Category: Personal Updates

Last year began with a party to end all New Years Eve parties, in a small bar in Yerevan, Armenia with good friends and visiting cyclists. It was well after sunrise before I found my way to bed in the flat that I was renting with my wife Tenny. After several weeks of hard home-office-bound […] Continue reading →

Having taken plenty of advice from friends, family and fellow long-term travellers to take it easy upon returning home, the elements of domestic life on this small island seem to be gradually clicking into place. Continue reading →

To whom it may concern, I felt compelled to write to your organisation after spending several days cycling from Dover to the East Midlands, having just arrived from continental Europe. My intention was to make this journey as enjoyable and safe as possible, rather than to cover the distance in the minimum possible amount of […] Continue reading →

Five years ago, I invented cycle-touring. After rejecting backpacking out-of-hand as a fulfilling post-university form of escapism, I eventually hit upon the idea to ride a bicycle — a bicycle! — from England, all the way to Croatia. The loose motivation for this was to visit a friend, but having a cool adventure in exotic, […] Continue reading →

Andy has written an excellent and thought-provoking article on the value of risk-taking. He’s returned to live in the UK now and it’s interesting to see how he is applying the lessons learnt from travel to a post-Ride-Earth life: Often there seems to be a lot of emphasis put on being ‘certain’. We are used […] Continue reading →

I wrote recently about funding a long-term bicycle expedition, and I mentioned that it’s possible to find work pretty much anywhere if you have suitable skills. I graduated in 2005 with a degree in Computer Science, which morphed upon graduation into occasional bedroom-bound work developing websites for friends of friends. I didn’t make any money […] Continue reading →

It’s difficult to notice the subtle changes that come over you during a journey of duration and difficulty, but certain situations have alerted me to them very strongly. I’ve only been travelling for a couple of years, but this must be where the curve is at its steepest. Here are a few, both good and […] Continue reading →

It occurred over the festive season, when I had the pleasure of hosting Fearghal and Simon in Yerevan for a very merry Christmas and New Year. Conversation had turned to bicycle travel, as it had an annoying habit of doing every few minutes. Fearghal and I were discussing motivations for future bike trips. “It just wasn’t […] Continue reading →

My life is boring. My daily routine consists of getting up an hour before sunrise, going for a run, jumping into (and rapidly out of) a cold shower, having breakfast and then sitting down for an 8‑to-12-hour stint in front of my computer screen. I am making websites for a living these days. It puts […] Continue reading →