Category: Personal Updates
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#BikepackingArmenia: The First Ever Transcaucasian Trail Fundraising Ride Starts Next Week!
Ever since my vision for the Transcaucasian Trail took shape, I’ve been wondering how to get the adventure cycling community involved in bringing it to life. Exploring new places on a bicycle is, after all, where I cut my teeth as a traveller. Long-term readers will remember that it was a bicycle that brought me to […] Continue reading →
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Oxford Bike Works & Tom’s Expedition Bike: The Story So Far
Just before I flew out to Bangkok for my current trip, I paid a visit to Richard Delacour at Oxford Bike Works to collect Tenny’s newly upgraded tourer. Based on a vintage steel Trek frame, the lovingly recycled bike is a tidy piece of work, naturally — but it got me reflecting on the story […] Continue reading →
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Tom’s Bike Trip Continues: South East Asia Edition
A couple of years ago I had a big idea. I felt compelled to realise that idea, and it quickly consumed my life. One of the side effects was that I stopped writing this blog. Suddenly all my time and energy was being channelled into something new which had very little to do with cycle […] Continue reading →
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The Future Of TomsBikeTrip.com
Tuesday’s announcement appears to have resulted in mild confusion about the fate of this long-running cycle touring blog. Allow me to set the record straight: TomsBikeTrip.com is here to stay! The launch of TomAllen.info reflects the fact that I have interests and stories beyond bicycle travel. But travelling on two wheels remains the thing that’s most precious to me […] Continue reading →
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Why, After 9 Years Running TomsBikeTrip.com, I Started A New Blog Today
This is the biggest upheaval in my blogging life since Ride Earth became Tom’s Bike Trip back in 2010. It’s long overdue. The short answer to the “why” in the title of this post is this: I have a lot more to say about travel, adventure & storytelling than there’s space for on a cycle touring website. The long […] Continue reading →
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What Name Would You Give A Heavy-Duty World Touring Bike?
After last week’s rather vocal debate on the ethics of commercialism in adventure, I figured it was time to get firmly back to what we all love: travelling the world on two wheels. (Less talk, more action, and all that.) Now, as long-term readers will know, I’ve never had any particular fascination with touring bikes themselves. Though […] Continue reading →
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It was a summer’s day in 2006
It was a summer’s day in 2006 — was it really eight years ago? — and I was driving my dad’s Vauxhall Astra to my very first job interview. The position in question was for a database designer in a software house in Barnstaple, Devon. I was 22 years old with a good degree in Computer Science. […] Continue reading →
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New Adventures, Creative Projects and Commitments for 2014
Part One of this ‘annual review’ blog series was a critical retrospective of 2013, based on looking at what went well and what didn’t go well. Part Two was a reminder of how this blog came to be and how it developed into what it is today, 7 years later. This is the third and final part, […] Continue reading →
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“Did you ever think that this would become your life?”
I received an email the other day from another long-term traveller about a project I’m currently working on. At the end of the email was the following: “P.S. When you set out on that first trip, did you ever think that this would become your life?” A damn good question with more scope than befits a […] Continue reading →
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2013: Retrospection & Prioritisation
Tenny and I saw in the New Year 12 months ago with a schoolteacher and a lawyer from London. Said professional couple are now taking a couple of days’ rest in the delightful seaside town of Batumi, Georgia, having quit their jobs and cycled the entire width of Europe and Turkey. Their story is a tangible example […] Continue reading →