Cycling, skiing, food & photography
About 250 riders started the Transcontinental. Most I only saw on the startline as they charged on ahead findishing days ahead of me. I was surprised by the number I saw along the way; I'd guessed our routes would be very different but as it turned out many were ploughing a similar course. I decided … Continue reading #facestodots
It’s about 8pm on the 13th day of the Transcontinental - a Friday night. I’ve just crossed into Bosnia, leaving the EU for the first time on the ride. It’s Matthieu’s birthday and I find him and Thomas sharing a beer at a gas station on the edge of Gradiška the scrubby border town with … Continue reading Review
I'm not a big fan of blow-by-blow accounts. They can be pretty tedious and unless you're a better writer than me they don't really convey the feelings and sights of a big day on a bike. So this post is more for my benefit than to read by others: an aide memoire for what happened on a … Continue reading Quotidian
This Christmas my Mum gave me her signet ring. In the last year her fingers have swollen up meaning it no longer fitted. The swelling was caused by problems with her lymphatic system and ultimately the return of her cancer which she is now fighting with chemotherapy. The ring has the Mackenzie insignia of a … Continue reading Perseverance
I've been here before. Wondering whether what I'm about to do is possible, sensible, desirable even. Can I cross a continent? 20 years ago the plan was similar but different. I'd been living in Hong Kong, teaching English in a secondary school: my take on the middle-class British rite of passage that is the gap … Continue reading Retro
It's about three months since I learned I had a place in the Transcontinental Race and it's a little under two months until the race starts. It's become a pretty all encompassing thing in my life since then. When I'm not working I'm riding my bike, planning or recovering and not much else gets a look … Continue reading Progress
When I tell my cycling friends I'm riding the Transcontinental they usually say something along the lines of, "That's cool." Non-cyclists usually ask if I'm doing it for charity and I've struggled for an answer. In my first blog post I examined why I'm doing the event and the motivation is deeply personal. You could even say … Continue reading Charity
Wednesday moring. I'd just finished my turbo session, cooled down, had some breakfast and showered. There wasn't a sudden creak, crack or snap. I just realised I could no longer move my neck freely or without pain. I took the day off work and - frankly - panicked. Visions of the dreaded Shermer's Neck before I'd … Continue reading Setbacks
That's me up there, pretty physically and mentally distraught at the end of Rapha's Hell of the North a year ago today. It wasn't an especially tough ride at a little over 100km and 1,000m of climbing albeit with quite a lot of bridleways and terrain not normally suited to road bikes. It was the punctures that … Continue reading Suffering
I love maps. They give me a sense of adventure and possibility. Poring over them trying to figure out where you want to go and what you want to see gives you a sense of the place long before you get there. One of the joys of the Transcontinental is looking at maps of places … Continue reading Contours
The Domestiquated Animal 