Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com

  (Gallery & FAQs at bottom of post)

  Home time.

   I’ve spent a couple of months thinking about it.

  And now, I’m back in the UK, with my bike
  (Charles).

  For now at least I feel like I’ve done enough.

  I set out alone from the Arctic Ocean coast of
  Alaska at the end of May 2009, 250 miles
  inside the Arctic Circle, unsure if I could
  make it through the first day, let alone keep
  going for …

  6 months and 5,150 miles or …

  … the equivalent of cycling the length of Africa
  from Cairo, Egypt to Cape Town, South Africa.

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Villa Grove, CO, USA - Alpenglow abounds

Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com

(Gallery at bottom of post)

“Wait here while I get the spear I used to kill him!” he says, running off to his van.

Its almost pitch black, its below zero, I’m at the otherwise deserted far-end of a campsite in a remote Colorado valley and John, half-Irish, half-Sioux has just gone to his ‘RV’ (a converted UPS truck in which he lives year-round) to get said weapon.

“And I put one end on the ground like this and the dagger-end up like this and then, HE RAN!  He ran onto the blade and I twisted and I twisted and held him down until he stopped fighting.  I had no choice.”

John is a Vietnam Vet, ex-Special Forces, a ‘tunnel-rat’, Mossad-trained in hand-to-hand combat.  In the months following the war he, in his own words became dangerously unstable after so much, well, I think you get the picture.  Again in his own words he was saved from the brink through taking a job from his father, as a cowboy spending months on end with a herd of cattle or flock of sheep, living wild up in the Colorado mountains.

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Crikey, 40c heat, amazing mountains, a stay at deserted ‘Butlins’ & riding into centre of Monterrey (only 3.5 million people so not 2 hard!)

Hola …. MEXICO! Wow, bit of a culture shock, gulp! Got stopped by police … but they just wanted a chat. Hello agressive dogs! Tranquilo

Oooooh TEXAS! Amazing hospitality, hot weather, a puncture (3rd one) & the Rockies seem a while away now. Wow people are friendly here

After big days 2 push out of Rockies, had gentle reminder that they’re ‘still there’ … snow on tent last night, 50 miles S of Santa Fe, NM

Yes, I am 5 years old, taking pictures from the plane to LA (oooh look, you can see the curve of the earth!)

Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com

(Gallery at bottom of post)

“Where’s my gin!” we’d mockingly imagine her adding after she’d ordered us to “Keep left on highway 270″ in her slurred, robotised voice.  I’m driving, near Denver with Jeff, a long time friend from Milwaukee and we’ve just switched on the GPS unit that came with his hire car – we decided we got a bit of a dud since the unit’s ‘voice’ always seemed distorted at first but improved later (after she’d had some gin, we teased).

(on later occasions ‘she’ would go completely silent despite frequent and complex intersections as a result of which we’d joke that she’d ‘gone for a bit of a lie down’ not before telling us “you know where your going, just look at the pictures”)

Not since June had I taken any real break from the cycling – aside from a few days here and there at campsites – so I was very much looking forward to 10 days off the bike in Denver with Ethan, April, Gage, Elise, Jeff and Catey, relaxing, catching-up and exploring the more far-flung bits of Colorado.  Just prior to this I’d found myself slightly ahead of schedule so took the opportunity to visit (for the first time in 10 years) David and family for a few days in Westlake Village near LA, CA, taking advantage of cheap flights from Denver.

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Insane 60+ mph gusting headwind thro ‘South Park’ (yup) in CO Rockies, 30 miles at 9,000+ ft, camped @ 10,000 ft (bit chilly), slept 13 hrs!

Grand Teton Nat Pk, WY, USA - The 'snapped-off branch in question' aka 'the culprit' deftly decorated with a small wad of my hair from the injury (I sawed the branch off afterwards, sorry US Federal Government)

Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com

(Gallery at bottom of post & 2 videos below)

I value the top of my bonce, my head, my noggin, my tete, my skull, my scalp.

So, why is it that I stabbed a broken, dagger-like tree branch (still attached to pine in question) into the top of it?  Yup.  And I wasn’t even riding my bike at the time!

Picture the scene: having just ridden some amazing descents through construction areas on dirt roads, cranking the top gear, grinning wildly at the road crews as they waved me past, having seen the Teton mountains (gorgeous) for the first time, having met and chatted to some lovely people along the route and then not failed to notice a truly enormous proper mountain storm developing overhead, I’m part elated part anxious to get to the campsite quickly and pitch my tent before the maelstrom unleashes its wrath and fury from overhead.

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Had 1st snow since early June then rode thro snow storm to lose height; game of ‘chicken’ with seasons may be swinging toward ma nature…