Category: Bicycle Travel

Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel

What you should expect from a long bicycle journey

Bicycle touring for a sustained period of time is a funny old thing. It is freedom. It is frustration. It is joy. It is really a range of everything you can get thrown at you, erm, being thrown at you. Here’s a little photo journal of what you might expect if you saddle up and live off a bike for a while.

Mechanical Issues

During these moments, riders will often be heard feeling sorry for themselves by muttering / screaming such phrases as, “F*?k this!” or “Not again!” or “Just give me a break for one day!” or “Not dealing with it. I’m done. Totally done. Where’s the nearest burrito shop?”

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Ambiguous Sleeping Arrangements

It’s 9PM, 10PM, 1AM. You haven’t got a clue where you are. Your eyelids are heavy. You need to stop. You’ll want to sleep A LOT. Fear not though – spend long enough living on a bicycle and you will become a sleep ninja. You will become a hawk, being able to spot possible places to sleep from a mile away. Your sixth sense will develop, and you’ll become comfortable not being comfortable. You might even wake up in a nice spot occasionally. Popular phrases during these times include: “This bench will do”, and, “No way will there be a park ranger who kicks the tent at 4.30AM. Absolutely not.”

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Lots of Empty and Enjoyable Roads

You know, those roads that keep going right the way to the horizon. These are either total bliss (if you’re in a good mood) or hell on earth (if you’re in a bad mood). Either way they become some of the magical moments that, after all is said and done, will always provide memories that will make you daydream and sometimes miss road life. Phrases during these times include: “No one will hear me singing Bat Out Of Hell here, surely not”, and, “It’s flat and straight. There’s absolutely no way anything can go wrong on this stretch.”

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Teaming up with new pals

Who is that in the distance? They look like pannier bags. Maybe they are. Finally, after weeks and weeks, you’re not a loner anymore! It’s another person on a bike! These times are wonderful. They take you out of your own head and often form the experiences which you’ll cherish forever. Someone once said, “Happiness only real when shared”, and they were right. Phrases during these times include: “Want to stop for a beer?” and “Want to stop for lunch?”

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All In All, A Jolly Good Time

It will sometimes suck. You will sometimes wake up in an ants nest. You will miss home. It will make you question yourself. But, it will be one of the best times of your life. That’s why you should consider doing it.

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Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel Interviews Vague Direction Book

A Little About Film

At the end of a very long day a week or two ago, dear homies Visual Collective and I teamed up to record a piece about Vague Direction when we possibly maybe probably definitely should’ve been doing other things. They’re very nice.

We spoke about:
  • What the reason for starting Vague Direction was
  • How the blog played a part in the overall bicycle journey
  • How the book has come about

Here’s the YouTube link.

Categories
Bicycle Travel Vague Direction Book

The Vague Direction Book (Pre-order now on Kickstarter)

Hey everyone,

Big ol’ news today. The Vague Direction Book, about the bicycle journey and the stories that happened along the way, is written. And I’d love your help to publish it.

So today, for a limited time, I’m launching a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to help get over the final hurdle, which is to get: cover design, interior formatting, and the first print-run of the paperback.

Here’s the link, which has literally just gone live! (Ah, sorry! The campaign is now over, but we were successful!)

On the Kickstarter campaign, you’ll find a few packages – ranging from pre-ordering a single book, to pre-ordering some for you and your friends, to video hangouts, framed photographs and more.

Thank you, I can’t wait for you to read the book! It’s demanded more than ever imagined, it’s taken absolutely ages, and the writing process has been one heck of a journey in itself, but hopefully it’s a better read for it! Really hope you’ll enjoy it.

Head over to Kickstarter to find out a lot more about it, and to pledge to make it happen.

P.S. If you regularly get anything from this blog and would like to get involved in another way, spreading the word about the Kickstarter campaign to your social networks (here’s the Vague Direction Facebook page) etc would be amazing and would really help :)

Categories
Bicycle Travel Prize Giveaways

Treasure Maps

[UPDATE: All maps are now gone, sorry!]

‘Ahoy me hearties,

It’s been quite quiet around here for a month or so, but all for good reason – there’s fun stuff coming!

In the meantime though, I was just having a clear out and found some treasure which I’d love to give away to anyone who might be able to make use of it/them. Shiver me timbers, everyone loves treasure, not just pirates.

Anyway, I have two sets of maps (unused) from Adventure Cycling Association.

There’s:

1) Atlantic Coast 2-6 (Windsor Locks, Connecticut to St. Augustine, Florida) UPDATE: Atlantic Coast map set is now gone!
2) Southern Tier 1-7 (San Diego, California to St. Augustine, Florida) UPDATE: Southern Tier map set is now gone!

It’d be great to give these away to someone / a party who will get a lot from them – ideally anyone who has a North American bicycle trip in the pipeline and could really use some navigational help.

If that’s you, email dave@steepmedia.com (or hit reply to this post if you’re a subscriber), put “OMG GIMME DA MAPS” in your message, say which of the sets you want, and then explain what you have planned and how these maps will help. First come first served. Will happily post to anywhere on this wonderful planet.

Cheers!

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Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel Philosophy

Brain Versus Body – A Tale of Roast Beef

“When the first snowfall comes, that’s usually it for the rest of the winter.”

The Winnipeg resident’s advice echoed at the forefront of my mind as the heavy snowfall fell to the ground in Sault Ste. Marie, on the eastern side of the grand Lake Superior. The falling powder, low visibility and the baltic chill showed no immediate signs of letting up. It was going to be a glove day, once I’d drummed up enough motivation to go outside.

There was no real reason to not be motivated, as I’d spent the night in a motel. Hardly hardcore but needed sometimes. It hadn’t been a cold night and there had been no suffering, but opening the door and being hit by the chill was a shock, even after all this time experiencing the seasonal change each day. It was enough of a reason to close the door, rustle around in the pannier bags, and find more layers.

After leaving the room and setting out, I rode for twenty minutes. Along the snowy pavements, with the rain jacket hood done up tight over the shell of my helmet. It was a balancing act performed at a slow pace. In the snow, it would be easy enough to fall and slide along the whiteness, especially with the bald tyres that were currently on the bike.

It took focus. Cars would drive by, their lights bright to tackle the fog, and the spray from the snow and the sleet would fire up from their wheels to land on the pavement. Offsets of that spray would hit the few exposed parts of skin that were left, and every time a chill would run down my spine as though someone had poured ice cubes down my shirt.

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It wasn’t a smooth start to the day, and acting on those initial signs had become a bit of a superstition. Over time you lose perspective and in the haze things like superstition seem to hold more weight.

Thank God – the big red logo and the cars in the drive through lane. That would be a good place to drum up motivation. A happy place, a familiar place, a warm place. A place that, like motels, if visited too much, makes you feel guilty that you’re not truly living the ‘adventurous nature’ of a trip like this. But the roast beef sandwich combo at Tim Hortons would warm me up and for a brief while there would be no guilt. There was motivation inside those four walls, there was time to get fired up.

It was only the end of October, but whoever was in charge of Tim’s music selection had decided that they would try to encourage some early Christmas spirit, by playing the corniest of songs to match the fresh Lapland-esque scene that was now on display outside the window. One in particular struck a chord that day. “Baby It’s Cold Outside”.

In the comfort of Tim’s hospitality, some lyrics of that song seemed to sum up exactly, word for word, what was running through my head, like an internal monologue, brain versus body.

{I really can’t stay} – There was a narrow window of time left.
{But baby it’s cold outside} – It really was.
{I’ve got to go away} – Time was a fuse, like it was two lines ago.
{But baby it’s cold outside} – The roast beef combo was looking up from the plate like a mindreader.

The realisation that you’ve not set out on this journey to sit in a Tim Hortons listening to terrible pop songs whilst eating roast beef doesn’t take long to reach. It was time to go. MAN UP YOU BIG PANSY – the monologue was going off – an anti-pathetic alarm.

Once I’d put every layer back on and wrapped a doubled up bin bag around the leather saddle, I finally did set off, precariously rolling along the snow-filled sidewalks. The spray that was being kicked up from the spinning wheels made me long for the wheel fenders that were now long gone, left behind when in the summer they had seemed completely obsolete.

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It’s still a sweaty game, regardless of the cold. Sweaty enough for a wool shirt to become damp at any rate, even if it was flat. Pedalling away from Sault Ste. Marie, the landscape was for the most part level. Had the sunshine been out, there would be little to separate here from those long days in the prairies.

When it began to get dark, the landscape had turned remote, in the kind of way that would be perfect were it not reminiscent of a scene from The Snowman. There was plenty of land, and most land owners would surely be tucked up in their living room for the night. What’s not to like about that kind of stealth-camping freedom?

It wasn’t the kind of day where night riding would be fun at all, yet it also seemed like it would be wise to choose a place to sleep carefully, rather than just rush into it and pitch the tent at the side of the road or in the middle of a field. Pedalling towards the horizon, constantly scanning the farmland, it seemed like there were a couple of options.

One was to pitch in a field – maybe in the corner of one it would be possible to find shelter from the elements. Another was to find somewhere that was truly sheltered. The latter would be good, as it was clearly going to be one hell of a cold night, both water bottles now frozen solid with no liquid inside them, silently attached to the bike frame instead of the normal slosh, slosh, slosh.

What is that? It looks like a barn. It is a barn. Far ahead, slightly off to the side of the road, there was a wooden barn with a green roof. It had three walls, and was open at one side.

As it was still a distance away, there was a few minutes of cycling time to consider a) whether it was trespassing and b) because it clearly was trespassing, whether I was willing to trespass for the benefits of shelter.

A question of morality and legality. The private land dilemma had come up many times before, but this felt a little different because a barn is actual shelter – it’s not like sleeping in the corner of a field. To decide became an internal role-play exercise. Brain versus body yet again.

If I was a farmer, and it was freezing outside, would I care if someone camped in my barn?

The answer was: not really, as long as they didn’t burn the place down or steal anything.

With a decision made, I pedalled over to the barn, finding that inside was a bright orange Hesston combine harvester and some other heavy-duty farming machinery. The ground was dry, and the roof was solid. It was still going to be a cold night, but it would be a sheltered one, at least on three sides.

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You know when you just can’t get a song out of your head? The second verse of that song was running over and over, an irritating loop, impossible to drown out as the dusk disappeared and nightfall arrived.

{This evening has been}
Been hoping that you’d drop in.
{So very nice}
I’ll hold your hands. They’re just like ice.

Under the roof of the barn, nestled in the space between the machinery, shivering as my hands were sandwiched tight under each armpit, the last line seemed appropriate. Half of it, anyway. Just like ice.

Surely it had been a foolish decision to not upgrade to warmer sleeping kit, even if it would only make these last few weeks more comfortable and nothing more? The right gear would change this situation completely. I didn’t have a good reason for why, but enduring these nights seemed like a challenge that was worth taking on. Maybe it was because it was these kind of shivering moments, that didn’t involve motels or Christmas music or roast beef sandwiches, that were the ones I’d been looking for.

On a continent where it can seem like ease and comfort is never too far away, there is value in these moments of relative suffering and isolation, and in a twisted way, they are cherished times. 

With two weeks of this way of life left, this had been the coldest night. It wasn’t the Antarctic or anything. At -9 Celsius, my army pal might laugh and wonder how it compares to the time he skied into a cut out hole in the middle of a frozen Scandinavian lake, however I tried to think back over the previous 11 months – there had been plenty of freezing nights, extreme weather, solid water bottles – but nothing that seemed as brutally cold as this.

It can be easy to lose track of time when days and weeks blend together like they do when travelling by bike for a long time. Time in general becomes a blur. When I woke up in that barn the following morning, and touched the merino wool t-shirt which had become rock hard in the night as the moisture froze, I realised the cyclical nature of this journey (excuse the pun), and of long journeys as a whole, whatever kind they may be.

The bike ride had gone through every season, each one bringing challenges and opportunities. I’m not going to pretend that waking up in the barn was a particularly pleasant one, but it was worth it. Winter 2012 to Winter 2013. 4 seasons ticked off like the boxes on a questionnaire. That full-circle nature had made the trip more vast than it was ever imagined to be. Anything that takes a chunk of time to endure and which, at times, can seem overwhelming to take on, is worthwhile.

Ignoring the frozen t-shirt and perhaps cursing it just a little bit, at that moment, there was no doubt at all that this would be a valuable chapter to look back on once it was over.

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Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel Philosophy Vague Direction Book

Maple Syrup Criminals and Musical Nostalgia

Blurry windows. Tapping at phones. Window gazers. Sleepers. The Swede sat on the luggage rack and the classic Loud Eater. That familiar streak of towns as we glide through them. On the train, on the move again. And a sudden, distinct moment of nostalgia just hit. A song came on.

“Many days fell away with nothing to show. And the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we loved. Great clouds roll over the hills bringing darkness from above. But if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?”

Oh no. I just put song lyrics in a blog post. Sorry. Who does that? But the point is this – Music. It is cool isn’t it? How peculiar is it that a simple song can take you back to a single moment. I remember it as clear as day. It was the day after cycling away from Niagara Falls, staying with firstly strangers now pals, Heather and Mike. They’d put on a surprise spread and it was cracking. There was real Canadian maple syrup. Not the fake maple syrup, the real stuff. The syrup that’s targetted by organised crime bosses because it’s so good. It marked the end of the Canada section, eh. Crossing over again and riding back into the US for the final few weeks.

The air. Oh crikey. It was starting to get cold. At the time, ‘starting to get cold’ was a less harsh thing to write than ‘it’s f*cking freezing’. Sometimes I felt like a fraud for doing that, softening up the reality of certain days. That was prior to learning that an honest blog makes for a better blog. 

Every morning was more bitter than the previous one. This song came on. The roads were empty. Headphones set to loud – dangerously loud when cars passed by and dangerously fun when they didn’t. When you got going it was perfect. There’s need to soften up a day like that when you get going. Being cold and warming up beats being too hot any day. Ten minutes in and it was perfection. Every pedal-stroke, every mile, and every new song set on a backdrop where the colours could’ve been put on the front of a Happy Autumn postcard.

“But if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like you’ve been here before?”

It does. Sorry again for the lyrics. But the song. It brings back good times. And bad. The whole spectrum. It was the most epic 368 days I’ve had chance to be part of so far. The people and the journey made it what it was. A trip full of intense highs and scraping lows. There’s no bike to look after now though. Not on this mini-trip. I remember the rage it caused sometimes, the desperate desire to get rid of the stress of looking after it so much. Not leaving it anywhere out of sight because it contained everything. Or taking a foolish gamble and locking it up with fingers firmly crossed. Sometimes just hiding it in the nearest trees. But now that worry is missed of course, because that kind of stress changes with time. Like memories do.

Anyway enough of that. There’s just rucksacks now. Two small rucksacks that once again contain everything. There’s a specific reason for being here. An end goal. That is to see this through, to do it and not talk about doing it. I’m going somewhere new, the capital city of Croatia of all places, to finish the Vague Direction book. Creative doubt has kicked in. It’s been kicked in for months in preparation, but that’s sometimes a good thing. I don’t know if it’ll be worth it but would prefer to risk finding out and then going from there. Figure that even if it’s a flop it beats talking about it and not doing it. And it’ll be a weird type of closure.

This trip isn’t as long as last time. Nowhere near. Just enough time. Somewhere without the old distractions, but with new ones to get distracted by. And a deadline of 8 weeks to finish the inside of a book before getting kicked out of by Bizerka the landlord. Because of all that it wasn’t sad leaving this time, just exciting. It’s not for a long time, and it doesn’t revolve around constant movement, so it will be different, but just as new.

The reason behind doing this is simple. The most creative I’ve ever felt was during that year on a bicycle. Ideas flowed like they don’t do in a more regular way of life. Speaking of which, Stanford just released research saying a persons creativity increases 60% when walking. Gonna hedge a very non-academic bet and guess that those kind of results aren’t exclusive to walking. Fresh air and taking a step away from wherever you’re used to have to play a large part. Stepping away from wherever you’re used to. Typical days make it easy to forget about those factors and get too settled in a routine. We all have unique ways to find creative flow and I’m hoping that going somewhere new will provide a way to get immersed in that state.

So after however many months it’s been, it’s time to turn the same playlists back on and delve back into last year. Can’t wait to get this going again. Who knows what nostalgia will kick in when the hip-hop comes on.

“Long as there’s batteries in my Walkman, nothing’s the matter with me, sh*t look on the brightside, least I am walking. I bike ride through the neighbourhood of my apartment complex on a ten-speed, which I’ve acquired parts that I find in the garbage – a frame then put tyres on it, headphones on look straight ahead” – Eminem.

 

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Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel

When Adventure Travel Goes Wrong & Why That’s A Good Thing

There’s been a rare collision-of-awesomeness in the UK recently in that the Northern Lights made a spectacular appearance for a bunch of people to see. I missed it, but looking at all the incredible photos that came from it made me think back to seeing them for the first time in Canada. There was a subtle electric buzz in the air and the colours, oh crumbs, the colours. That moment of first seeing them really epitomised the appeal I’ve got for adventurous journeys, and maybe it’s the same for a lot of people. You see stuff that you’d never usually see, make real what you’d only seen in photographs, and encounter things that you’d previously just imagined.

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So many of those moments happened on the bike trip, in the evening after riding all day and then camping somewhere subtle. Waking up on lake shores, next to the ocean or in redwood forests. Or in the sand dunes, the green farmland or the top of a mountain. That’s surely a big part of why people are drawn to the wilderness and to getting away from it all. It can be breathtaking and it can be so freakin’ FUN. That’s adventure travel when it all goes perfectly. Shooting stars, owl noises, leaves. All that good stuff.

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What’s talked about less on these kind of trips though is the moments that don’t go perfectly. It’s kind of taboo. The dark side. The times when you sleep in a village post office because you’ve been rained on for days and can’t face another night outside, and you just hope no-one will come in to pick up their post and find a human-filled sleeping bag blocking their box. Or the nights when you’re on tenterhooks and you’ve hidden a knife in your sock just incase. Or the times when you’re worn down and literally believe a bear is going to eat your arm ↓

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Then there was the following moment caught on video. Trying to camp discretely in an urban environment became a rolling theme throughout the trip which often lead to less-than-perfect moments. Flicking through a hard-drive from the trip a couple of days ago I found this footage. It was a night when I wasn’t functioning at all and ended up in an all-out battle with some pesky and powerful garden sprinklers. Yep. True arch-nemesis stuff. Whilst many wiser people might not have found themselves in the same situation, I’m sure they have at some point experienced the darker side of adventure travel. Something that many people might relate to. Actually scrap that – everyone can relate to. Those moments when it all goes wrong.


‘Time heals all wounds’. Time shifts perception, and that’s really cool. That was a moment where it all got a bit much. The routine had become sloppy and it was showing – persistent fatigue had built up to the point where being solo on the trip was starting to make me a bit loopy. There was little that was ‘stealth’ about it. Looking back it’s doubtful that was the worst nights sleep ever, but it felt like it. I definitely still look back on that as one of the roughest nights on the trip, and there were a few. But it doesn’t take long for everything to change – now I look at this footage and strangely long for it. Maybe not actually getting soaked again – let’s be realistic, that sucks – but what it represents. These journeys shift views, open doors to new experiences and rad people, create memories and new foundations, and have their own unique set of ups and downs. That’s the most important part of what you can get from going on an adventurous journey, and that’s why people should stop talking about their ultimate journeys and make them happen. No-one looks back on them and regrets them, even the rougher moments.

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Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel Interviews

Anna McNuff’s Epic 50 State Journey

“America is just like the UK, only… bigger, right?”

I’d like to ask you all a favour. If you ever happen to be within earshot of such a comment, please make a beeline for the offending individual (even if it requires a Starsky & Hutch style roll across a car bonnet), cup their face firmly between your hands, lean in and scream “Nooooooooo.” Anna McNuff’s ace new blog.

I first found out about Anna when she set out in solo-mode to cycle all 50 US states in a single trip. It turned out to be – as you’d expect really – a bit of a crazy ride. The mission was clear: to have an epic adventure, encourage kids to get active, and raise valuable funds for a children’s charity committed to giving every child access to games, sport and play.

What was less clear going into it though, was what else it would bring. Spectacular generosity, super sketchy situations involving flipped cars and 911 calls, grizzly’s and moose, and learning about priorities.

She’s recently finished that journey and a few days ago we caught up to find out what the draw was, what went down, and what she learnt from spending 7 months on a bicycle. Let’s go!

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So you’ve just come back from The Big Five-O. What was that all about?

That was an 11,000 mile journey through all 50 states of the US of A. It was just me, a beautiful pink touring bicycle called Boudica and three missions: 1) To have a huge personal adventure, 2) To get local communities and the kids within them active, inspired, and on bikes and 3) To raise as much dosh as I could for a marvellous charity called Right To Play.

Can you briefly describe the rough route?

Sure thing, I’ve got this one down pat now. The first question everyone asks you is always “Where are you headed?” So I had to get a sub fifteen second answer nailed early on. Here goes: I started with a little pedal in Alaska, from there I flew to Seattle, went down the West coast to San Francisco. Across the Nevada desert, into the Grand Canyon, up the Rocky Mountains, into Montana, and across the the North until I hit Maine at the Atlantic coast. Down the East coast, via New York, Baltimore and DC, then into the panhandle of Florida, before doing a dog leg back up the Mississippi to Memphis, then heading across to Dallas, via Kansas. Phew. How did I do?

Amazingly – that’s a crazy long list. How on earth did you plot the best route to hit all the states?

I drank a lot of coffee, ate a lot of Haribo and stayed up many many nights into the early hours. I started with a blank map of the US and put a star at every place I wanted to visit – that was really important to me. Adventures are all about satisfying your own curiosities after all. I checked out the weather averages in each state, for each month, and decided that I needed to go West to East to make it over the Rockies while the passes were open, and North to South, to make it out of the Northern tier states before the snows hit.

That done I got hold of the Adventure Cycling association routes, and followed them as much as I could. That left me with a route that was 16,000 miles long. So I began the soul destroying process of scribbling and hashing out sections to save time, finally arriving at one that I felt was realistic to complete in the timeframe.

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What made you want to do it? What were you doing before? Was there a catalyst?

There wasn’t one particular catalyst, but there was definitely that ‘ah-ha’ moment – which happened one night as I was standing in my living room. I’ve been working as a marketing manager for 5 years and I’d had that suffocating wanderlust feeling creeping up on me for months. I just couldn’t help but feel that what I was doing day in day out wasn’t what I was put on the planet to do. I felt I had more to give, the world I mean. I know that sounds cheesy but it’s true. If we’re not making a meaningful contribution to society, then what exactly are we doing here?! So I just decided, then and there, that I had no ‘real’ excuses and that I was going. Somewhere, anywhere, and probably by bike. It was an incredibly liberating and exciting moment.

Was it anything like you expected?

Yes and no (I’ve always wanted to say that). I thought it would be incredible. I dreamed for a year about that moment I’d wake up and have nothing but 7 months of cycling ahead of me. But it was even better than I’d hoped. I had different challenges to the ones I’d in envisaged. I didn’t get as lonely as I expected, or as tired or frustrated. I hit far more dramatic weather though. And people were far kinder, I mean so beyond kind it was ridiculous. The country was more diverse than I knew. And above all (I know this sounds incredibly blonde), but the USA a lot bigger than I thought. There is so much open space. I think you really need to cross a country like that to appreciate this tiny (wonderful) island we live on.

What was the draw to America – it’s just like the UK but bigger right?

I’m going to start up a swear box for comments like that one from here on in. Joking aside its probably that comment that made me want to go and explore the US. That and having been on a few trips there as a kid. I’d done the usual tourist spots, but I’d often look at a map, see that big ‘ol space in between California and New York City – and realise I had no idea what went on there. As I did a little research I came the conclusion that it’s an incredibly unique place. No where else is the world was there a country that had such a range of culture, religion, politics, wildlife and geology. The bonus being that the language is common too. Definitely a plus if you’re linguistically challenged like me.

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Are you ready for the typical unanswerable question – favourite place and why?

That is an impossible one! Lucky for you I have a top ‘area’ – that would be the South West corner of Utah, and into Arizona. You can do Bryce, Zion and The Grand Canyon National parks within 4 days of each other. Each one is spectacularly unique, and like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It’ll seriously blow your mind. For a state-surprise, I’d also pull  out Wisconsin – it’s just so bike friendly. And Alaska and Hawaii have to get a mention too –  for their sheer out-of-this-world, off-the-chart sensational scenery. If you ever want to see Grizzly bears and moose (who doesn’t), they’re guaranteed in Alaska.

Is there a moment of incredible generosity that really stands out?

That would definitely be the 4 days I spent holed up in a ranch in South Dakota. I met this girl as I rode into the town one day. It was a tiny place, just 300 people, up in the boonies. We got to chatting and she invited me to come and stay with her family. Thank goodness she did. A huge blizzard blew in the following day – bringing 4ft of snow in 24 hours. I was stuck fast. They were just the must wonderful, down to Earth family I’ve ever met. The older sister would come in from all day wading through snow drifts, rescuing cows, and begin looking after her elder relatives and making sure I was okay. Me, who’d sat around inside all day doing nothing except babysitting her 18 month old nephew. I’ll be friends with that family for life.

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Was there a time when you were scared or you felt in danger?

This one is right at the front of my brain. I attempted to leave Colorado and got stuck in the middle of their ‘1,000 year flood’. I came across a road that had crumbled away completely, which was frightening enough, but as I turned around a car came down the road toward me. I tried to wave and shout to slow then down, but they actually sped up and flew off the road, and flipped into the river. I had to pull the couple out and call 911. I thought for a moment they were gonners. That shook me up a fair bit for the next few weeks. I’d just never seen anything like it, and I wasn’t entirely sure how to process it.

That sounds awful. Shifting gears a bit – in your new post you say there’s a difference between being lonely and being alone – can you explain?

Absolutely. And ironically, I think you have to have spent a fair amount of time in your own company to know the difference. Being lonely is 100% down to your mind, and the way you feel. It stems from you feeling mentally isolated. Like no one understands you, what you’re trying to achieve or cares about what you’re doing at the moment in time. You feel your life lacks purpose and can’t see how anyone could help you. That’s loneliness in a nutshell for me. Being alone is a physical thing. It’s not having anyone nearby. To be honest I’m a massive fan of the alone time. You’re forced to confront any demons you have and you also learn what makes you happy far quicker than if you constantly seek to distract yourself with other things. By the time I’d finished the stint through the West of the US, I’d had just about enough of being alone, I sought human contact, but I wasn’t necessarily lonely.

Did it happen at all – a time when you experienced loneliness whilst on the road?

Yes, but only a few times. And far less than expected. I wasn’t even lonely on Christmas Day, or New Years Eve, which I think I upset my mum by proudly announcing. I had to explain that I’m not lonely is different from “I don’t miss you” . The days I got lonely were either when something dramatic had happened – like the Colorado accident. Or when I lost sight of what I was actually achieving with the trip. I felt selfish or foolish for indulging myself on this big adventure…. Did it really matter what I did? Was I inspiring anyone? Was I actually doing anything particularly physically difficult? On those days I’d just crave a good old hug. Someone to say – “On you go, chin up chick.” Thankfully they were few and far between – I  probably only had five or so spells of loneliness in the whole 7 months. Most would last a day. The final one lasted a week or so – and that was really just homesickness.

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How did you find the whole “being connected” thing? I know some people think ‘adventure needs isolation’. What positives did being connected bring and what negatives? Did you ever get frustrated with it?

I loved being connected! I cannot imagine doing a trip without it. For me it was such a huge part of the whole mission – to involve as many people as possible in an ‘armchair adventure’. My view on travel in general is that it promotes understanding and diminishes prejudice. Being able to share what you see, hear and experience as and when it happens is huge. If you can plant one small seed that makes someone else want to go off exploring – then it’s mission accomplished. I guess the negatives are that it’s addictive, and you are often thinking about what might be interesting to others – but I’m not even sure that’s a negative really. I’m not sure it’s for everyone, but communicating frequently and with gusto tended to suit my personality.

Why do you think more people don’t do these kind of things? And what would your advice be to those who want to do something similar but haven’t yet?

You have to make it a priority. There’ll always be reasons not to go, of course there will. All that happened for me is that I decided there was nothing more important in my life than the trip. I had a job (they gave me a sabbatical), I have a mortgage (I rented the house), I was broke (I got a second job). Every obstacle can be overcome if you want to go badly enough. And so for those who don’t actually go – I’d wager that the burning desire just isn’t there…. yet. For those thinking about going… Just go! Stop making excuses, make a plan, and go. When have you ever heard someone say “Oh gosh, I really regret going on that enormous adventure.” (Never). More often you hear people saying they wished they’d worked less, and lived more.

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Do you think the journey changed you at all?

The biggest shift has been realising that everything you do is a choice. Yes, sometimes we have to do things to pay bills that we don’t want to do, but it’s always a choice. I’ve realised that everything is a possibility. Nothing is set in stone, and I can always change direction… No one else is going to do it for me. Coming back from the trip into a normal working life has been tough – I’ll not lie on that one. It’s sucked a fair amount on some days. But I’m beyond excited about the rest of this year and the one after that, and after that. Because I know that whatever I wind up doing, whatever path I take – it will be a passionate one. Once you’ve experienced what truly makes you happy, you just can’t pretend it’s not there. It took me 28 years to discover that, and I don’t plan on going back to the old ways.

What happens next?

I’d like to tell you that I’d ‘got it out of my system’ with this one, but that’d be a lie. I’ve opened a gigantic can of worms and the worms have gone AWOL. I’ve come back with a determination to see much more of the UK, so I’ve a host of mini-adventures in planning for 2014. As well as a few in Europe. Then, once the bank balance is… errr… balanced again. I’ll trot off and do another epic in 2015. It won’t be bike bike – I like running, swimming, kayaking, roller blading too… So I’ve got the map out and am currently exploring a few ideas. Whatever it is, it’ll involve a physical challenge, me exploring a place or places I’d really like to learn more about, and above all getting others involved as much as I can.

Sounds mega! Thanks Anna.

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Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel Philosophy

The Phrase ‘Real Life’

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It’s been over three weeks now since finishing cycling. I thought things would settle down fast, yet the post-ride days have been manic with no slowing down whatsoever.

After the last blog, a few people who’d done big trips got in touch with a warning that adjusting to ‘real life’ would be difficult, but having just finished at that point I brushed it off thinking it would be totally fine. It’s not like I’d been cut off in the Amazon Rainforest – why would it be hard to adjust? 

Thinking it would be a smooth re-entry couldn’t have been more wrong.

When I pedaled onto the bridge to New York, the final city, I was psyched. Psyched that the trip had come full circle. What a feeling – the goal that at first seemed a bit ridiculous came off. And what a relief – a little bit of normality could ensue. Settling sounded great, and for once I was ready to embrace it.

Then New York was, well it was New York. The busiest place in North America overrides the senses and the mind. Millions of people, traffic, noise. I’m fond of that place, but after a few days there I had a realisation that this wasn’t simply another city that I’d become adept at ‘just passing through’, rather it marked the end of the previous year and with it a completely unique way of living had stopped too. That was like a metaphorical sledgehammer to the face. Smashing.

There was a mental conflict. Between stress and simplicity, and reality and over-ambition. Life on a bike is not stress-free by any means, but it is simple. You’re on your own for the most part. Inevitably that means a lot of time in your own head, with nothing but your own thoughts (or very loud music in an attempt to drown them). You don’t have many choices to make or people to answer to. Decision making is often selfish and it’s easy.

It’s a blessing and a curse. Being solo has a strange effect on idea-generation and confidence. It’s not like a brainstorming session where everyone throws their hat in the ring. There is no risk of mediocritising your own thoughts by watering them down through a but-they-mean-well people filter. There’s no pessimism. The ideas, the motivations, the next moves are all 100% pure.

But here’s the conflict – maybe that purity leads to a false sense of how realistic, or valid, those thoughts actually are. They are untreated, untested, without feedback. To get a true sense of how realistic they are, we need feedback. It’s there to lead to things that are at least a bit grounded and semi-achievable. Is realism the enemy of optimism?

On the trip, and especially when reaching the wonderfully awesome ‘zone’ – that place where hours of pedalling puts you into a meditation-like state – creativity and clarity flowed. Next steps seemed obvious. Projects were formed. It felt possible that single-handedly, mountains would be moved and maybe, at last, a secure horizon wasn’t far away. But a week or so after finishing – all goals, all creative thoughts, all positive thinking, halted. I hit a wall. Unable to concentrate. Unable to make stuff. Unable to have decent conversations. Unable to follow up on those ambitious ideas. After such an epic time away that had ended in being glad to make a dent in ‘real life’, what had gone wrong?

In the two weeks following the final day of riding, I began questioning how removed from reality some of the next moves generated on the trip might have been. And I couldn’t stand that. Being conscious of the realisation that maybe all the ideas, the concepts, the guarantees, were nice in theory but potentially worth little.

So I ran in an effort to ignore it. Screw reality. For a while it seemed like the best thing to do was to keep moving, stubbornly grasping on to the ways picked up over the previous year, forming new ideas and ignoring the potential that they might merely be worthy of getting knocked over. I landed back in the UK and spent a week bouncing around, not doing much staying still, and then at the drop of a hat took 4 days’ work in Chile. What an odd thing – to wake up in South America after only just finishing in North America and only just touching down in England. Was taking that gig a way of escaping? Of easing, or putting off the transition from the momentum of perpetual movement to something slower? In hindsight I think it was. Being on the run and striving for intentional discomfort, felt more comfortable than staying still did.

Upon hearing about the bumpy transitions back to normality that others had experienced, I thought it would be nothing, but now the opposite seems obvious. Of course there’ll be transition pains. How would there not be after last year?

In these most recent days, a desire to stay put for a little while has become appealing. To embrace the long-forgotten noise and bustle of normality and to remember how to crack the productivity puzzle in conditions that unlike ‘the zone’, don’t make it as easy. Day by day the transition glitches are getting less. It’s been a while now but finally the better ideas, and next moves are rising to the top of the pile. They’re surviving feedback and getting stronger, and the pieces of the puzzle seem less scattered than just a fortnight ago. One of the things that has survived intact is making something epic from the stories collected over the trip, and those wheels are now starting to turn which is exciting.

The phrase ‘real life’ is as vague as ever, but it’s certainly providing an adjustment.

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p.s. this road bike video has just dropped today – it’s the most epic thing you’ll watch all year.

Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel

368 Days Later.

And it’s done! What a week. 363 – 368! Ithaca to NYC.

It’s been odd, this week more than most, knowing that it’s coming to an end in the coming days. There were moments of About time! excited, and moments of Maybe just one more loop? apprehension. The biking’s been good. Nothing has gone wrong and closing in on the end goal provided an easy way of falling into that dreamed-of zone where cycling becomes effortless. That’s not to say there weren’t crazy climbs, because there was (looking at you Pennsylvania), but with the momentum of a year coming to an end they weren’t enough to cause any delays.

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Being in gung-ho mode, necessary to make the end in time, there’s been a lot of saddle time. That’s often lead to nights in the farmland of NY, PA and NJ states, riding at night on the empty roads. It was surprising how remote it can be considering how close it is to the biggest city in the US. One of those nights lead, by coincidence, to a roadside invitation to crash at a lakeside cottage where Marianna and Elizabeth, two Buddhists, were staying. They were awesome, insisted on making some amazing food, and it was an amazing place to chill out when most moments recently had been a bit of a head-spin.

A few days of cycling later, and it was the final day. So close to being done. So close that something was bound to happen. ‘Course it was. I got sloppy and stumbled onto the highway. In parts of North America you’re allowed on the highway, in others you’re not. In New York you’re not. It was a blast – flying down the shoulder, knowing that this was the fastest route, seeing the New York skyline for the first time and realising it was so close.

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Oops. The police weren’t happy. Fortunately the officer was hilarious and other than an insistence to get off at the next exit, he wasn’t all that fussed. 90 minutes later I rolled into New York via George Washington Bridge and met my folks. It was like an ultra high definition skype call and amazing to see their faces after so long. And it was the end. 

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If you’re reading at this point, thank you! The emails and blog comments in the tough parts were a massive motivator, it played a huge role in seeing the trip through to the end. So thank you. And to everyone who donated or helped with a place to crash along the way or agreed to be featured in this project – I’m still blown away by how awesome you all were.

So that’s it. So much has happened that it’s a flurry, but it’s clear this was something special. The one-more-loop-thought has faded (for now) and it’s exciting to think about what happens next. Hopefully you’ll stick around as the blog will now get pretty fun – snippets of unpublished interview, retrospective articles, footage of getting blasted by sprinklers at 3am – but that’ll all start in a couple of weeks – for now I’m off to catch up on a years worth of half-sleep and wonder around the city until the flight home. And if anyone knows where to get the best slice of pizza here do just shout. Because pizza’s great. Thanks!

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