Seek Travel Ride

How much do you need to know before you set off on a bike adventure? Going back through nearly 200 episodes of Seek Travel Ride, I found the answer from guests is usually a lot less than people expect.
For this midweek episode I’ve pulled clips from eight guests who started out with very little idea of what they were doing. Florence Cotel taught herself to ride a bike at night in Copenhagen so nobody would see her wobbling, and went on to ride from North to South America. Paul de Tilly’s only training for his ride from Paris to China was two kilometres around the Luxembourg Gardens near his house. In the second half you’ll hear how guests like Rebecca Lowe,  and Samer Abouhamad share how breaking down their big journeys into smaller pieces helped them believe they could make it happen.
If you’re planning your first bike tour or bikepacking trip, I hope this gives you the push to start small and work the rest out on the road.
Listen to the full episodes
Ep 2: Dr Florence Cotel, Darwin to Adelaide
Ep 6: Mark Gresser, Perth to Paris
Ep 12: Paul de Tilly, Paris to China
Ep 34: Pippa Langan, cycling around the world
Ep 36: Rebecca Lowe, London to Tehran
Ep 85: Rieke Schmees, Germany to Turkey
Ep 91: Samer Abouhamad, Boston to Argentina and beyond
Ep 140: Laura Bastioli, Melbourne to Darwin
What was the thing you had no clue about when you first set off on a bike adventure? Send me a message using the link below and I might read it out in a future episode.
Send a message or voice note to the show. I read every one, and some might make it onto a midweek episode
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Six days into a two-month ride across Central Asia, Rob MacLennan found himself driving a minibus over the mountains in Mongolia. His broken bike was strapped to the roof, there were twelve local women in the back, and the driver was having a nap in the passenger seat. It turned out to be a fair warning of what was coming.
Rob first joined me on the show after riding from London to Cape Town. This time he’s back after bikepacking the ancient Silk Road through Mongolia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, using the whole trip as training for the Silk Road Mountain Race in Kyrgyzstan. 
He was sitting inside the top 15 when his cranks snapped deep in the mountains. Most riders would have scratched, and as Rob says himself, there’s no shame in that. He went the other way. He rode 50 kilometres with one pedal, found a rental bike that was far too small for him, went hunting through a scrapyard for a taller saddle, and spent around €800 on taxis bringing parts out from a bike shop in Bishkek. All the while he was racing the snail to make each checkpoint cutoff.
We also talk about the numbness he felt after the race, which left his memories of the trip feeling like he was watching them in the third person.
You can keep up with Rob's future adventures via his instagram @robbo_on_the_road
Send a message or voice note to the show. I read every one, and some might make it onto a midweek episode
Check out the new Axle Pack V2 from Old Man Mountain
Support the show
Buy me a coffee!
I’m an affiliate for a few brands I genuinely use and recommend including:
👉  CycPlus– ePumps (enter code STR for 5% off!)
👉 Zorali 
👉 Helinox 
👉 Ombraz 
Follow us on Social Media!
Instagram - @SeekTravelRide
Facebook - Seek Travel Ride
YouTube - @SeekTravelRide
Seek Travel Ride Newsletter
Leave me a voicemail message

Seek Travel Ride Music Playlist available now on both Spotify or Apple Music

This week’s episode has a Eurasian lynx attacking a cycle tourist through his tent wall and three lions calling to each other around a wild camp in Tanzania, so yeah, it’s a wildlife one. 
It all started with an email from a previous guest, Robert Reynolds, where he shared a frightening experience when a Eurasian lynx tried to attack him in the night while he was inside his tent!
It sent me back through the archives to my chat with Steph Devery, a kick-ass Aussie whose bike adventure took her right across Europe and down through Africa. Steph tells the story of sitting in the far corner of a campground in Uganda when a whole family of gorillas climbed into the trees right in front of her. She followed that up when she recalled a night wild camping in Tanzania when she woke at 3am to lions on every side of her tent, with a couple of millimetres of nylon between her and them.
I also put the call out on Instagram for your own wildlife stories from the bike, and you came through. I share a few of mine as well, like riding over snakes on the bike paths in Canberra and a sleepless night of cowbells outside a shepherd’s hut in the Pyrenees. Then there’s the mule at the top of the Col du Soulor that nibbled my handlebars and disconnected my brakes right before the descent.
Episode 200 of Seek Travel Ride is coming up in a few weeks, and a few of you have asked if someone could turn the tables and interview me. If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer, tap the “Send a message or voice note to the show” link in these show notes. You can use the same link to send me your own bike travel stories, and I’ll read them out in future episodes.
Robert Reynolds’ episode
Steph Devery’s episode: 
Send a message or voice note to the show. I read every one, and some might make it onto a midweek episode
Old Man Mountain
Big thanks to Old Man Mountain for supporting this episode of Seek Travel Ride.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show
Buy me a coffee!
I’m an affiliate for a few brands I genuinely use and recommend including:
👉  CycPlus– ePumps (enter code STR for 5% off!)
👉 Zorali 
👉 Helinox 
👉 Ombraz 
Follow us on Social Media!
Instagram - @SeekTravelRide
Facebook - Seek Travel Ride
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Seek Travel Ride Newsletter
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Seek Travel Ride Music Playlist available now on both Spotify or Apple Music

Shuhena only learnt how to ride a bike as an adult and she's been rediscovering what is possible for her ever since. She shares how she always viewed bikepacking as a 'white persons sport' and also how she hopes more muslim women will take to doing what she has done. 
Shuhena walked away from a corporate law career in London, bought herself a one way ticket to Asia and went bikepacking. She ended up cycling through seven countries: Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, China, South Korea, Japan and Indonesia. 
We talk visas (the Chinese one took a month), gear, and how cycling the mountainous roads in Java, Indonesia left her completely broken. She also shares how she has found community on the road, and the realities of what it is like to  go cycling through Asia as a Muslim woman.
You can keep up with Shuhena's future adventures via her instagram:  @Cycling_Shu
Send a message or voice note to the show. I read every one, and some might make it onto a midweek episode
Check out the new Axle Pack V2 from Old Man Mountain
Support the show
Buy me a coffee!
I’m an affiliate for a few brands I genuinely use and recommend including:
👉  CycPlus– ePumps (enter code STR for 5% off!)
👉 Zorali 
👉 Helinox 
👉 Ombraz 
Follow us on Social Media!
Instagram - @SeekTravelRide
Facebook - Seek Travel Ride
YouTube - @SeekTravelRide
Seek Travel Ride Newsletter
Leave me a voicemail message

Seek Travel Ride Music Playlist available now on both Spotify or Apple Music

What's it like to go bikepacking in Indonesia? Olly Hargreaves has sent through his last update all about cycling from Jakarta to Balin starting with a 38 hour ferry ride from Singapore!
Olly reckons Java has the steepest roads of his whole ride, steeper than the Alps, Afghanistan or the Pamir Highway, with gradients up to 30% and descents where your fingers never leave the brakes. He also explains why he skipped the busy north coast road and the brutal southern route other bikepackers took, instead choosing to go through the middle of the island via Bandung, Borobudur, Yogyakarta and Malang instead. 
Then comes the climb to Mount Bromo, where his brother Jamie told him there was no way he'd ride the whole thing, and you can probably guess how that went. They cycled through the sand of the Bromo crater and watched Mount Semeru send up a cloud of ash every 20 minutes. After that came a night hike to the blue fire and sulphur mines of Mount Ijen, the ferry to Bali, and one last steep valley before they flew on to Australia.
If you're planning a cycling trip in Indonesia, Olly's advice is to be ready for the hills and make time for the volcanoes. 
Follow Olly;s future adventure via his instagram @Sagas.of_Olly.Hargreaves
Send a message or voice note to the show. I read every one, and some might make it onto a midweek episode
Check out the new Axle Pack V2 from Old Man Mountain
Support the show
Buy me a coffee!
I’m an affiliate for a few brands I genuinely use and recommend including:
👉  CycPlus– ePumps (enter code STR for 5% off!)
👉 Zorali 
👉 Helinox 
👉 Ombraz 
Follow us on Social Media!
Instagram - @SeekTravelRide
Facebook - Seek Travel Ride
YouTube - @SeekTravelRide
Seek Travel Ride Newsletter
Leave me a voicemail message

Seek Travel Ride Music Playlist available now on both Spotify or Apple Music