Seek Travel Ride

Dreaming  about taking a huge bike adventure? Then this episode is for you.
Ellie Mitchell-Heggs shares her insights from her solo journey where she cycled 10,000 kilometres  across Africa from Rwanda to Cape Town. All up her trip was nine months long and took her across ten countries. It was also a ride that was layered with both a personal family connection to Africa and loaded up with a huge sense of purpose as well.
Alongside the cycling, Ellie spent time in every capital city meeting with over 100 local NGOs, social enterprises and community organisations working in education, youth empowerment and gender equality. Ellie shares how those conversations, got her through the toughest stretches on the road.
In this episode we cover:
How Ellie got into bikepacking starting with the Vélodyssée down the west coast of France
Why she chose to start in Rwanda and ride south 
The communities and landscapes that shaped each country, from Uganda's warmth to the brutal isolation of Botswana's flat roads
70 kilometres being swarmed by tsetse flies in a Tanzanian national park
Canoeing four days down the Zambezi river as a mid-trip reset
Grieving her father on the road 
Cycling through Namibia with two fellow bikepackers.
Food poisoning two days from Cape Town, and the unicycle escort into the city
What made those NGO conversations so energising 
Find Ellie on Instagram: @ProjectCycleAfrica
Check out Old Man Mountain's new Manzanita Handlebar Cradle 
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Daragh Cronin is back with a wild update from his Cork to Everest Base Camp ride. This time he shares with us the extraordinary hospitality of Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan.  Then every bike travellers nightmare, a flat refusal at the Federal Iraq border crossing derailing his plans for his route. 
This led Daragh to have to re-route through Dubai and Kuwait City where the intensity of the trip got turned to the max when he found himself trying to cycle through the desert in extreme heat leading to a stint in hospital to be treated for heatstroke. 
Follow along with Daragh via his instagram - @roaminwithcronin

Check out Old Man Mountain's new Manzanita Handlebar Cradle 
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 is a live show, recorded on stage at the Antique Bar in Melbourne. Joining me on stage were three guests who between them have cycled through some of the most remote, challenging and eye-opening places on earth, Fergal Guihen, Em Hulbert and David McCourt.
Fergal cycled from Roscommon, Ireland to Sydney via Mauritania, Iran, Afghanistan, the Tibetan Plateau and beyond. Em Hulbert is mid-journey on a solo ride around the world, delivering water filters to communities in need through her project The Water Cycle. David McCourt set off from Melbourne bound for Northern Ireland, taking a route through Central Asia, Iran, Bangladesh, Nepal and Turkey that took years and produced stories he'll be dining out on forever.
In this episode we cover:
Going from thought bubble to turning pedals
Luxury items on the bike and what actually earns its place
Perceptions versus reality: China, Iran, Bangladesh and Thailand
Getting drugged and robbed in the Iranian desert
A sex dungeon in rural Thailand at 4am after 250 kilometres
The Nullarbor without music, podcasts or any distraction at all
Solo female bicycle travel and the extra layer that comes with it
The spaces in between and why that's where the magic happens
Why the hardest moments are the ones you'd go back and relive
Want to hear the full individual episodes with each guest? Find them here:
Em Hulbert: Ep. 127:
David McCourt: Ep. 99: and Ep. 120.
Fergal Guihen: Ep. 144 and Ep. 145:
Follow the guests on Instagram:
Em Hulbert: @emhulbert
Fergal Guihen: @rossi.to.aussie
David McCourt: @longwayhome__2022
Check out Old Man Mountain's new Manzanita Handlebar Cradle 
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

James Baile, along with two complete strangers (one of which hadn't ridden a bike since he was 13!) packed their Bromptons into IKEA bags and flew to Dakar. What followed was two weeks riding through Senegal and The Gambia: navigating Dakar rush hour, camping on school playgrounds by invitation of village chiefs, pushing loaded folding bikes through sand that felt like treacle, and sparking conversations with strangers over football allegiances.
In this episode we talk about:
How a Facebook post about the Tropic of Cancer set the whole thing in motion
What it's actually like to tour on a Brompton 
Riding a route that goes from the edges of the Sahara Desert  to the beginnings of West African forest
The reality of border crossings into Senegal and The Gambia for European travellers
Taking an overnight ferry back to Dakar with Bromptons as hand luggage
Why going somewhere with zero expectations means everything exceeds them
James's next big adventure  connecting a journey he started back in 1986
Give James a follow via his instagram - @jamesb.adventures and you can also listen to the previous episode with him here.
Check out Old Man Mountain's new Manzanita Handlebar Cradle 
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

Roisin Gallagher has cycled over 17,000 kilometres across two continents. Her adventure started by riding the Baja Divide with her partner before continuing through Mexico and Central America. After seven months on the road together, their relationship ended and instead of flying home, Roisin bought a one-way ticket to Japan and kept riding.
Roisin has now arrived in Istanbul to share the story so far. We chat loads about her route, the physical and mental side of bike travel and a whole heap about food!
In this episode:
The brutal physical reality of bikepacking the Baja Divide
Cycling the Nicoya Peninsula route in Costa Rica
Three months cycling in Japan
Wildcamping solo as a woman
Cycling the Transdinarica Route through the Balkans
The Croatian bora wind that trapped her for five days 
Getting to Istanbul on a sushi delivery truck 
A night in Bosnia drinking rakia with three war veterans until 3am
Durmitor National Park as an unexpected landscape revelation
Food - glorious food!  
You can follow Roisin's adventure via her instagram - @ontheroadwithro

Check out Old Man Mountain's new Manzanita Handlebar Cradle 
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