Dave and his Bike

Currently cycling around the world. Read my latest updates here!

The Story So Far…

I don’t remember not having a bike. Messing about in the street outside home as a child developed into youth hostel trips as a teenager (Bromsgrove Olympique CC), and then further as a student with Sheffield Poly Velo Club. I dabbled in the club racing scene where I discovered that I was, ahem, ‘average’, partly no doubt due to my full embrace of the student lifestyle! I still enjoyed it though. Years with Velo Club Lincoln followed. Little improvement. Very small trophy cabinet.

Throughout all of this I realised that the bike mixed perfectly with the love of travel which I had developed over the years, enabling me to cover a reasonable distance each day and see new things, people and places. A couple of LeJog rides in the ‘90s helped to fuel my imagination. Big rides followed; The Camino de Santiago de Compostela (Lincoln to Santiago) in 2013 with Mark Thornton (one of the biggest thrills on a bike was crossing the border from France into Spain in the Pyrenees having rolled my bike out of the garage in Lincoln a few days earlier); Lincoln to Rome for my 50th birthday in 2017 (solo); so what next….?

It seemed logical to me (but not everyone) that following a 30 year career the only way to travel to France to start the next 30 year (hopefully!) adventure from our new home in the Dordogne was to ride there. So I set off on that journey in July 2022 and documented it here.

Two years later and I am finally planning the biggest ride of my life… cycling around the world, or to be more accurate travelling around the world and taking my bike with me! I’ll be setting off from home to Istanbul in September 2024 for the first leg of my ride around the globe.

Despite my inherent dislike of social media, I have been convinced to use Instagram as a way to update my progress and post a few photos. However, Liv’s success with her travel blog looked like the way forward and gives me the ability to keep you all posted on this ride and any future rides. Strava will (or should) provide a record of daily statistics, making my blog postings easier. Hopefully.

If you would like to follow along, please do sign up via email and you’ll be updated on the next leg of my journey, wherever that may be…

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