navigation a whirl? Before setting out, study maps to build a mental picture of your chosen bike route, including recognisable topography such as forests and rivers, and key destinations along your ride.
Stash your bike computer in your pocket as a back-up.
Then, with Gooley’s books as your guide, go forth and conquer. Whether you use this new skillset deeply or sparingly, as soon as you start decoding the clues around you, you’ll find your rides change forever.
Sun, stars and moon
To get your bearings as you ride along, always scan for the big celestial clues first.
“Think top down,” begins Gooley.
“The sun is due south in the middle of the day, and that’s true for everybody north of the tropics.”
But there are nuances. “While most cyclists know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, not many will know the sun rises closer to northeast in midsummer and southeast in winter. That’s nearly a 90° difference, so be aware.”
On night rides, locating the North Star is an easy win. A crescent moon can also help.
“Imagine a line that touches the horns of the crescent, like a tangent, and extend that line down to your horizon,” says Gooley.
“In northern latitudes, that’ll give you a rough idea of south.”
Clouds and winds
Clouds can provide rich clues for cyclists, but be aware that they may not move in the same direction as the wind you feel, owing to local influences such as valley breezes.
“On the average day, we might see clouds passing west to east,” says Gooley.
“If you’ve given some curiosity to cloud direction at the start of your ride, it’ll pay you back later with a rough sense of direction."
Further into your ride, if you can’t see the sun, a patch of sky that reveals the moving clouds can help you to hold direction. Clouds can also help you to map a landscape.
“Dark woodlands and towns heat up faster than pale fields, so the accompanying clouds we see give us a map,” explains Gooley.
“If I’m high up in a rural setting, I can show people the clouds in the distance are mapping a dark woodland we can’t see. But we could get the map out and show that the clouds reveal its location.”
Weather forecasting is another thing clouds can help with. In the northern hemisphere, winds circle anticlockwise around a low-pressure system – the kind of system associated with rain and storms.
So, try Gooley’s magic trick. Stop riding and feel the wind on your back.
If you face left, you should be pointing at the centre of the system. Now look at the highest clouds and see if they’re moving in the same direction as the lower winds you feel.
If the clouds are moving left to right, warm air is probably on its way, which means worse weather.
But if they’re moving right to left, it means cold air may have passed by, and the weather should improve. Remember: ‘left to right, not quite right’.
If they’re moving in the same direction, no weather change is likely.
But if you notice the clouds change direction (keep cross-checking them with other directional clues as you ride), that means a changing weather front – a sign you might get wet. And if the clouds are taller than they are wide, expect showers.
“Cumulus clouds – those fluffy sheep – signify good weather,” says Gooley. “But cumulonimbus – those tall, dark, often anvil-shaped clouds – suggest rain.”
Lots of different cloud shapes, meanwhile, signifies unsettled weather.
Being able to read the winds is a huge benefit for cyclists. “In general, prevailing winds in the UK blow from the south-west,” explains Gooley.
But it’s important to distinguish between high winds and the winds we actually feel, so don’t get caught out.
“A classic example is a gap wind, when the wind is channelled between a firebreak in a wood, so you get double the strength of winds you expect,” says Gooley.
“And in the mountains you get katabatic winds, where the cold air high up is denser than the warm air lower down, so that falls down the hill as headwinds.
“This means that if there were 15 people cycling uphill from different points, they’d all experience a headwind.”
Read the landscape
The landscape you ride offers infinite clues. “This is a big one for cyclists,” insists Gooley.
“One of the cornerstones of natural navigation is this idea that nothing is random. So, if you’re cycling up a steep climb, that’s not just a pain, it’s a clue.
“In the South Downs, if you look from west to east, you’re looking along a high ridgeline. You’ll see the gentle southern slopes going down towards the sea, and the steeper northern scarp.”
That’s because southern slopes experience a greater variety of temperatures, frosts and thaws, which leads to greater erosive forces, resulting in mellower gradients than on northern ones.
“If we want to follow the west-east ridgeline and we suddenly find ourselves going down something steep, it’s a big sign we’ve come off the northern side,” says Gooley.
Height offers vital perspective, allowing you to capture a snapshot of the area. Look for ridgelines and rivers, and think of the forces that shaped them.
But not all clues need to be natural, says Gooley – roads, railways and paths will also be positioned logically to connect key places.
And churches usually have their altar in the east and their tower in the west, making them a useful compass to use from afar.
Trees, plants and animals
After analysing the big picture, zoom in on the details. You can check the prevailing winds in an area by looking at the ‘combed’ upper branches of wind-blasted trees.
An exposed individual tree is often the best marker. Gooley recalls travelling through Dartmoor in near-zero visibility using the way the grass was combed by the wind, and the wind on his face, to hold direction.
Small clues matter. Sunny southern slopes tend to have more plant matter. The berries on hedges tend to be bigger on southern aspects.
Leaves and debris tend to accumulate on the southwest windward side of a hedge. Bikepackers, in particular, stand to benefit.
“Granite landscape (such as Dartmoor) is associated with moors, mountains, peat and bogs, so it’ll be hard on your legs,” says Gooley.
“Grey soil is wetter than red-to-yellow shades, so not good camping grounds.”
And if you see dark mounds, the ground is likely to be damp – because burrowing animals such as moles prefer moist, soft soil on shaded slopes – so not a great camping spot.
If you see a bird of prey hovering above, they’re likely facing the prevailing wind to hold their position. Walls sheltering livestock also tend to front the prevailing winds.
Urban environment
You may assume this natural navigation lark isn’t for you if you’re an urban cyclist, but think again. The main clues still apply, but other directional markers exist too.
“In the UK, most satellite dishes point close to south-east,” says Gooley.
“We find more green mosses on north-facing roofs and golden Xanthoria lichens on south-facing roofs.”
Most municipal tennis courts are positioned north-south to minimise glare during morning and afternoon games.
Even the flow of people can provide clues. “If 80 people are walking one way and 20 people are walking another, ask yourself why?” says Gooley.
“They’re probably heading to a station – a useful navigational clue. In Edinburgh, I noticed that the west-facing cafes were getting the evening sun and lots of people were sitting outside, while the shaded east-facing ones weren’t.”
But however skilled and savvy you become, don’t ignore life’s easy clues either. You don’t need to be Bear Grylls to know where Bridge Lane, River Street or North Avenue will take you.
3 natural navigation clues for cyclists
Natural navigator Tristan Gooley shares some simple signs to search for
Puddles
That puddle on the road or track is also a handy compass. On a hedge-lined route running west-east, there’ll be more puddles on the south side, because it’ll be shaded by the hedge so the sun won’t dry it so quickly.
And if there’s opaque green water at one end of the puddle and clearer water at the other, plant matter has likely been blown by the prevailing winds (southwesterly in the UK) towards the puddle’s northeast corner. Who needs a GPS?
Trees
Tops of trees are often combed into an ‘aero’ shape by the prevailing southwesterly winds in the UK.
Also, notice how the branches tend to be denser and more horizontal on the tree’s sunny southern side, and sparser and more vertical on its northern side as they grasp for light.
Clouds
The higher the clouds you can see as you ride, the drier the air.
“Every cloud is mapping the dew point – the point at which moisture is concentrated enough in vapour form that it’ll condense (into rain),” says Gooley.
“So, if the clouds get lower as you ride, the air is getting wetter, which means you may still be cycling in sunshine, but the forecast is deteriorating.” It’s time to dart home!