Jack Thurston: Lost Lanes Scotland

Jack will talk about the latest – and greatest – book in the best-selling Lost Lanes series, Lost Lanes Scotland, to be published in May 2026.

When the first Lost Lanes appeared in 2013, cycling’s public image was dominated by speed — the Tour de France, Olympic velodrome glory, and the first stirrings of the sportive boom. Into that context, Jack Thurston offered a calmer and more immersive approach to cycling.

Most cycling guidebooks tell you where to go. Lost Lanes makes you want to go there. Each route is researched and written as an experience to be savoured, drawing on the geology, landscape and the human history of the landscape through which the rider will pass. The result sits in a tradition that stretches back through Edward Thomas and Roger Deakin — writers who understood that a place reveals itself most fully to those moving through it slowly and mindfully.

Lost Lanes routes are designed to keep riders on quiet lanes and forgotten byways, away from traffic and away from the metrics — the speeds and distances, the Strava segments, the relentless quantification that dominates so much of modern cycling culture.

Jack will talk about researching and riding the routes for the new Scotland book — and the particular pleasure of travelling slowly and how the books led to the “Slow Cycling” series of feature-length travel documentaries on GCN+ that Jack presented alongside Jenny Graham, Simon Richardson, Ned Boulting, Blake Samson and Alec Briggs.

Though his biggest cycling passion is touring, Jack has taken up Audax and Randonneuring, completing the historic Paris-Brest-Paris event in 2023 and planning a return in 2027.

Signed copies of Lost Lanes Scotland will be available to buy after the talk.