The pressure of this, she told Sue Lawley on BBC's Desert Island Disc s had become almost unendurable, and one can speculate that the journey to India was driven and energized by the great relief Dervla must have felt, when, aged 31, she was finally able to throw her body and mind into the expedition she had planned over the two preceding decades. (Cycle? Alone? To India? From Ireland?) Dervla would probably be horrified to think of her bicycle Roz as anything other than a co-star in this extraordinary story, and the attachment which Dervla has towards the machine which propels her half way around the world is apparent throughout the book.Ī frozen Europe and bitterly cold, infinitely challenging cycling conditions did not deter Dervla from starting her trip in early 1963 - she has written and said many times that the 'Full Tilt' journey on her beloved bicycle Roz came after the death of her much loved mother, following long long period during which she nursed her through illness and invalidity. More than a few eyebrows must have been raised when she announced that she planned to cycle, alone, to Delhi. The apparent improbability of the main characters immediately attaches a certain intrigue to the book - the heroine of course, is the 31 year old Dervla, then a single young woman from Lismore in rural Ireland. Published by John Murray in 1965, Dervla's journey 'From Ireland to India' by bike is famously the coming alive of a childhood dream, born when Dervla was given a bike and an atlas for her tenth birthday.
Dervla Murphy's first book, Full Tilt, has become a classic, and is the title with which she is most often associated.
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