Josie Dew

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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 1998, 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." 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.

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.

"It's got huge advantages," she says, "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," she says, "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."

[edit] Books

The Wind in My Wheels: Travel Tales from the Saddle (1992)
Travels in a Strange State: Cycling Across the U.S.A. (1994)
A Ride in the Neon Sun: A Gaijin in Japan (1999)
The Sun in My Eyes: Two-Wheeling East (2001)
Slow Coast Home: 5,000 Miles Around the Shores of England and Wales (2003)
Saddled at Sea: A 15,000-mile journey to New Zealand by Russian freighter (2006)
A Long Cloud Ride: A Cycling Adventure Across New Zealand (2007)