I’m bashing my way through thick foliage atop a long-disused railway embankment somewhere outside Sevenoaks, using my bicycle as a battering ram against the brambles and nettles. My guide has disappeared ahead into the wilderness. Beside and beyond us are fields and views, but I can’t see them. I’m being asked to imagine, though, what this route could be, given the chance. I’m following a man who has hoped for two decades to reroute the English portion of what he believes could be a “yellow brick road” for cycling, linking London and Paris.
