The reader may be unfamiliar with the term “pootle,” which has yet to find its rightful place in the Oxford English Dictionary. Let me explain then, as I understand it, “pootle” has emerged as an inspired combination of “pedal” and “footle,” but that the pejorative overtones of scurrilous time-wasting and aimlessness are entirely absent in the new compound. The pootlist is never apologetic in discussing the fact that he has done nothing very much and, what is more, has done it randomly, and taken rather a lot of time over it.
One thing I must make clear, and this is that pootling is utterly distinct either from racing or from the use of bicycles in the countryside by those who live under the commonplace delusion that cycle touring must, by definition, be some form of sport. These are they who open a conversation with their peers with the rather predictable, achievement-oriented conversation-stopper, "How many miles did you do today?"
So far from being a racer, or an achiever, the pootlist is involved in the diametric opposite of a race. He travels not to reach a distant goal in the shortest possible time, but so that he may experience both the places he traverses and the act of travelling in itself; he does, indeed, travel in the longest available time.
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- Westonbirt Arboretum
