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Cycle Shorts: 1 Day of Your Trip: James Benson-King- Argentina
•James Benson-King•Season 2
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Have you ever had a day battling hard against a strong headwind? Then listen to guest James Benson-King share one day of his trip from Alaska to Ushuaia - and a particularly windy day in Argentina.
Hello everyone, it's Bella Malloy here, host and producer of Seat Travel Ride, and welcome to another midweek mini episode in our Cycle Shorts series. These episodes share what it was like for a listener during one day of their trip, sharing their most memorable adventure stories from their bike travels. For all of you who are enjoying this series, if you want to get involved, the best way to do so is to send me an email. Email me, my address is podcast at seektravelride.com. Get in touch, send me an email, tell me about one day of your trip, and I'll let you know how you can get involved. This week we have listener James Benson King. James is going to be transporting us to Argentina for what ended up being quite a memorable day, battling some extreme headwinds. James was on a journey which took him all the way from Alaska to Ushua. Let's listen to James tell us about one day on his trip.
SPEAKER_01
Hi there. My name is James Benson King. I live in Bournemouth in the UK. And I want to tell you a short story about the hardest day on my cycle tour from Alaska to Argentina. In 2022, I flew to Alaska to start what would be my first ever tour outside of the UK. I'm an avid traveller, but normally it was just with a backpack. So on this trip I was trying to push my boundaries whilst also raising some money for a charity. I was starting as far north as I could go in a place called Dead Horse Alaska, and I wanted to end my trip as far south as I could go in Ushuaia, Argentina, which, depending on detours and the route, the journey is normally upwards of around 25,000 kilometers or 16,000 miles. And for some reason it was incredibly important to me to ride every kilometre possible. So after racing against winter through North America, riding with one leg for 900km in Mexico, battling 45 degree heat through Central America and Colombia, and being plagued with altitude sickness through the Peruvian Andes, I had made it to Argentina while cycling every kilometre. But in the Argentinian Pampa, the final boss of the trip waited for me. The winds of Patagonia. My story starts here. The day prior, I had left a town called El Calafate, riding with a couple of other riders. An amazing French couple called Joan and Alan, a northern English lad named Harry, and a Canadian girl named Serena. We were all riding through Patagonia, and we'd arrived at the same campsite the night before. It became a habit, especially for other members of the group, to check the wind for the next day, and as we sat around cooking dinner, we looked ahead and saw that the winds were absolutely terrible. Not only were the winds the next day going to be a direct headwind, but they were also going to be incredibly strong. I remember checking the windy app myself and seeing these deep flashes of red uh striking across the screen. It was crazy. However, when we woke up, the wind didn't seem too bad, so the team prepared ourselves, we packed up camp, we grabbed some breakfast before setting off. As we left the shelter of the building we were camped next to though, this was when we were immediately hit with the wind. And I find it incredibly hard to describe. It was almost like a giant was stood in front of your bike just holding you back. I think from memory, the winds were up at 30 mile an hour standard with like gusts up to 40-50 miles an hour. Even in the lowest gears on my bike, I felt like I was grinding just to move forward. It felt like you were going up the biggest hill. As we all struggled, I remember moving to the front to help shield some of the other riders from the wind, and continued on like this, with occasional gusts of crosswind would like knock you into the road, and for a second your life would flash before your eyes as you were unable to hear if there were any cars coming. So you had no idea if the road was empty or if you in the middle of the road were about to get knocked off by a car. Again I continued on at the front for another five minutes before turning around to check on how the team was going, and I remember seeing absolutely nothing. There was nobody. In a completely flat landscape, I couldn't see any of my friends, I could only see the building that we'd left about 10 minutes before. I didn't know what to do, so I mean I hoped they were okay, and I remember I just pushed on. I cycled like this for another hour and a half, occasionally being blown into the middle of the road, but apart from that just dealing with the giant pushing my bike back, and I think I made it around 15 kilometers. I stopped only because I found some shelter there was these two random bus stops, and it was the only shelter that I could see for the foreseeable future. I remember trying to block the wind noise for a moment as it was just driving me absolutely crazy, but it continued to whip up and around every angle of this metal bus shelter. It was just whistling through all the cracks and holes and yeah, driving me crazy. So after 15 minutes I decided to try and push on, and as I got back on the bike, I was immediately blown over. I got back on again, and the same thing happened. It was just the it was too strong, too strong of a crossman at this point. It appeared the wind had gotten even stronger, and so I had to take shelter in the bus shelter again. I remember I began to cry. It was overwhelming. I was under a month away from finishing my trip. I could practically taste the end now, I could see it on a map. But this was it. I I I wasn't gonna make it. I would have to I remember thinking I would have to get a lift, there was this was just not safe to to move anywhere. I couldn't stay here anyway, there was nowhere to shelter, I couldn't camp here, I couldn't wait out the wind, couldn't even get my bike to move. And these thoughts just kept running through my head a thousand times over. And for fifteen minutes I couldn't calm myself down, so I remember doing some breathing exercises, trying to calm myself down, and I remember saying to myself, can't cycle, you'll walk. So I picked up the bike at a 45 degree angle because the wind was so strong, and I just started walking. After a while I remember my hands being numb from the weight of the bike digging into my palms, the noise from the wind driving me crazy as it ripped against my hood and around my ears, and I started to go a little bit crazy. I remember shouting song lyrics at the wind as I was moving, and just running and jumping, and yeah, I went a little bit crazy myself, match crazy with crazy. But at least I was slowly moving forward. The hardest part was that a few cars pulled over and offered me lifts to the next town, so I had to say no, I'd already made up my mind I wasn't gonna do that. Some of them called me crazy and seemed incredibly confused as to why I was saying no. Um, others seemed to understand my Spanish explanation and just wished me well. Eventually, after three or four hours of walking, I made it to the next building for shelter and stopped behind that just to have some lunch. After that I managed to cycle the majority of the way to the Argentina-Chile border and crossing through, and then once I was back into Chile, I had to cycle the hardest I've ever cycled downhill into a town called Cerro Castillo. The wind was as strong as ever when I arrived, but I remember putting my bike down against the side of this cafe and just walking in. And as the door closed behind, the whistling of the wind stopped and was replaced by silence for the first time in about eleven hours. I walked in to order a drink through a little doorway and I remember seeing my friend Serena posted up on a table reading a book. So she rushed over and gave me a hug as we broke down how our days had gone down. She then called Harry, Joan and Alan from the morning and they came back over to the cafe, and we all sat around telling each other about our days. It turned out they had all separately hitched rides to the town we were in now. Serena had almost immediately decided it was too dangerous to cycle, and had gone back to the camp spot and hitched a ride from there. Joan and Alan had lasted a bit longer before hiding roadside and managing to flag a car down to take them, and Harry had stuck with me for another five minutes before being blown in the middle of the road one too many times. So he just hid in a ditch on the side of the road for ten minutes and then decided he'd had enough. And I don't really blame any of them. It wasn't really safe, it certainly wasn't fun, and I'm not sure why cycling every kilometre meant that much to me, but there's no way I would have pushed through on this day if it didn't. Having said that, I'm glad I did though, as I found my passion along this trip was testing human resilience, and this particular day definitely pushed me the furthest. After sharing a beer together in the cafe, the team topped up on supplies before cycling over to our camp spot for the night. And just like clockwork as the sun began to set, the wind died down to become almost non-existent. If only we'd have cycled through the night instead.
SPEAKER_00
Thank you so much, James, for sharing one day of your journey there. Wow, what a memorable day that was. I cannot even fathom trying to cycle and push forward through those extreme headwinds. But you and your fellow travellers will forever recount the tales from that day. I do love that you all ended up in the same place, but just had vastly different ways of getting there, and that each of you also sort of gave in at different points, but the idea that the wind was also so strong that you never heard those behind you sort of obviously say, No, I'm out, that's me done. Well done for persevering, and no doubt the mental load that it took to decide whether or not you could continue on with pedaling every kilometre, I'm sure that that would have done your head in especially much on this day. Now, listeners, we get to enjoy a full podcast interview with James in the weeks to come. I have organized to sit down with James and record a podcast session. So you'll get to hear him recollect his story and his experiences from that monumental journey all the way up at the northern point in Alaska, making his way down to the southern tip of Argentina at Oshua. Quite a journey, and I really can't wait to dig into James's story as well. Now, as ever, I'd like to give another special shout out to those of you who have been supporting me on Buy Me a Coffee. I appreciate all your support and donations so so much. Richard says, Thanks again for another great talk. It's always inspiring to hear these stories of adventure. Well, Richard, thank you again for showing more support on Buy Me a Coffee as well. And then Kurt Werby says, This is such a fantastic podcast. I'm so glad to have found it. The interviews are so inspiring, and I'm really enjoying hearing the female perspective on slow travelling around the world. Bella's a great interviewer and asks lots of thought-provoking questions. After listening for several months now, it's inspired me to plan a bikepacking trip in December. Thanks, Bella. Kurt, I'm so excited for you. I want to learn more about this bikepacking trip. I want to learn about is this the first one you're taking? Where are you going? What are you thinking of doing and taking on? I love that you've been inspired by listening to the show. Here's to your future adventures. Keep in touch with me. Who knows? Maybe one day you'll also be a guest. Now, if you'd like to show your appreciation for all the work I do to put Seek Travel Ride together, you can click the link to buy me a coffee, which you will find in the show notes. Once again, I appreciate all of your support so much. Everything you put forward helps to go towards the running costs of recording the show. I really enjoy chatting with my guests and bringing their stories to you. And by the sounds of it, a lot of you are taking inspiration from hearing their tales of adventure as well. So long may it continue. Until the next episode, I'm Bella Malloy. Thanks for listening.
