Category: Articles & Essays
-
How To Make A Living As An Adventurer
I received the following email the other day: I am a little bit confused as to what exactly you do for a living. I know that you are an adventurer, but I don’t get where you get your ‘everyday money’. Sponsorship is one thing for a trip, but if you don’t have a 9–5 job, where do you get the daily money from? It’s a good question. But what exactly might my correspondee think ‘adventurer’ actually means? Types of ‘Adventurer’ (or Explorer, or Expeditioner) (Warning: one or more of the following stereotypes may be considered offensive.) Continue reading →
-
10 Questions & Answers On Surviving The Scandinavian Arctic On A Bike
Timely or what? The Norwegian Cyclists Association have been in touch about my trip last year to Scandinavia, in which I rode a thousand miles from Oslo through Sweden and Lapland and across the Arctic Circle to Bodø. The following post is an edited version of the interview I did for their magazine På sykkel. It might help us here in London, as we struggle to cope with ten centimetres of wet slush… 1. First, could you please give us a few facts about yourself; age, location, what kind of work you were doing until you started cycling, and a few of the countries you… Continue reading →
-
Why I Won’t Be ‘Live-Tweeting’ My Next Expedition
This post was borne of a heated debate I recently had with a couple of friends. It arose from a remark along the lines of “I don’t have time to read your blog, but I do have time to read Twitter updates, so you should be ‘live-Tweeting’ your trips because more people like me will know what you’re up to”. Well, I won’t be ‘live-Tweeting’ my future trips; not for my friend, nor anyone else. And here’s why. Tweets, by their nature, are free-floating snippets of information. Each one inhabits a single drop in an ocean of content. In any given… Continue reading →
-
A Major Digression On Perspective And Motivation
An interview is not just for the benefit of the interviewer, as I was recently reminded when I gave an interview to Orla O Muiri for Beyond Limits magazine. As well as forcing you to reassess your own ideas, motives and achievements, having questions fired at you from someone else’s perspective can say a lot about the assumptions of that interviewer. And that, in turn, can say a lot about the way you have presented yourself; what your ‘public face’ looks like. I spent quite a portion of this interview trying to defuse an underlying assumption that I was some kind… Continue reading →
-
New Year Dreaming
It’s difficult not to get swept up by the tide of reviews, resolutions and manifestos at this time each year. It’s part of our tendency to try to bring order to chaos, to fashion meaning from the meaningless. In reality, today is just another day; no different to any other, save for the ideas we attach to it. Having said that, my New Year’s Resolutions are thus: Continue reading →
-
My 2011 Round-Up: 1,000 Miles, 87,000 Words & 78 Minutes
2011 kicked off with a spur-of-the-moment winter adventure. I threw my bike and kit on a bus to Oslo and set off on an ill-advised thousand-mile bike trip through northern Scandinavia to the Arctic Circle. Running a daily blog from my tent added generously to the challenge. Temperatures dropped to ‑33°C. People thought I was nuts. But it stands out as one of my favourite experiences of all time. The blog story picked up interest, and by the end of the month, thousands of readers — more than ever before — were vicariously enjoying the adventure. Continue reading →
-
Are Book-Writing And Film-Making The Same Thing?
Subjects are nouns, their actions are verbs, their appearances adjectives. A sentence is a single shot, while a paragraph is a sequence of them. Paragraphs are built into chapters, and sequences are built into stories. Then chapters are assembled into books; stories into films. The viewfinder is my vocabulary. The focus ring and exposure dial are my spelling and grammar. These are basic things that I’d better get right. And I need a good mixture of context and detail, otherwise my tale will become muddled and hard to understand. Continue reading →
-
Is This What They Mean By Writer’s Block?
I’m ashamed to say that I’m supposed to be writing my book right now. Or rather, editing it and rewriting as necessary. Having found the perfect location to work on the project, and having spent the last two days reading through the 87,000 words I put to rest back in the summer, I am intimidated by the prospect of digging back into the words. So this blog post is emerging as a vocalisation of that concern. Continue reading →
-
Why Am I Not A Superstar DJ?
I’m going to let you in on a little nugget of personal history. About ten years ago, I was on track to becoming a superstar DJ. At this point you may rightly be wondering what relevance this could possibly have to my adventure-cycling blog. (Some of you might also be wondering why I became an adventure cyclist if I could have become a superstar DJ instead!) Bear with me; there is a point. Continue reading →
-
5 Good Reasons To Go Cycle Touring Or Bikepacking In Winter (& 5 Reasons Not To!)
Cycling to Arctic Scandinavia in midwinter was one of the most intensely memorable and rewarding experiences I’ve had on two wheels. Here are five reasons I reckon you too should try cold weather cycle touring or bikepacking in a place like this: Not convinced? Excellent! Here are some handy reasons why it’s a really silly idea: Like many such endeavours, the memory of an experience like this is far sweeter than the reality from which it draws. But if you detect a rogue thought wandering your mind, craving irrational challenge, and you’re already well-versed in the routines of life on two wheels… Continue reading →