We think adventure starts where comfortable ends.
Adventure doesn’t have to mean climbing a mountain, cycling across a continent or disappearing into the wilderness for six months.
It can be trying food you’ve never eaten before. Singing on stage. Riding somewhere you’ve never been. Getting on a bike in the rain when you’ve always been a fair-weather cyclist.
For us, adventure is about new experiences, the unknown and stepping outside what’s familiar.
There might be a bit of discomfort. You might be nervous. You might not know exactly how it’s going to turn out.
And you might fail.
That’s part of the fun.
Adventure doesn’t have to be epic
My first RideLondon was wet. Really wet.
I’d only ridden in the rain once before and suddenly I was cycling a long way through absolutely horrible weather. At the time, it wasn’t particularly comfortable. But finishing it felt brilliant.
And actually, the rain was part of what made it memorable.
Sometimes the things that make an adventure difficult are the things you’ll remember most.
A holiday might contain lots of adventures, but if you’ve been to the same place every year, stayed in the same hotel and done exactly the same things, that’s probably something else.
And that’s absolutely fine.
We just like finding out what happens when we do something we’ve never done before.
We’ve done a few things…
Over the years, our adventures have included:
- Volunteering in Slovenia and Kosovo
- Trying to race the Transcontinental Race in Spain and France
- Cycling unsupported through the Netherlands and Belgium
- Ironman Tallinn and Copenhagen
- Eating strange food and drinking even stranger drinks
- Singing on stage in our village pantomime
- Driving to the Etape in Morzine and discovering that sometimes 40°C heat and not enough training is a fairly effective combination for not finishing
- Getting pulled out of the Great North Swim because we’d made a bad kit choice and ended up hypothermic
- Supporting Mel Nicholls as she hand-cycled around Ireland in the Pan Celtic
- Taking a side-by-side tandem to Belgium
- The Dementia Adventure to Windermere
- Travelling from Yorkshire to Devon by train and bike
- Running a sportive
- Starting a charity
- Running a beer festival
- And generally saying yes to things that sounded interesting
Some went brilliantly.
Some absolutely did not.
Most gave us a good story.
Sometimes adventure goes wrong
Rain. Mechanical problems. Power cuts. Travel breakdowns. Getting lost. Bad kit. Not being fit enough. Not training enough. Being scared.
Sometimes you discover that something you thought would be brilliant really isn’t.
That’s not necessarily failure.
If something goes wrong, we like to ask why.
Did we need different kit? Better preparation? More training? Better fuel? Was the weather too dangerous? Did we simply discover that this particular thing wasn’t for us?
The Etape taught us something about heat. The Great North Swim taught us something about cold. Other adventures have taught us plenty about bikes, travel, preparation and ourselves.
You don’t have to succeed for an adventure to be worthwhile.
What’s next?
Our next big adventure is taking us to the USA.
We’re taking on a 15-state challenge, although there won’t be any bikes involved for all of it.
When we get to Mississippi, there will be bikes. We’re already thinking about finding some old ones, getting them running and seeing what we can do with them.
We’re not entirely sure what the whole adventure will look like yet.
And that’s rather the point.
We’re moving towards a more adventurous life, travelling more and working out exactly what that means as we go.
So there will be plenty more adventures to come.
You don’t need a huge budget.
Adventure can look expensive from the outside.
It doesn’t have to be.
You can have an adventure on a bike you’ve borrowed. You can explore somewhere close to home. You can volunteer. You can try something you’ve always been nervous about. You can get on a train and see where it takes you.
You don’t need expensive kit or a passport full of stamps.
You just need to be willing to have a new experience.
Why do we do it?
We go on adventures because life is short and precious.
Chris, who started Spokey Dokey with me, died when he was just 35.
He’d already packed an extraordinary amount into his life. He’d backpacked and cycled all over the world, cycled through Mexico, where he was kidnapped by bandits, and taken on adventures that most people would never even contemplate.
He wanted to have a full and adventurous life.
Losing him changed the way I think about mine.
I want to experience as much as I can in the time I have on this planet, in this body.
And if sharing our adventures makes someone else think, “Actually, maybe I could do that,” then even better.
You don’t have to do our adventures.
Go and find yours.
Come along for the ride.
We’ll share our latest adventures, videos, discoveries, disasters and occasional questionable decisions here, on YouTube and across social media.
And if you’ve got an idea for an adventure we should try, tell us.
We’re always open to suggestions.