Category: Personal Updates

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 money in the bank for travelling, the prospect of which is starting to inch within visible range. But it bores me to tears. It could be worse. Much worse. There’s a big, empty park on a hilltop 15 minutes walk away, which I share in the… Continue reading →

I think New Year’s Resolutions are a really crap way to make positive changes to the way you live. Why? Well, I reckon it’s much more effective to start doing something than to stop doing something. Most New Year’s Resolutions seem to revolve around giving something up. So, on the first of January this year, I’d like to propose something a little different. Let’s say you want to lose weight and get fit. A big cliché, but definitely a common desire! If that’s you, don’t bother promising to eat less chocolate and start running every morning. Instead, set yourself a big,… Continue reading →

It’s December and the mercury is dropping fast. This week I experienced my first morning run in the falling snow, crunching quietly in the pre-dawn blue around the faded grandeur of Victory Park and its empty dilapidated walkways, crumbling statues and rusty fairground rides. The onset of winter took me back a couple of years to when I first arrived in the Caucasus. I remember vividly crossing from Turkey into Georgia on Christmas Eve 2007, dearly hoping to escape the freezing coastal rain for which the Black Sea is well known. The journey has generated such a wealth of crystal-clear… Continue reading →

Hello dear readers. I’m in a particularly frustrated mood this evening. I’ve had a great day climbing one of Yerevan’s nearby mountains, trudging through snow all day and having a lovely  picnic on the summit. When I returned home, I read a particularly aggravating email, and so I wanted to share the situation with you, for little reason other than to get it off my chest and to give you an idea of what I get up to while I’m hanging around in Armenia for the winter. Continue reading →

Recently I’ve been sharing what I’ve learnt over the last couple of years of adventuring. As a result, the blog’s readership has never been higher, and it’s great to know that people are finding it useful and entertaining — it motivates me to keep writing. But if you’ve been a reader for a while, you might be wondering what exactly I’m up to right now, what my plans are for the future, and where the blog is heading. That’s what this post is about. Continue reading →

On Saturday the 19th of September Tenny and I were married in a small wedding ceremony in Yerevan. We had made a surprise arrival at the church on Armenia’s one and only cycle rickshaw with an entourage of bicycle activists leading and following us through the main streets of the city. After the ceremony we were back in the rickshaw for a few customary laps of Republic Square, before heading to the reception in a quiet part of town overlooking the city. Continue reading →

There’s a backlash happening against charity bike rides. I’m not sure why. For me, it’s a way of trying to give in a time when you often feel like you’re doing an awful lot of taking. Every couple of months sees the announcement of yet another heroic long-distance solo bicycle odyssey, pitting man against the elements across the world’s great landmasses for months or years on end. Each of these projects is a noble one. Undoubtedly they will involve huge personal challenges — mental far more than physical. These riders are often setting themselves targets they don’t understand themselves. Three… Continue reading →

Since I got back from a spontaneous hitching trip from Armenia to England and back, my mind has been on the problem of keeping fit. Like an awful lot of us, I’m destined to spend my time (for the next few months, at least) in a city. More than half of the world’s human population now live in urban environments. With this comes the threat of the sedentary lifestyle, and the declining levels of fitness and health with which we’re now becoming increasingly familiar. Continue reading →

I’m on my way back to Armenia, but not in too much of a rush. This morning I woke up, had breakfast and headed out with nothing less than an epic mountain-bike ride in mind. I climbed quiet, steep mountain roads through cool and fragrant pine forests to the upper slopes of the Austrian Alps, near the Italian border, and decided to go for an extended loop of the valley. I rode rocky, rooty single-track trails past high alpine meadows of brown and white cattle, scorched down the mountainsides on dirt tracks through shady woods, stopping only to water the occasional… Continue reading →

I recently came across a new meme by way of Alastair Humphreys’ blog, which I’ve been reading regularly since I read his great travel books while preparing for Ride Earth. The idea of a ‘micro-adventure’ strikes a very relevant chord in this post-ride phase. City life isn’t really my thing. Noise, pollution and a feeling of enclosure nag at me constantly. The countryside isn’t on my doorstep like it was back home. Over the last couple of months, I’ve come to the conclusion that these so-called ‘micro-adventures’ might be the tonic to keep me on track while I prepare for next… Continue reading →