TAMP Season 7 Episode 3 Grant White Future Terrain

Future Terrain: A Charity with a Purpose The Power of Wellbeing in Adventure Trips

In this engaging conversation, Clive, Noel, and Grant discuss their experiences at the Rydell Rally, the physical challenges they faced, and the injuries that resulted. Grant shares his journey of founding the charity Future Terrain, which helps rehabilitate injured veterans through motorbike expeditions. The discussion also delves into Grant's extensive riding history, the life-changing accident that led to his leg amputation, and how this decision opened new doors for him in the world of biking. The episode concludes with a look at Grant's current collection of motorcycles and his plans for the future. In this conversation, the speakers delve into their experiences with motorcycles, trail riding, and the challenges faced by individuals with disabilities. They discuss the importance of adventure training, the mechanics of prosthetics, and the innovative solutions that have emerged in this field. The conversation also highlights the significance of charity work, particularly through the Future Terrain initiative, which aims to support disabled individuals in their pursuit of adventure and community engagement. The speakers share personal anecdotes, emphasizing the joy and camaraderie found in these experiences, while also addressing the critical aspects of preparation and safety in adventure activities. In this conversation, Grant discusses the funding and partnerships necessary for their adventure trips, emphasizing the importance of wellbeing and vocational training for participants. He shares impactful success stories that highlight the transformative experiences of individuals involved. The discussion also touches on the mindfulness achieved through adventure and the chemistry of the conversation, leading to future plans for collaboration.

Chapters

00:00 The Rydale Rally Experience
02:56 Injuries and Recovery Stories
05:55 Grant's Charity: Future Terrain
09:00 Riding History and Early Experiences
12:01 Life-Changing Accident and Its Aftermath
14:50 Decision to Amputate and New Beginnings
18:09 Current Bikes and Future Plans
25:53 Motorcycle Adventures and Experiences
27:43 Trail Riding and Adventure Training
29:21 Overcoming Challenges in Riding
32:29 The Mechanics of Prosthetics
35:39 Innovative Solutions in Prosthetic Design
38:45 Inspiration and Charity Work
47:33 The Evolution of Future Terrain
59:49 The Importance of Preparation and Safety
01:02:13 Funding and Partnerships for Adventure Trips
01:04:08 Measuring Impact: Wellbeing and Vocational Training
01:06:28 Success Stories: Transformative Experiences
01:09:12 Mindfulness Through Adventure
01:14:15 The Chemistry of Conversation and Future Plans

Rydale Rally, motorcycle injuries, Future Terrain charity, riding history, motorcycle accident, amputation, adventure biking, motorcycle maintenance, Indian Springfield, KTM 690, motorcycle, adventure, trail riding, prosthetics, charity, Future Terrain, adventure training, overcoming challenges, mental health, community support, funding, partnerships, wellbeing, vocational training, adventure trips, mental health, success stories, mindfulness, motorcycle adventures, charity

Transcript

Grant (00:26.862)
Yeah, first of all, big thanks to you, Clive, letting me, first of let me join you on that and also nursing me through it. That foot stay was devastated by the end of it. I was absolutely hanging out.

Clive (00:34.727)
Well, I mean, I was

Yeah, I was absolutely shattered. had really bad cramp in my big thigh muscle. I've never experienced pain like it.

Grant (00:46.094)
Well, just had an MRI scan on my shoulder because I came off on that first day and I was really sore and yeah, I've got a longitudinal tear in my AC joint and stuff. I can't believe it. I've just been hobbling around ever since.

Noel (00:46.224)
Why were you, what?

Clive (01:03.069)
Yeah, yeah, no.

Noel (01:03.472)
Why was it more tiring than a general trail ride? Was it faster and longer?

Clive (01:09.021)
Faster and longer. And then you got the time sections that were quite horrible and rutty. But we got to the second day. did, I think there was three laps on the second day. We did one lap, got to the end of the time section and Grant went, yeah, I think I've had enough. Yeah, me too. I'm coming with. Don't worry, I'll look after you. to the, yeah. Yeah, no hesitation. I probably would have finished it, but fucking hell, I'm glad you gave me an excuse.

Grant (01:10.189)
Yeah.

Grant (01:14.232)
Yeah.

Grant (01:24.174)
Yeah, nurse me back to the coffee and cake shop. Yeah, no, I was very grateful for that.

Noel (01:24.586)
You

If you must

Grant (01:37.344)
Yeah, well the way my shoulder is now I would have righted myself right off.

Noel (01:39.507)
You

Clive (01:42.323)
So yeah, I did my AC thing in Morocco. Yeah, Morocco. But I just ripped it straight off. Yeah. Yeah, painful though. Painful business. So...

Noel (01:47.43)
Morocco.

Grant (01:52.318)
wow. Nothing like that. Tear down the middle, apparently. So.

Noel (01:59.356)
What does it feel like? Because I think I might have done that, but I haven't sought out Western medicine.

Clive (02:04.251)
It hurts.

Noel (02:05.841)
Does it feel like you've broken something or does it feel muscular?

Grant (02:11.035)
Yeah, does. It does feel like I feel like a healing bone at the moment. It's,

Clive (02:17.696)
Yeah. Well, because mine came completely off. I had like a little sticky up bone there and because I'm sure I've told the story before, like four hours to the nearest hospital. And then when we got the hospitals closed, so I had to ring a doctor up to come in and then they x-rayed it on this really old bake alike enameled. Exactly. Yeah. Anyway, I find nothing's broken and I'm thinking.

Grant (02:22.85)
Mm.

Grant (02:30.221)
Mm.

Grant (02:38.894)
the Soviet Union free war thing.

Noel (02:42.364)
HNNNN

Clive (02:45.465)
Are you fucking joking? There's a fucking bone sticking up there.

Grant (02:47.598)
Yeah. Well, that was our Morocco story with a guy who broke 11 ribs and they stuck him through it and they said, no, you're fine.

Clive (02:53.449)
Uggghhhh

Noel (02:56.417)
God.

Clive (02:56.601)
Yeah, similar experience for another mate mine broke his femur or cracked his femur and they no you're fine and the guide wouldn't even let him buy a walking stick. They're trying to whip you off for those crutches. I'll make you a walking stick for free. I don't know. We should yeah so yeah I don't know if you had a chance to look at those things I sent you Noel.

Noel (03:10.122)
you

Noel (03:15.74)
Ahem.

Noel (03:21.34)
I did and I realised that I saw Grant's television appearance when it came out. It was probably, was it like 2022 or was it earlier than that?

Clive (03:25.737)
Mmm.

Grant (03:30.158)
Yeah, it would have been April 22. Yeah, I think when the program came out because we did the filming in September 21 for that.

Noel (03:40.476)
Can I just ask a very silly question before we get into that? So you were on Speed Shop, which Mitch very, I mean to his credit, Titch, so Titch to his credit got that onto the BBC. I'd love to know how he did that, but that's for another time. But I always wonder when you appear in something that's on the BBC, that night it went out, do you all like, do you get loads of people around to the house? Do you watch it? Is it a big deal the night it goes out or were you just out doing something else?

Clive (03:42.663)
This is what you're here for. This is what you do.

Clive (03:49.225)
Titch. Titch.

Grant (03:51.32)
teachers.

Grant (03:55.405)
Mm.

Grant (04:10.77)
I did watch it but it was me on my own. wife was pretty indifferent to it all and the kids had gone to bed and then we watched it on iPlay. was only because I think all our family and friends, WhatsApp groups started to flare up going, have I just seen Grant on TV? I was like yeah, that's true.

Noel (04:13.198)
no.

Really?

Noel (04:27.898)
I just always think it must be mind-blowing when you go out on the BBC. You it's not just dribbled out on YouTube for someone to see at their leisure. It's on the BBC on a Sunday night. You you just know there's squillions of people watching it. It must be quite a mind-blowing thing.

Clive (04:28.001)
Ugh.

Grant (04:33.421)
Mm.

Grant (04:38.926)
Yeah, and Titchy's a friend as well, so we were so much cheering him on for the programme, hopefully it was going to be a success, you know.

Clive (04:46.855)
I'd have had a massive big watch party hired like the Albert Hall or something.

Grant (04:50.638)
I wouldn't be able to fill the Abel, so. Yeah, I just get the phone box down the road.

Clive (04:54.665)
Yeah, I'm pretty popular.

Noel (05:00.444)
You

Clive (05:02.902)
So what I wanted to do, Grant, is talk about you, but also talk about the charity. So what I'll get you to do in a minute is to do a kind of just a brief introduction of who you are, a little bit about your riding, and then talk about the, you know, co-founder of the charity, Future Train. And then,

kind of leave it at that because then we'll kind of jump into more detailed questions about you and about the charity. are you comfortable with talking about, I don't think you don't want to talk about, bearing in mind you'll get the, you'll get to listen to it before it goes out and veto anything that you're not comfortable with, so.

Grant (05:31.532)
Okay.

Grant (05:49.902)
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah, I mean, the, obviously I've got a military background and that's what even forms some of that. I don't really want to talk about that too much. or just talk about it in general terms. but we'll, you know, I'm an open book.

Noel (05:51.073)
Maybe just don't talk about the things you don't want to talk about rather than tell us what you don't want to talk about.

Clive (05:55.783)
Yeah, yeah, just say no, I don't wanna.

Clive (06:06.663)
Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, no, wouldn't. We wouldn't. Yeah.

Clive (06:11.943)
Yeah, well, anything you're not happy with, just say, no, I don't want to talk about that. Absolutely fine. It's not like we're journalists trying to dig dirt or anything like that. Noel does, but I reign him in every now and again. So, OK, so I'm really happy to be chatting to a friend, a podcast listener, term friend, Grant, who I met at the ABR this year or two years ago. I can't remember, possibly both.

Grant (06:15.052)
Yeah, exactly.

Grant (06:19.48)
Nah, nah, nah.

Grant (06:40.22)
Yeah, this year, yeah.

Clive (06:41.417)
Yeah. And then we, we, were in the team Tam podcast at the Rydell rally, which we kind of rode around together. so I'm delighted to welcome Grant White to the podcast and grant. I'll let him tell you, grant, tell us who you are. and, tell us a little bit about your charity.

Grant (06:46.402)
Yes.

Grant (07:01.512)
thanks. Thanks, Clive and hi, Noel. Yeah, and first of all, thanks for inviting me on. was a great opportunity and I've loved the podcast pretty much since you first started. Yeah, Grant White, I think I a similar mould to you guys and probably some of your listeners. You know, I'm a 50 something motorbike rider, trail rider, like the adventure bike riding, been into bikes all my life. My favourite bike is the bike that I'm riding.

whatever that may be. But obviously recently we were on the Tom Podcast team for the Rydale Rally. And during that we spoke about some of the stuff I've been doing from a charity perspective. So about eight years ago, I founded a charity called Future Terrain. It's a military rehabilitation charity. And the idea is to take people that are wounded, injured, either currently serving or veterans,

And we take them on challenging motorized experts. And more recently, we've got a lot of motorbikes involved. We were very car heavy to start off with. But the idea being to take people, challenge their disability, hopefully try to get them back into a team environment or a challenging environment. And without challenging them too much, without breaking them, but at least getting them to push the limits a little bit.

And that's in general terms what the charity is about, but it has evolved over the years. I say we started off as an off-road motor racing charity and then morphed into expeditions because we think they fit our profile better.

Clive (08:40.829)
You used a bit, you sounded like you used a bit of a military abbreviation then. X-Ped.

Grant (08:45.998)
Expedition, Which we found, I mean, like you guys, I mean, it's a grand term that, you you guys go on expeds all the time, you know, could go a two day green landing trips and exped, right? It just happens to be in the UK, you know. But we've done Morocco a few times, we've done the Pyrenees last year was a good one. Love the Pyrenees, think. Bangford Buck is a really good expedition.

Clive (08:48.285)
Yeah, just gotta clear that up.

Noel (08:48.54)
You

Noel (09:00.956)
You

Grant (09:14.086)
And obviously Morocco is just out of this world for the landscape and that isolation. But with that comes challenges as we spoke about earlier about four hour trips to, and that must have been a local hospital if it was four hours away, you know.

Clive (09:32.105)
Yeah, yeah, it was as local as it got. Yes. So tell us you mentioned you've been riding all your life. Tell us a bit about your riding history.

Grant (09:40.246)
Yeah, I'm gonna make everybody jealous now. So I started about 14 years old and I bought an old pedal start rally run around off a friend of mine without my parents knowing. And we used to have a terraced classic two up two down terraced house, those amazingly long cricket pitch style gardens, which I used to thrash up and down on. And that was the start of my illustrious motorcycle career. Then I joined the Marines.

found girls and joined the Marines, not that way around. And then really got into bikes, you know, in my early 20s, got my license, I remember desperate to get a bike, you know, and then the only place I could get a test was in Plymouth. So I rode all the way to Plymouth from the Midlands on a rented MZ125, the old one with the ugly tank.

Rode all the way to Plymouth to get the only slot to do a test, came back and then jumped onto a GPZ 550 that I'd bought. Then did all the old GS's in that era and of that age. So GS 1000 Katana, know, still got one of the best Speedos on any bike ever seen. And then eventually...

Noel (10:54.106)
What's so great about the speedo on that bike?

Grant (10:57.486)
It's the way the revs and the speed are, the hands go the wrong way from each other, they separate. And I just always loved it. And I'd have one now just as a point. So I used to love the fact that they just went in opposite directions. I thought it was pretty cool. And I always thought that the new Katana, they missed a beat there where they've got that did TFT display, which means you could have anything on it. They could have replicated that old clock.

Noel (11:14.396)
Yeah.

Grant (11:26.99)
You know, and I've always been a fan of that bike. It was a bulletproof engine, GS 1000 engine. And then a bit of a break again, usually through military, you tend to go away on operations and bits and pieces. then I fell in love with the Aprilia RS 250. And I came back and I remember everybody was buying 916s, everyone had GSXR 750s. And I bought this Aprilia RS 250, which was a work.

did it up, it was quick as you...

one thing I'll always remember is the people that had the 916s and the 750s always used say, why did you buy 250? Why did you buy 250? But they were always the ones who were asking me if they could have a go on my bike. It was never me asking to have a go on theirs. But unfortunately, that's my, my biking career came to a bit of a gap when I was, I'd been, I'd just been on, I mentioned I was in the military, I in the Marines, and I went to

see a friend on the Marine base and I was actually going to get my bike shipped out to Northern Ireland. was doing some work in Northern Ireland and I was able to take my motorcycle out to go and ride at Knot Corner and the van didn't turn up that day. So I was just pootling home and I was involved in the hit and run and someone forced me off the road into a telegraph pole which shattered my right leg. I would have been 30, 31 then.

Clive (12:50.333)
How old were you then?

Grant (12:56.17)
It was the day after Lady Diana died. So on the Monday. I always remember that because the night before we had a barbecue, the day before we had a barbecue, because I'd been away and everyone, couldn't get over this mass national morning. I couldn't get my head around it. And I did this big drunken speech at my barbecue about the people here, the people I care about, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then next day, properly spanked in. And people to this day think I did it on purpose just to prove a point.

But that then, know, I, ever the optimist, thought, I've broken a leg. But just as I was going into surgery, the doctor said, I think we can save it. think can save your leg. And that was okay. Woke up, they did save it. And, but I was about two years without being able to wait there on crutches. And then it was about four years before I go back to military fitness. And never rode a bike.

during that time, you know, because of the injury and I was just busy trying to get back to walking properly and trying to get back to a level of military fitness. And after about four years, I'd say I did that and I was pretty back to full fitness again. But then my ankle joint is associated, the injury started to deteriorate to a point where I just have enough. And I said, like, no, this is time to get rid of the limb. Not, you know, because of pain that I was in and also

because it was stopping me doing things and ironically having that limb removed was the catalyst to get back onto bikes again.

Noel (14:34.692)
It's almost, it always seems like my mother had a terrible car accident and she has kept her foot but she's often said, I wish they'd just removed it. Which always shocked me to hear her say that but was that decision very easy to make for you? Was it very clear cut?

Grant (14:42.754)
Yeah.

Grant (14:50.19)
It was, it was because I'd had years and years of discomfort. the way I see it's about, if you've got an appendicitis, you don't worry about taking away your appendix. It's not doing you any good anymore and it's causing you to just come off sick, it can be fatal. But I've done this with a few people now. I've mentored quite a few people before they've had a limb removed. And I tell them that I had an easy journey, but I give them the warts and all story of going through the process.

And, and but it's a very personal decision, you know, and to me, it was a defective limb, you know, and, and there was no body dysmorphia or anything like that. was just I cannot, I'm fed up again, if in the morning, stiff, tired, can't walk, can't run, all the things I used to love doing. And, and yeah, very pragmatic decision. And people say, it must have been very brave. No, it wasn't. It was just a simple pragmatic decision. I remember going into cellulocospital the night before.

I asked him to go for a walk and it wasn't because I wanted to have a last find a walk. It was because I wanted to go and get a Chinese. you know, I didn't want to be stuck on a ward. And the next day, and it was a sense of relief, know, is that end of a chapter is an end of an injury chapter. And it's like now I'm opening up a new chapter to to go to the next phase, if you like, wherever that was going to take me.

Noel (15:50.747)
You

Grant (16:09.966)
And at that point, think my wife was coming to visit me the first time and she said, do you want me to bring anything in? And I don't know why just said, can you bring me a copy of the motorcycle news in? And I haven't read the motorcycle news for about 10 years. then I think classically, was whenever, you know, the long way round was launched, think someone bought me a box set for Christmas. And I've been an amputee for three months, I think.

over Christmas period watched a long way round and I think two months later, you know, inspired by the GS I bought a KTM and 990 and then that sort of started my adventure bike riding and trail riding path really.

Clive (16:54.761)
I'm surprised. Let me get this one. Let me get this one and then you do yours. So, Grant, we edit this quite a lot. So it doesn't matter if things get out of order. But I think if I'd been your wife and you'd asked me to bring you in an MCN, I'd have told you to. I laughed in your face and told you, you've got to be fucking kidding.

Noel (16:54.972)
Had the accident, had the accident put, yeah,

Grant (17:02.296)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Grant (17:11.124)
Yeah.

Noel (17:11.42)
How do you think we got here in the first place?

Grant (17:16.23)
Yeah, I don't think she really thought much of it at the time. when we first met and I was over the injury, had this horrendously mutilated leg that looked very nice in shorts. We spent two weeks touring California on a Harley, you know, so she sort of knew I was into bikes. But I'd never, I don't think I'd owned a bike since we'd been married or in the time we'd known each other.

So I think she just thought that, you know, he's got a passing interest in bikes and, you know, I say I to play the long game, but when I consider it was probably about five months from amputation to buying a KTM 990. And I can remember having more long conversations because my son was only a couple of years old then, you know, these conversations about you've got to actively discourage your son from riding motorcycles, you know, and I was going, I can't do that.

It's the thing I'm passionate about and lo and behold he was at the ABR festival this year the fastest man on a TW125 going round the ABR trails you know.

Noel (18:16.284)
the

Clive (18:19.945)
It's funny actually, I think I said this before, but I've always discouraged mine from getting on motorbikes. the line I took was, well, before you get a motorbike, you have to do carting. So to try and steer them in that direction. And at the moment, we're doing these once a month endurance races down at Wigan. So it has worked, yeah. I mean, obviously they all want to get a motorbike now, because they're all old enough to realize that's nonsense.

Grant (18:24.003)
Mm.

Grant (18:29.059)
Yeah.

Noel (18:35.996)
It sort of worked, didn't it, really? Yeah.

Grant (18:42.254)
Yeah, I think I think you have to I've embraced it and I you know, my boys last year did the I got three boys and my youngest were doing their Duke of Edinburgh and part of their skills was we did motorcycle maintenance. So we stripped down an old LEM 50 and and my DRZ my beloved DRZ 400 we did all the bearing changes. We did all that kind of stuff. I think because if you like me, my parents would love that ilk. You know, if you bring a motorbike home, I'll back my car over it.

It just makes you want to do it more. So it's only my oldest has really embraced it, but he just likes riding dirt and trails. He just wants to do the trail riding and he's, know, he can't wait to get his license. wants a DRZ 400 like me and, you know, can't wait for him to do it.

Clive (19:27.657)
glad tell him to join our we've got a Facebook page young trail riders page tell him to join that and he'll meet some like-minded youngsters

Grant (19:34.208)
I will definitely do that,

Noel (19:37.724)
So I was going to say that you kind of answered the question, I think, but I was going to say, did the accident put you off riding a bike? But it didn't because you were on a Harley.

Grant (19:44.17)
No, no. So yeah, it's a Harley thing. It didn't put me off. I didn't buy one. And that was really down to circumstances. had a very sort of, you know, busy operational military life. there's no time to buy a bike and have it lying around a flat under a cover and not being used. And, but I do remember, I do clearly remember the first time I jumped on a bike after the accident. And I can remember thinking,

every junction, every car was just going to ram me into a lamppost. And I thought, is this some delayed onset of PTSD? It wasn't, you know, by the time I'd ridden 30 minutes, I'd forgot all about that, you know, but that was the only worrying bit. remember the first car that came up to the first junction, I just thought he's just going to speed out and ram me into the next lamppost. And he didn't, you know, because people tend not to do that.

Clive (20:40.603)
So what's in the garage now?

Grant (20:43.374)
god busy garage at the moment I've got there's a Husqvarna FE 350 that's not mine that's a friend of mine's but we've adventurized it so we brought it around with a nice safari tank AS. Screen on it Garmin'd up so that's a work of art that is. That was Jake you met Jake at the Rydale rally who came along to help me out. Then you've got my trusty DIZ 400 S which is my

Clive (21:04.702)
yeah.

Clive (21:10.473)
trusty, you say? trusty.

Grant (21:12.054)
Well, yeah, yeah, I'll get on to that. But I love that thing. My son's TW125, getting ready to change some pistons. A KTM 690 Enduro, but none like anything you've ever seen because of a lockdown inspired by Roland Sam's project, I decided to strip it completely down and build a custom

fully up full, full custom KTM 690 with a hand built, a friend of mine is a very talented fabricator. we had handmade tank, steel tank. So you sit on the tank on a 690, no longer put a subframe on it. looks like a, it was meant to look like a 1990s Dakar bike. No lights, plate, number board on the front. Very, very minimized. Everything's handmade on it.

that's sat in the garage. That's been a labour of love to a certain extent. I got hacked off with it almighty, but it looks pretty. It's Martini race colours and things like that. And it's a bar hopping bike really. It's got knobblies on it and everything else. I wouldn't dare take it anywhere near mud. I keep many to try and get rid of it and sell it on, but I'll never get what it's worth or, you know, it's a pretty pretty, but I wonder, I keep

Noel (22:35.366)
love.

Grant (22:38.872)
justifying it in that that's what by doing that in lockdown, stripping it down and rebuilding it, I learned a lot about motorcycle maintenance because I had to do everything myself and I didn't care. I didn't care if I got it wrong. I was sort of I put the cost of doing that to the bike is like my night school if you like on motorcycles. So it's paid dividends.

Noel (22:59.228)
So you don't have any plans for that bike other than, as you say, just riding it locally.

Grant (23:03.488)
Yeah, just riding. I had a lot of problems with fueling on it because the tank that I had built, it's got an internal fuel pump as most bikes do now. That was a nightmare trying to do it externally. And I literally spent a year and a half, two years trying to do something different and then only because I didn't want to cut a hole in this beautiful tank, which I ended up doing. And then it works perfectly. So I put it into a show this year. but it's really just, I mean, it goes, it goes like a stabbed rat.

Noel (23:31.996)
Yeah, I bet.

Grant (23:33.831)
It's got a shorty straight through exhaust. It's got a really breathable air filter on it. I've done a great deal to it, but the mapping is on the turbo Nutter bastard setting and it just, they do, yeah, yeah. And it handles amazingly well. I managed not to screw up the geometry too much. So yeah, next summer, I think probably. And then don't hate me for this, but my latest purchase.

Clive (23:46.249)
Well they go fast anyway don't they without you having to do too much to them yeah.

Grant (24:02.326)
I must have gone nuts in the night but I've just bought an Indian Springfield Cruiser so that's now satin.

Noel (24:09.904)
We were talking about cruises at the weekend.

Clive (24:10.377)
Nice. Nolz, let me stop you there. Should we share this with our audience? So first of all, first of all, first of all, shh. Nolz, first of all, Nolz now got three GS's. That's right, isn't it? Three? Or have you got any more? So there's that. And then also, we were talking at the weekend and I was going, I quite like choppers.

Noel (24:15.964)
I don't want to use this. Yeah, we're all getting cruisers.

Grant (24:17.066)
Yeah.

Grant (24:25.154)
Yeah

Noel (24:27.0)
Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah.

Noel (24:35.632)
We saw one. We were in a bike shop and we saw one on a ramp and it's an itch yet to be scratched, isn't it?

Grant (24:35.886)
Yeah, Guilty secret.

Clive (24:42.301)
Yeah? Yeah, yeah.

Grant (24:44.012)
Yeah, I'm really scratching that itch at the moment because I can put my underface helmet on, throw a barber jacket on and just go out. As soon as it's sunny and I go straight out and it's, it is a, what I do, the best thing about it is how many old men stop and smile at it because it looks old, you know, but it isn't. That man and man, and you see this, they tear up almost and they're glad, you know, I remember that, you know, that's the best thing about it.

Noel (24:49.18)
Ugh. Ugh.

Clive (25:11.891)
So what is it Grant, it's an Indian.

Grant (25:14.634)
Springfield, in Chieftain Springfield. it's a, yeah, yeah, it's a beautiful piece of kit.

Noel (25:17.06)
Let's go get Googling.

Clive (25:17.129)
bring field

Clive (25:21.511)
This is a regular occurrence where we have to stop to look up bikes. Genuinely interested Indian.

Noel (25:23.788)
I

Grant (25:24.246)
Yeah, yeah.

It looks like a 1950s V2 and Harley type thing, but it handles beautifully and all the manners of a modern bike.

Noel (25:40.444)
So did you buy that new?

Grant (25:41.962)
No, second hand. Yeah. Yeah, it is massive. But it just handles beautifully. But I won't be taking that in the dirt anytime soon.

Noel (25:44.54)
Bloody hell, it's huge!

Clive (25:44.553)
I bet they keep a lot of their value though, don't they?

Noel (25:48.156)
Wow.

look at that.

Clive (25:53.842)
yeah, I like that. I really like that.

Noel (25:56.869)
an Indian Springfield, did he say?

Clive (25:59.593)
There's a dark horse model. Hello.

Grant (25:59.61)
Springfield, yeah. It's not the dark or small, mine's in 2018. it's sort of the later stages of the, it's great fun.

Noel (26:01.595)
my god.

Clive (26:05.671)
Right.

Yeah, I'd quite happily ride one of those.

Noel (26:11.164)
Do not fancy just riding that down to Nice? Yes, that'd be good.

Grant (26:15.212)
Yes, yeah. Well, I was going to go out and do the Northwest 500 in September, but I just never had the chance or the weather. As much as I want to do it, I don't really want to sit in the rain for a week.

Clive (26:29.118)
We went out on Saturday morning, didn't we? know, for a, it was beautiful weather up here and we just went out for a big bike ride and yeah, I had my barber jacket and hood jeans on. It was ace.

Noel (26:31.716)
Yeah, it's gorgeous.

Grant (26:33.059)
Hmm.

Grant (26:40.706)
Yeah, so like you say, was an inter-wanted scratch and that's a permanent fixture now, I in the the garage.

Noel (26:47.281)
Yeah.

Clive (26:47.773)
I was looking at Yamaha Do1. Yeah, yeah, it's called as sold as the Bolt in the US. It's like an XV950 over here V2 and I'm Yamaha that I'd be and you get them for five grand.

Noel (26:52.038)
V-twin? Yes they do.

Grant (26:53.358)
Mm.

Noel (26:58.106)
Yes, yes.

Noel (27:03.002)
Yeah, don't read the reviews on it because people don't like it in the reviews, but I bet it's got a V-twin. It'll be great.

Grant (27:03.074)
Yeah.

Clive (27:05.437)
No.

Clive (27:08.979)
Well, because they're not going to be good to ride, are they? Because they're daft, they're not really designed for riding. God knows where the original Harley designs came from.

Grant (27:09.838)
Yeah.

Noel (27:17.414)
Yeah.

Grant (27:21.406)
yeah, mean, thing honestly, it handles like I used to write, I had a Triumph trophy not that long ago. That was my daily commute. I was doing, used to do a thousand odd miles a week, just commuting, you know, on top of leisure riding. And that was a big old beast. And it sort of rides the same, like a big police bike, but it just looks like a 1950s thing. It's got a, it's a really nice mix, you know.

Noel (27:21.605)
Okay.

Clive (27:43.613)
So other than that, what sort of riding do you do? Trail riding, adventurist stuff? Have you done any big trips?

Grant (27:47.232)
Yeah. The trail, adventure stuff, greenlining, know, I'm up in Worcester at the moment, moved up to Worcester a couple of years ago. But Dorset was where I did most of my trail riding. The charity is based in Bovington. So we're lucky enough that we are befriended by a reservist tank unit that allows me to put a container full of adventure kit and a couple of our vehicles there. But we have access to the Bovington training area. So where they test tanks.

and that is just the best playground ever. we do lot, we do car training there, we do four by four training, ATV training there for the beneficiaries, but I always invite people like Titch Cormack come down, Graham Billington, we'll all go and have a play. And there's sand dunes, there's big hills, there's, know, enduro stuff, soft sand, mud, water, anything you need. So that's an enclosed playing area, you know.

Clive (28:39.971)
Do you ever invite Class D podcast celebrities down?

Grant (28:45.878)
We have invited quite a few people down over the time and you would be more than welcome, both of you, to come down. Yeah, we have a good time. We do a lot of training and that's our training area. People do theory and then we go on to the training area and maybe camp out as well if we need to. yeah, it's everything you need in a few acres of land, you know, and left alone and we're allowed to do it.

Noel (28:51.61)
Oye!

Clive (28:52.009)
Thanks.

Grant (29:13.646)
the other thing you know if tanks can't break it or the little trail riding bikes aren't going to break it you know as much as we try.

Clive (29:21.417)
That sounds amazing but one thing I did want to say Grant, having met you, you are and forgive me I'll embarrass you now but

I mean, I came away from that weekend being utterly fucking impressed with you as a a as a person and the fact that you've only you've you've lost your leg below the knee, right? On I can't remember if it's clutch or gear or brake side brake side. But I think there was only once during that weekend of some fairly hard riding long days in Madhya. I think you only asked for help once when you were stuck under your bike. You're going.

Grant (29:42.092)
Yeah.

Break side, yeah, break side, yeah.

Grant (29:58.542)
Yeah.

Clive (30:00.009)
I could actually lift the bike up and get away but I'm just a bit worried about my leg coming off.

Grant (30:04.462)
Yeah, well, that's the downside of the, mean, don't get me wrong, in the world I work in with supporting the injured people, it's a scratch. A below knee is a scratch. I'd be, I'd embarrass myself if I even mentioned it in front of some of the people that I've supported over the years. And it's the best limb to lose if you're gonna ride a motorbike because you've only got to worry about a back break. And most modifications you can do to bikes are pretty simple if you need to do them.

Noel (30:04.892)
Ha!

Grant (30:34.38)
I would never modify the Springfield for example, because it's got a big like truckers brake I can easily use and but the off-road bikes I tend to modify somehow because it just it's a bit too technical. But what tends to happen is if I'm going to fall over, it'll always be on the right hand side. And generally that's because your right leg's never going to be as quick as my left leg because you don't have the same spatial awareness because your joints are little sensors that tell you where you are in space and I'm missing a load of those.

So when I'm falling over to the right, I have to see the ground moving the other way before I realise I'm falling to the right, so I'm a little bit slower. And also, when you get hot and sweaty, my stump starts to piston in the cast. And that means when you go to lift your foot off your pedal, you lift your stump, but your foot stays on the pedal, so it catches, and then you fall over to the right. Hence why...

bash my right shoulder and then invariably the leg comes off and then I'm stuck under the bike. But that can be an advantage. I found that in the Pyrenees, stuck in a river under the bike, being able to take the leg off and climb from underneath it was a... It does, yeah, or drowning the engine. So I was able to get from underneath the bike by taking it off. But I often forget when I'm out trail riding with new people, you know, don't make a point of saying, by the way, I'm missing a leg.

Clive (31:43.113)
Shouldn't laugh. Beats drowning, I suppose.

Grant (32:00.184)
But they soon find out when I, as I'm going to do, have a catastrophic fall off and my leg goes spinning through the air. I've seen a few ashen faces where people, you know, and in fact it happened on that weekend. We were going through one of the marshy bits and one of the guys stopped to help pick the bike up and said, just give me an egg. My legs come off, you and you get that double take, you know. But he was pretty cool about it, waiting for me to put it back on and then.

Noel (32:09.34)
You

Grant (32:29.966)
crack on again.

Noel (32:30.908)
I mean, what can you describe? What are the mechanics? How is it attached to your stump?

Clive (32:31.241)
Bearing in mind...

Grant (32:35.894)
So there's various ways that they work. So mine just goes, my stump, this is really good podcasting, but my stump goes straight into a cast and I wear a liner that's got ribs on it. So it basically gets pushed in, forces air out the bottom and creates suction to keep it on. And it depends on the individual really, it depends on the activities you're doing. This is sort of an high activity methodology.

Noel (32:45.308)
Great radio.

Grant (33:04.642)
Some people will have a sock, if you like, that goes over your leg with a pin that ratchets into the bottom. But they tend to be thicker casts and they need like a lot of lining and foam, which makes it really difficult to ride a motorbike because you can't bend your leg back as much. You don't have much mobility. So this to me is the best option, but it does have a tendency to come off. I mean, it shouldn't do.

Theoretically, you should be able to hang upside down, but the reality is, as you're moving, it will come off.

Noel (33:36.72)
Really?

Noel (33:40.956)
because I'm very surprised at how simple that is.

Clive (33:41.394)
Do you have different legs for different activities? Like a turbo leg for riding your bike.

Grant (33:43.342)
Mm.

Yes, yeah. Well, funnily enough, yeah, I do have, made a leg, I ended up collecting bits and pieces and as technology advances. And when I first started trail riding, one of the problems I had, I'd wear motocross star boots or trail boots, but there's a, you have no normal leg, you're not going to ankle or anything. So there's a big air pocket inside your boot.

Noel (33:49.27)
You

Grant (34:14.018)
Well, that air pocket becomes a water pocket when you start going through big puddles. then your boot then weighs about a million kilograms, you know, and starts to pull the leg off. So that became a real issue. So I managed to get an old foot from somewhere that had a, and it used to do one, we had a bit of a spring on it. So that sort of worked. And I just super glued a sole off of a motocross boot.

Noel (34:21.596)
you

Grant (34:41.944)
So, and it's similar, have a thing, similar thing for when I'm skiing. I have a ski foot that goes straight into the binding. And that worked really well, know, it works well, it's pretty good. You know, I run a charity and Instagram's everything, right? So it was good for the pictures because people could see it. But also when you're riding and people are aware of it. But I sort of migrated back to wearing boots. I always found, I always look at making modifications.

And generally speaking, I'll go full circle, modification, modification, and I'll come back to just a normal foot and go, just work with it. But you've got to go through that process. And I do that every single time, whether it's skiing, canoeing, motorcycling, whatever, you you go through that process. But my favourite story about that, though, is when I was in Morocco. one of the things that I think, you know, know you guys have spoke about it, Noel, I know you speak about Morocco and we've got great love for the people there and the ingenuity, but we...

and on the trip we did in with for the trip we did for the BBC and the first day I was riding with this leg and we did the first stop and they'd been a couple of months since the road so you know it's like you go get out for the first time it's all gravelly tracks and you feel like you've never ridden before and got over that and then the first morning we'd had a great morning and they stopped for lunch and I looked down and the soul had come off this foot now the thing is the foot is caper carbon fiber so it's shiny

carbon fibre on a metal peg. So there's no grip at all. But I must have ridden for 10, 15, 20 miles, not aware of it. But then your mind screws you up because now you're going that's going to slip off. And I spent the rest of the day riding this thing and desperately nervous every time I stood up because my foot would slip off the peg. I remember we got to the hotel that night really late at night.

Noel (36:29.244)
Mm.

Grant (36:37.294)
made a massive mistake of deciding to do an extra leg and coming in in the darkness. And I went up to one of the mechanics that was working with us, a local, I said, you know, have you got any masking tape or an inner tube, any way I could sort of do something with this. And he said, well, what do you want? You know, I said, well, what I want and what I can have is two different things. And then he grabs some poor guy, rips his flip-flop off his foot and goes like this. And he puts his flip-flop on the bottom and went, well, yeah, that'd be great. You know, we're literally in the middle of nowhere.

And, and I said, well, if you're going to do that, can you make it about an inch and a half thicker? Because it was a bit and he went, yeah, no problem. then he, know, up, I'm up, chaps away to the like this guy who gives him my leg, jumps on a push bike and cycles into the darkness because at the time COVID was on, so there's loads of COVID restrictions. So no one was actually, it was a curfew. And he just disappears in my leg. By the time I was too tired, shattered, I thought if I never see that again, I never see that again. And

Clive (37:14.095)
I know what's coming.

Grant (37:36.366)
An hour and a half, two hours later, he comes back with this beautifully fashioned soul that, done by the most professional cobbler, even my prosthetist couldn't do the same. you and he charged me, know, pennies, you know, only about five euros or something like that. And to this day, I still use that. And it was, and it was one of those things where you just go, this guy, we've lost that art in this country of mending and doing things. And if you went to Timpson's, first of all,

Clive (37:45.405)
Wow.

Noel (37:47.025)
Yeah.

Noel (37:55.226)
No way.

Noel (38:00.113)
Yeah.

Grant (38:05.23)
the guy would look at me go, what you're talking about, I can't do that. Or he'd tell me it's gonna take three weeks or whatever it is, you know. And then this guy woke this guy up in the middle of the night who just did this amazing job, you know. And then that was it. My love affair with Morocco was sealed.

Clive (38:22.685)
Yeah, concrete. I guess the reason for me asking you about it, Grant, was because it basically it doesn't seem to stop you from doing the stuff that you want to do. And I guess, bearing in mind the charity that you have, that must set a very good example to, you know, to guys that are going through the process after they've lost a limb or several limbs in some cases.

Grant (38:45.615)
Yeah, I mean, it probably does. Hopefully it does to a certain extent. But I think that comes back to the reason why I had an elective amputation in first place. It was because I realised it was slowing me down. And I had a young son as well. I was like, you know, was probably 40, 41 at the time. And I didn't want to slow down. And I didn't want my son, I didn't want my me to be filling my young son up.

Memories I used to do this or I used to do that when I was in the Marines I did this nice to jump out of airplanes or I used to ride motor I didn't want to be that person that talked about all the things you used to I wanted to do exactly you know this You know culminated actually into the ABR festival this year to spend a whole weekend Riding on those trails with my son for the first time was just you know apart from he annoyingly just wanted to keep going around around around faster and faster and faster and I just wanted to sit down and have a beer but

That was the reason. That was the reason. And then the charity thing came later. You know, I was involved in a forerunner of a charity that had done the Dakar in cars. And I got involved with that, but they were demobilising. But I did get to go on a couple of car rallies and I drove a couple of rallies, off-road driving rallies. what I saw was actually the event itself was the background activity.

and what they did when they did the Dakar, which was a great and amazing thing. And they did a lot for military charities and it did a lot for disabled people. In fact, they changed the rules for the Dakar before they did it. You couldn't compete disabled, you know, and now we've got quadriplegics driving trucks and stuff, but it was those guys that set the precedent and got a disabled guy across the finishing line. We took that mantle on and, you know, that first year I was racing.

we were the first pair to be disabled in a car. So I had two amputees driving the car, which had never been done in the UK. And then we won an event against able-bodied people and people went, okay, this can be done and it is safe. then the next year I then took over, started to create Future Terrain and I put two wheelchair users in a car, which had never been done before. now it's like the idea of disabled people driving and competing is just, it's normal.

Grant (41:04.238)
So was one of the first things that we sort of did. going back to the reason why, and to reason why I thought we went towards X-Beds rather than motorsport, was I very quickly understood that it wasn't the racing and the driving that was the real benefit that people were getting. It was being part of something. It was being part of getting the cars ready at the weekend, having a bit of camaraderie, being with like-minded people. People taking the piss of each other.

graveyard humour that goes into the military that sometimes doesn't translate into other environments. But also the downtime in the evening. So, yeah, all the, all the sexy racing in the daytime and all the rest of it. But the ability to sit down around the campfire and talk about problems and talk about bits and pieces and especially for the people with the mental health injuries. All the people I've had with physical injuries.

we can cater for really easy because it's bolting things on, it's putting levers and break levers in different places. But the people with mental health injuries are a real challenge, you know, in to look after because, know, it's not as obvious, you know, and not all people with physical injury as a mental injury as well, but you do sometimes get the same. So we flipped it on its head and decided that, you know, I the expedition piece as well was important because it's fair to everybody, whereas

matter what car driving team you're in, you only remember the driver, whereas in Expedition, everyone's involved.

Noel (42:38.172)
prep's always the good bit, isn't it? Even for a bike trip, I always think the prep's half of it.

Clive (42:38.461)
Fantastic.

Grant (42:41.294)
Yeah. the prep, the prep is what gets me to near divorce. You know, my, we're having a bit of a fallow year this year and I was purposefully because there was a lot of stuff going on with the family. we've only done a couple of things this year, but when we did, Fennec Endeavour, which was the, the last Morocco trip, you know, we took 24 disabled people, two U S veterans as well. And we had everything from a triple amputee to a stage four MS sufferer, a

paraplegic and then a multitude of mental health injuries and limb loss, you know, on bikes and in ATVs. And that was a good 18 months in the planning. And politics involved because of sponsorship clashes and sponsor clashes and things like that. the risk assessment, the managing of that, insurances, training people, we're big on training people before we go anywhere, was a good 18 months of phone calls every night.

planning at weekends, risk assessing, getting access to training areas. Broughton boroughs is another area that we train on. So the biggest sand dunes in the country, know, on the Christie estate, they're very kind to us. So we go and do some proper dirt bike training there. And we use Titch Cormac to help train and things like that. yeah, the preparation is massive, but it's important because things do go wrong. And they did on the Fennec, on Fennec Endeavour, you know.

Clive (44:03.718)
Was that the one my old colleague Peter Greaves was involved in? If you don't know who Peter Greaves is, he's Petrolped on YouTube. He was possibly the best ever trainer that I've ever witnessed. I work in corporate training. He was brilliant as a trainer and he's brilliant as a presenter and a YouTube guy. Well worth looking at his stuff.

Grant (44:07.807)
Was, yeah.

Clive (44:30.129)
if you're into cars, but yeah, he came along, I guess,

Grant (44:32.94)
Yeah, he did a few things with us and we got to know him through Goodwood, the Goodwood estate. One of my trustees is a big off-road rally driver and he's a very hands-on trustee. So it's pretty much me and him that run the show. He's the money man. He goes out and gets the money and then I put the operational plan together and I always have to calm him down because I come up with a plan to do something and he always wants to turn it into Ben Hur, you know, and I'm trying to do some arthouse movie.

So we get there somewhere in the middle. yeah, having Petrol Pedal on is fantastic. I'm not very good at social media. We have a social media presence. We're a small charity, right? There's pretty much three people that run it, a treasurer, myself, and a trustee. We have a board of trustees, but they're not actively involved. No one gets paid. No one even takes expenses. Every penny that comes in goes back out again. So it takes up a lot of time, and I just simply don't have the time to sit there.

on the time you need to dedicate to social media to do it properly, you know. And we took Petrolped on an expedition, it was a car-based expedition, during COVID. So we were meant to go to the Pyrenees and then the Pyrenees became, if you remember, a red zone for COVID. And then I had some really good beneficiaries that I really wanted to look after. And I said, well, we can't do it, but are you still up for doing something?

And they said, yeah, I had about six weeks to come up with a UK based expat. So we started at Bovington. We brought Titch Cormack in. We did loads of training and Petrolped came along and filmed that. We were sponsored as well by the time at that time by Datcha Cars UK. So it was really good options for them. And we did a green landing around Dorset. Then we give them blind road books so they wouldn't know where they were going. That's full of road books. And then we took them to down to Broughton Borough. So we did sand driving.

June driving and then up to North Wales. So a friend of mine is the founder and CEO for the Zip World and he's got some amazing quarries. So we were doing quarry driving and Petrolped came along on that and that's, he's just so good at creating that video content. And you see the work that goes into it. When we took him out to Fennec, so he came on the BBC trip that we did. When he came out on that, I mean, he just didn't stop.

Grant (46:58.582)
is on positioning cameras, is doing, you know, a face to camera shot, is interviewing somebody and then every evening soon as he's got internet is editing videos. You know, it was an impressive work ethic. And he comes up with very good videos that are very long that people actually watch all the way through, you know, people's attention spans aren't very good. And he did some great videos for, that actually probably told a better story than the BBC.

episode did on speedshot.

Noel (47:29.98)
Can we just talk a bit about future terrain and how it began? Was it a slow evolution?

Grant (47:33.563)
Yeah.

It was, I got involved with another charity that was doing the Dakar piece and I thought great, was the draw, but they were really demobilising, they'd just done two Dakars and they were demobilising, so we did a bit of driving, but that's where I had the brainchild to go. They had a lot of assets and they had a bit of momentum going and people involved, but we had nothing in the bank, we had about 200 quid in the bank.

And I took it on. said, well, I'll take this on. But I wanted to change the name. I wanted to change the legacy. And I wanted to invert because when you're looking at going to Dakar, we know how expensive Dakar is, but to take the four cars and the truck that they took last time, it was about one point five million pounds. Right. But this is in the days of big corporate sponsors. Afghanistan, Iraq was big in the news. People were willing to get behind it. But I get it. Things change. Flavoring those changes. And it's not sustainable model.

And to spend all that money to get one person across the finishing line is great if you're a big corporate or racing team. And don't get me wrong, it did a lot to demonstrate the plight of wounded soldiers and veterans and people like that. But it had its place in time. I tried to invert the model. know, bang for buck is our thing. So do more with less money. So we did a bit of local racing, rallying, and then it used to be a thing called the British National Cross Country Championships. We took part in.

And that was, they were really, really pro what we were doing. So I could then, I started to get, built a little race team, people around, and then I would run a car as well, but invite people along so they can move as a passenger, especially with people with mental health injuries. So we could drive as fast or as slow as they wanted to. I wasn't being under the pressure of racing. If they really wanted to go fast, we'll go fast. We'll drive the zone competing. If they suddenly say, I'm out of here, I just pull off. And that model worked really well because you could get.

Grant (49:28.654)
20 people through in a weekend and give them an experience. But as I said, the more I saw that what we were doing in the evening sat down, people exchanging stories, you know, even if it just practical advice, you know, I'm having real problems with prosthetic, have you tried this? Have you spoken to this person? That kind of thing. Or people just letting, being able to feel comfortable that they could speak about problems that they were having. And then that was when we said, you future terrain and the name

future terrain came from when we started to get into proper certified training for cars, ATVs and quad bikes. And one of the terms we use when we're training is to look at the future terrain. The future terrain is the ground before you and that was a term we used. So it's all about doing constant risk assessment. you're dynamic risk assessments all the time. We have these little sayings as we go along and we were always saying, keep an eye on the future terrain.

Noel (50:27.696)
That's interesting.

Grant (50:27.778)
but that actually bowed well with your own personal future train. What is your future train? What are the obstacles you need to get over? And that was sort of like the sort of evolution, you got all the genesis of this. And then we landed a really good sponsorship deal with Dantshu UK and we went out to do what was a large Moroccan rally, road car rally. And now the carter rally it's called.

which does hold sections of the old Dakar that goes through Morocco. And we turned up in these Datcha dusters, right? That we'd properly prepared them. I drove a brand new Datcha duster from the UK all the way to Morocco in one go. I had 200 miles on the clock when I left. It had six and a half thousand on it when we got back 10 days later. I drove it all the way down there, took part in the Dakar, in the Carter rally and drove it back, you know.

Datcha UK and Leno were just over the moon, right? And that sat outside their HQ offices uncleaned for about a month. So.

Noel (51:33.148)
Now, Grant, I've got a duster, so I'm interested to know how reliable was it? Was it? Great.

Grant (51:37.942)
It's great. Absolutely great. You know, they are not just saying that they're not our sponsors anymore. So I can say that. But we went out there. We probably spent with massive discount dealer discount about seven thousand pound on spares and didn't use any. everyone we were we came from a world of bowl of wildcats. If you know what they are, you know, proper, expensive cars.

Clive (52:03.955)
Mm-hmm.

Grant (52:07.062)
Rover V8s, Dakar proven, blah, blah. And all the people that used to work with us going, you're not gonna last five minutes. You'll burn the clutches out. You'll trash everything. You'll be breaking half shafts every five minutes. So we took about half a ton of half shafts and prop shafts and everything else. The only thing we did, and I don't know why we didn't do this and this was a mistake, we didn't take any spare radiators. We hold a radiator on the first day and...

We were doing all the rad world and bits and pieces. We started off by these people. We turned up at this car to rally. can imagine trophy trucks, proper full-on rally cars. We were a novelty. turned up. And then it was like the, if you like, the league that we were in, all of a sudden we were second and third after the first date and people got out and hang about. And there's people in these fully equipped Hiluxes and stuff like that.

every day we were podiumed and then we did a night section and we had two nutters, two beneficiaries that we let loose that night and they came in something like the top 10 in this Datcha Duster and that was probably more to do with their madness than anything else but no it was a it performed brilliantly they're not you know the body shells are made of cheese

Noel (53:18.065)
Wow.

Grant (53:30.35)
You know, and we lost a load of the inner liners of the first day, all the liners and all the stuff underneath we lost, but they performed brilliantly. And like I say, my favourite one, and I've only just sold it, I drove it all the way there, did the rally, drove it all the way back, and it didn't miss a beat.

Clive (53:46.363)
I wish you hadn't said that, cause dear listener, if you could see Noel's smug fucking face now. I've got another bargain, brilliant car. god.

Grant (53:55.432)
Yeah. But no, they're really good costs.

Noel (53:56.444)
They're great things lit. Yeah. mean, every got a Europe. Every third car is a Dacia Duster.

Grant (54:01.174)
Yeah, yeah, massive, massive in Europe, but they're off road credentials. I mean, is an Ison X Trail running gear. It's got the Renault Clio engine. Yeah, they're a classic, you know, they only use, use old, that's used for their model. They use components from previous cars that tried and tested. So you only get even down to their brake sensors or ones that have been, they've been using for three or four years. So reliability is through the roof. And if you know,

Noel (54:08.655)
Is it? didn't. right.

Grant (54:30.744)
They're no good for rallying because they're not strong enough and we found that, you know. We had proper roll cages, specially built. No one had built a roll cage for a Dacia Duster ever. So we went to a specialist company that built them for us and then we have a ROP system which is like an external cage for expedition vehicles and they look fantastic with that on. Covered in laser lamps and really, really capable car.

and super cheap.

Clive (55:02.035)
So if you wanna watch a couple of these expeditions, yeah, check out Petrolped's YouTube channel and also on iPlayer, you've got the Morocco Expedition. I think it's episode two of Titch McCormack's Speed Shop series. you can actually go and have a look and probably see those cars, I think. I did actually have a note down for Noel to tell Grant what car you currently have.

Grant (55:15.0)
This is episode two, yeah.

Grant (55:27.301)
But I know I don't talk about cars too much because I this is a trail bike. So yeah, we did. My influence was to bring bikes into the party, much against my trustees advice because they're scared to death of them. And when we did the Fennec Endeavour, we had an injury every day. I think I recall one thing that always sticks in my mind, when I think said, I think Clive, you were trying to organise some

Noel (55:30.286)
Mm.

Clive (55:31.753)
That's right.

Grant (55:56.05)
riding or something and you said like everyone coming and you said I need to make sure that people sign the waiver and no you're like no everyone's got the responsibility for their own and when you do a charity you take disabled people into the desert you are this is our waiver it's 11 pages long you know because you know I do this for free I don't want to get sued because I've killed somebody

Noel (56:07.621)
Yeah.

Noel (56:10.972)
Okay.

Noel (56:16.422)
Yeah.

Clive (56:17.481)
Yeah, exactly. That's why, to be honest, as an aside, that's why I've avoided doing any kind of like meetups or ride outs or anything like that. It's just not, mean, I don't get fucking paid for doing this. Why would I want to risk losing my house? Do you know what I mean?

Noel (56:31.004)
Hehehehehe

Grant (56:31.086)
Yeah, that was, but that's part to your point, Noel earlier said about the preparation, you know, we really drill into this. And we were we were asked to do the what we call it Fennec Endeavour was the X-Bed to Morocco. We were asked to do that by the chairman of the Invictus Games, who is a big Enduro rider and he every year he takes a load of mates out and they do it. But it's like this difference when you're all mates and you're paying yourself and paying your signing your own waiver and everything else. But

when you're delivering this for free and all the stuff we do, we raise the money and the benefits you don't pay a penny, ironically puts more emphasis on you because you're actually properly in on this. So we just make sure we're pretty watertight on the waivers and stuff. But the guy who asked us to do this event, he got quite hacked off with us because we were doing so much risk assessment stuff, so much work on this and...

We wanted to see the insurance and we get a legal team to look through it. And he said, you're taking the joy out of this. And we said, no, no, the point is do this now. And then when we're out on the ground, when things go horribly wrong, you can sit pretty. And that was the case. mean, this was a different, you you see on the BBC program, a guy called Gordon Todd came off within 45 minutes, broken arm, broken leg, you know. And that was first day. Second day, we had a guy we thought was having a heart attack. It's actually magnesium depletion.

We were 38 kilometers away from the nearest road and then, you know, then we had the next day a guy broke 11 ribs and each one of these was a major kuz of that.

Noel (58:05.084)
What's that? What's that?

Was that first crash, was that a fairly slow speed off? Was it? God.

Grant (58:11.214)
Yeah, yeah. So that was a that was a guy who's not very experienced at all. And we'd risk assessed everybody. We took them to Broughton Boroughs and I took there's a guy Stan Watts. don't know if know Stan Watts is a bit of a Dakar legend, British rider. Well, he rides in the Irish banner, but he's a former Royal Marine as well. Great guy. And he runs a school down in Dorset, again, near Bovington actually.

and does some great stuff and he's a brilliant rider and he's done the Dakar loads of times. We got him and a team of guys to come down and just run everybody through the paces on the bikes and you know this guy in particular was one guy we were worried about and he was funny enough with he hadn't got injuries he was a guy who came along and but he was a bit he was just struggling a little bit with life once they got mental health issues but he was just he needed a break and we sort of took him on and then we

smashed him up in about 45 minutes. But that's when it all works, know, because we took medics that were, we had injured people that were medics. You know, we had a girl who'd had a major stroke and head injury, who's now an A &E nurse, so she was there. We had another guy with a back injury who was blown up in Afghanistan, who was a medic. And so they're straight on the scene, we Cazovac him out, the assurances works, we tested them, the whole process was there. And, you know, and we even to a certain extent, we worked out that

what was his recovery time going to be? He wasn't earning a lot of money. We worked out what his statutory benefits were and we managed to give him a small grant to get him through it because we didn't want him to do no harm. So we took some money out of our accounts and brought him back to where he was. But that doesn't happen unless you do all that planning and that boring stuff of pouring through the paperwork to make sure it's going to work.

Clive (59:49.065)
Amazing. Yeah.

Clive (01:00:04.137)
So it may come as something of a surprise to our listeners that I can be a little bit cynical at times, But that evening we sat around talking, the group of people that were in Team Tam podcast. So it's probably about, I don't know, 10, 12 people there or something. So we've got you and your mate, couple of ex-military veterans. We had an A &E doctor.

Grant (01:00:11.458)
You're not the only one.

Noel (01:00:12.358)
Hehehehehe

Clive (01:00:33.705)
We had a quite senior copper. And basically that I was kind of out of the conversation at this point, but people were sharing stories about the stuff they've had to do as part of their job. And I ended up getting quite emotional because it was just like, you know, you you get, thank you for your service. And you just think, fuck off. That's fake. But you know what? I left that event thinking.

Grant (01:00:55.688)
Yeah.

Noel (01:00:58.556)
you

Clive (01:01:03.645)
Those people do so much and go through so much and see so much that most of us don't, so we don't have to deal with it right. So I came back with, you know, even the ripe old age of 50 something, of a real appreciation and a gratitude for the kind of stuff people in the services do. So that's quite enlightening for me.

Grant (01:01:27.202)
Yeah, that's very kind of you, Clive, but also it's great fun, right? And we have a laugh doing it.

Clive (01:01:32.551)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Noel (01:01:33.628)
You

Clive (01:01:37.095)
Yeah, so what can people do? Can we donate cash? Do you want old DRZ parts chucked through the letterbox?

Grant (01:01:43.148)
Yeah, we really rubbish at things. Yeah, as many del dios Ed parts as you can throw because I can get through. Yeah, we get a lot of our money either from corporate sponsors, we're not very good at shaking the tin, because that takes a lot of time and effort. And for a little unless you're throwing resources at it. And again, we don't really have the time for that. So we generally look at corporate sponsorship, but not big stuff. So what we tend to find is somebody

Clive (01:01:51.207)
Yeah.

Grant (01:02:12.718)
When we get the begging bowl out and we'll be doing that in the early in the year because we're looking to go back to Morocco next year, we go out with the begging bowl and we approach a few smaller businesses to say, do you want to throw some money in? What we really, really appreciate is working alongside, partnering with businesses that can provide us with stuff because we usually need money to buy stuff. So it's actually better if people give us stuff or give us a really heavy discount.

So that tends to be the model. if this, you know, we're going back out to Morocco next year on bikes, ATVs, quad bikes. It's things like clothing. It's things like protective gear, you know, that kind of stuff. We try to partner with, you know, and if anyone's out there that, you know, feels obliged or it flicks their switch and they want to get involved, doesn't matter how big or how small they are, we really appreciate it. And we get a lot of our money as well from some of the larger charities. So.

lot of charities are grant giving charities. we're like they're, we've become a bit of a trusted delivery arm now for a couple of the bigger charities, the British Limitless Ex-Servicemen's Association, the Veterans Lottery, they see what we do, they see the return on what we do. And they've learned now that, you know, if they give us a thousand pounds, that thousand pound only gets spent on doing what we do. don't, we're lucky enough to be based out of a reserve centre, so we don't have to pay to put the lights on. So no wage bill.

No utilities bill. Our biggest outlays are our land for qualifications each year. That's our teaching qualifications for off-road driving skills and everything else. And our insurance, which is not massive at the moment, but we always, the insurance bill for going away is usually a big lump.

Noel (01:03:55.44)
I was gonna say the results of what you do are very tangible. Having watched that film today, it's very tangible just from a sort of brief observation of it, but what are the results that you see as a result of people going on these trips?

Grant (01:04:06.894)
It varies. It varies with different people. We have some people that return all the time. We always try to provide some vocational training that goes along with that. So we certify everyone. To be honest, the vocational bit is an happy accident. It's really for our own risk. Someone says, you took these guys into the desert. How do you know that we're going to perform? Well, they're all certified four by four drivers or ATV operators and things like that. So that's part of the risk assessment program and our delivery.

The wellbeing aspect of it is probably the best bit and that's difficult. It's a difficult thing to measure. And we do all the great stuff, know, feedback surveys and everything else, but every now and again, you get a little nugget, you know, you would take, we took a guy on the last X bed who's a bilateral amputee above knee, loads of fingers on one hand, know, a tragic story, know, past Sanders officer joined the army.

I think it was like two weeks straight out to Afghanistan, two weeks as an army officer and got blown up, career over, you know, and this guy's a bright guy, right? He's a sandist officer, university educated, but he came on and did our four by four course. And he said, that's the first time I've done something where I've needed to pass and pass a qualification. And it's an easy qualification, right? It's designed for farm laborers and everything. But he said, you won't believe the lift that gave me to get a certificate.

And fully enough, when we first started doing this, when you go to some of the bigger charities and with your begging bowl, they say, what are your aims of your charity? And sometimes it sounds easy, but sometimes it's difficult to articulate. And we always rounded on the wellbeing aspect, the feeling of wellbeing that prepares people then to launch into the next stage of their life. And it was almost ridiculed.

you know, seven years, eight years ago, was ridiculous. What you mean you don't give money away or you don't give wheelchairs away or you don't do, no, we don't do any of that. We just make people feel good. And it was ridiculous. But now the first question they ask is, what are you doing to support people's wellbeing and mental health? so we, you know, I'm saying we were sort of right from the start. And yeah, and it's not easy. It's not easy. It's not easy to measure.

Noel (01:06:20.496)
Yeah, people have caught up.

Grant (01:06:28.28)
But every now and again, we get a nugget that comes through. Because you can come away from these ex bids and go, was that successful? No one died. No one got pregnant. That's a barrier for success. it was was it successful? And then what you tend to find is you get a letter from someone's wife. That was probably the best. We had a letter from someone's wife who saying, he came back a different man. He came back and he decorated the lounge. And I've been asking him to do that for three years.

Noel (01:06:55.836)
You

Grant (01:06:57.228)
And that to me is like, is it? And we, and then we had a sad story. We had a guy that we really didn't think we'd benefited because he seemed to complain all the time about everything that we're offering. And that gets a bit frustrating when you're, you know, you're like, hang on, we're taking on this world changing trip and you're complaining about the eggs aren't quite cooked in the middle of the desert and complained and complained and complained. And we thought, well, we'll never see. And we had to, we had a couple of issues and we had to discipline it.

Noel (01:06:59.708)
Yeah, that's wonderful, isn't it?

Grant (01:07:25.952)
a couple of times because of his behaviour, because it wasn't acceptable. And we come back and we're like, you know, we didn't do that guy any favours at all. He didn't do us any favours. And then tragically, he was a motorbike nut. And tragically, he was killed out on his R1 T-boned and was killed. And word got back to us. we just, the family reached out and just said,

We just want to thank you because in the last couple of years of his life, know, all he ever talked about was that trip he went away on and, you know, we sent him some, we sent him loads of pictures and videos, the stuff that we have put on Instagram, because you have loads of stuff, but some crappy photographs, but he was in them, you know, and then he suddenly go, yeah, it does make a difference, you know. Even it's not obvious. And that's always, we ask ourselves this all the time, you know, and when we think we're not doing any good anymore or we're not required.

Noel (01:08:14.523)
Even if it's not obvious. Yeah.

Grant (01:08:24.802)
we'll stop doing what we're But it seems to be that every time it lands well, there's at least one nugget. We have a success story of every trip.

Clive (01:08:36.777)
Well, I think as bikers and as people that do go on these adventures, every time you come back from something, you come back with a kind of a new lease of life. mean, no, we went out for like three hours on Saturday and I came back a different person just from having a little run out around the Dales. You know, it was...

Noel (01:08:53.852)
the

Yeah. Lots of people say that having spent time, even a brief time with me, come on, saying that.

He let it out. He let it out. I bet you anything.

Clive (01:09:04.933)
Nobody says that ever. I will edit that out.

Grant (01:09:06.99)
Yeah.

But I think the trouble thing was these things, again, it back to mindfulness, right? When, certainly for me, I am concentrating like Billy O when I'm on the trails, just to survive and stay upright. But that's so refreshing because you're in the moment, right? And I took a guy around the Bovington training area on a rally.

And this guy is probably the only person I've really seen who's got the physical manifestation of PTSD. You if you look at these old First World War black and white videos of the people shaking and he literally was physically shaking, you know, and he not only just got PTSD, but he lost his family, you know, divorce, you know, it was just a, you know, and you get to know people very quickly when you're sat in a rally car next to him waiting for the light to go green. And he was the one guy who just, he went from

shaking mess to calm as you like as we went round and we went and he knows you okay and he went that was amazing let's go again but faster and he was calm as you like because it was just in that moment in the it wasn't being bombarded by demons or anything else and I think that was when the penny starts to drop about it's not actually about racing it's not actually about doing this it's not actually about looking good on a motorbike it's about

Noel (01:10:19.068)
Mmm.

Grant (01:10:33.078)
Like I say, that being in the moment and doing something and challenging yourself, because we all, well, I do anyway now, I have a sedentary job sat at the desk looking at the laptop all day. And it, you know, it is challenging to get out on a bike and just get dirty and scare yourself a little bit and get a bit dirty, get a bit uncomfortable. It's just amazing what that can do for you.

Clive (01:10:54.665)
I that's a really good place to stop. Other than to say, we do know we have a number of suppliers of motorcycles, tires, clothing, or listen to this podcast. If you want to grant contact details, just drop me a note and I'll put you in touch.