Category: Personal Updates
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Return To The UK — New Projects On The Horizon
In the last four years I’ve made three visits back home — once by overland transport, once by hitch-hiking, and finally by bicycle. Last week I arrived back without any plans to leave again — the idea being that Tenny and I will now (at least attempt to) settle here. I always have mixed feelings when I touch down on British soil, but first amongst them is that I really don’t know anything about this country. Like so many, I’d taken the world I’d known and inhabited — the little drop of experience I’d gleaned during 23 years in small-town… Continue reading →
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Last Year In Review, And What’s In Store For 2011
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 work, it was just what I’d needed. Continue reading →
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Catching Up With Dan Martin
When Dan says the water’s cold, you don’t argue with him. Nor when he tells you to wear two swimming caps on top of each other. I’d never done any wild swimming worth mentioning, so when I turned up at Dan’s regular river swimming haunt one December lunchtime and discovered that the water temperature was two degrees above freezing, I began to wonder if it had been such a good idea to accept his invitation after all. Continue reading →
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How I’m Navigating In The World Of Work
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 →
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An Open Letter To Sustrans
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 time. Naturally therefore I looked to the National Cycle Network, in search of off-road and quiet routes through the country. May I, then, congratulate you on having constructed one of the most comprehensive cycling infrastructures that I have come across during my bicycle travels in… Continue reading →
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Moving Forward From Vanilla Cycle Touring
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, faraway Europe was the key. I thought I’d single-handedly hit upon a brilliant and novel way to travel that ticked all the boxes — the great outdoors, sleeping rough, the physical challenge, and using my own initiative to get to my destination. In short, I was… Continue reading →
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Risk and Uncertainty in Life and Travel
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 to having access to so much information that can make us feel surer about our decisions. However, we can’t know fully the accuracy of the information if it is from secondary sources. There has to be space for using our intuitive skills and allowing serendipity… Continue reading →
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Staying Afloat Away From Home
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 doing this. But in the last six months, freelance web work, sitting in my Yerevan flat in front of a borrowed computer, has put enough money in the bank for at least another year of travel! Woohoo! In case anybody is interested, these are some… Continue reading →
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10 Strange Things Bicycle Travel Has Done To Me
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 bad, of the weird things that have surprised me recently: I’m mortally afraid of moving faster than a bicycle. Continue reading →
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The Brick Wall Of Eternal Dissatisfaction
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 challenging enough”, he pondered, referring to (amongst other things) crossing 50°C deserts in Western China, slogging 200km a day on highways across Iran, and climbing 4,000m mountain passes in Bolivia. These conditions were uncomfortable — quite horrible, even — but not worth quitting over. I… Continue reading →