Chris McCaffrey: A Global Cycle Across 21 Countries (The Silk Road, Pamirs & Beyond)

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Today on Adventure Diaries I sit down with Chris McCaffrey — better known as @chrisinthecold — an adventurer who has tested himself on some of the toughest human powered challenges imaginable. From sailing as a teenager to attempting an unprepared row across the North Atlantic, to cycling 16 months across 21 countries, Chris has a knack for throwing himself into the unknown and coming back with stories of resilience, awe, and human connection.

In this conversation, Chris shares what it’s like to face hurricanes at sea, capsizes, rescues by oil tankers, and the daily grind of pushing a bike across continents. His global cycle took him from Europe through the Silk Road, into the Pamirs, across Southeast Asia, and beyond. Along the way he battled illness, typhus, road collisions, and moments of collapse — yet also found kindness in strangers, moments of stillness in vast landscapes, and the perspective that comes from living on the edge of your limits.

We cover the highs, lows, and the lessons that come with chasing audacious dreams. Chris reflects on fear, risk, and the difference between physical endurance and mental endurance. There are stories of six-foot monitor lizards in the road, collapsing in a Thai guesthouse, being taken in by strangers with no common language, and the stark beauty of cycling across the Pamir Mountains.

Most of all, this is a story about why people step into the unknown, and what they learn about themselves when they do.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• How Chris attempted to row the North Atlantic without rowing experience.
• The realities of long-distance cycle expeditions across 21 countries.
• Surviving hurricanes, capsize, illness, and isolation.
• The role of human kindness and connection in endurance adventures.
• Reflections on risk, fear, and pushing beyond personal limits.

Resources & Links Mentioned

• Follow Chris on Instagram: @chrisinthecold
• Adventure Diaries on Instagram: @AdventureDiaries__
• Follow the show: Adventure Diaries Podcast

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, and don’t forget to 'Follow' the show. Every follow helps us bring more authentic stories of adventure, exploration, and the natural world.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Beginning of the Adventure
• 0:11 Meeting Ray and the North Atlantic Row
• 1:01 Unexpected Birthday Party in Tajikistan
• 1:38 Introduction to Chris McCaffery
• 3:13 Chris's Early Life and Sailing Beginnings
• 3:30 Growing Up in Atlanta
• 6:48 Transition to Adventure Sports
• 9:30 University and Environmental Sciences
• 10:37 The Rowing Expedition
• 16:06 The Hurricane and Rescue
• 21:52 Life on the Oil Tanker
• 29:44 The Global Cycle Expedition
• 36:07 Epic Journey Through North America
• 36:56 European Adventures and Challenges
• 37:53 Navigating the Middle East and Central Asia
• 38:05 Struggles with Borders and Visas
• 39:47 Health Challenges and Determination
• 40:13 Bike Repairs and Maintenance
• 41:36 Battling the Heat
• 45:18 Encounters with Wildlife
• 46:38 Severe Illness in Southeast Asia
• 55:43 Cultural Experiences in Central Asia
• 1:08:13 Reflecting on the Adventure
• 1:09:00 The Best Butter Chicken in India
• 1:11:48 Travel Mishaps and Funny Stories
• 1:13:55 Returning Home: Mixed Emotions
• 1:22:23 Future Adventures and Career Changes
• 1:23:42 Closing Traditions and Reflections

Transcript

 That kind of started this downward spiral into the long expeditions. And so I started keeping an eye out for the opportunities I may have. And so I found this guy Ray on a Facebook group actually, and he had been trying to row the North Atlantic. I remember waking up out of this, my, my, uh, my slumber to Ryan being like, oh, fuck.

And I had this few seconds where I was like, ah, like he's probably overreacting. Like it's fine. What could it be? It's been like gnarly for so long, it's not gonna be a big deal. And then after having that thought, I was just immediately airborne. And what had happened was a wave came on a different angle, but it was so violent that me being on the port side, which became the high side.

The ocean was so strong that it like flung me across, like up into the air and I hit the ceiling of the cabin. So for my birthday, I, I turned 24 and my, a connection through, actually the owner full cycle, connected me with a woman who runs that exchange program. She connected me with a guy that had come over to Boulder.

He is this big climber, but he lives in Deon Bay. He's from Tajikistan, and he just tells me he's gonna pick me up at whatever time for my hostel in Deon Bay. And I get in the car and there's five people in it. I have no idea where we're going. He was one of those where it's all right, we're just gonna, we're just gonna see what happens here.

He seems like a nice enough guy, and we end up at his mom's house and they were throwing me a party. 

Welcome to another episode of The Adventure Diaries. Today we're joined by Chris McCaffery, an adventurer whose life has swung from racing sailboats as a teenager. To taking on some of the most incredible human powered expeditions.

Chris once attempted to road in North Atlantic without ever having rode before in which he survived hurricanes, cap sizes, and an incredible rescue story that you need to stick around for. But most recently, Chris completed a 16 month global cycle across 21 countries in which he had to endure extreme heat illness, a variety of incidents and collisions, and yet still found amazing moments of connection and kindness and far-flung places like the South Road, the premieres, and across Southeast Asia.

Today you'll get a sense that true adventure is less about finishing lines and more about embracing challenges, the resilience, the cultures, and lives. Simple joys on the. So settle in and enjoy this fantastic conversation with Chris McCaffery, AKA, Chris, and Nicole. Chris McCaffery. Welcome to the Adventure Diaries.

How are you? 

Oh, I'm doing lovely. Thank you for having me. 

No, it's a pleasure. And following your journey for a while and yeah, reached out. So really keen to get into your global cycle. That really is the frame today. So Epic expeditions, 16 months, I think, 20 plus 21 countries or so. But before we get into that, I'd like to kinda step back and understand a little bit more about Chris, you know, your early life, some seed setting in your formative experience.

So I believe you were brought up in Atlanta, Georgia, but now you found your way to Colorado. So what was it like growing up in Atlanta? 

Yeah, growing up in Atlanta is interesting. Definitely pretty far from. From the mountains and, and most things adventurous, if you will. Yeah. I grew up sailing would really be the, kind of the beginning of it all.

My dad was a, a big sailor and my granddad growing up on Long Island Sound. And so it was important to him that I got out on, on the ocean and learned to sail. I remember he bought a little Walker Bay dinghy when I was like six and um, we'd go out to the lake and putz around and that was, that was the beginning.

And my mom's the same way. She's a big water skier, like competitive water skier. 

Yeah. 

And um, and so a lot of time on the water growing up and that eventually turned into racing dinghies, opties, if any sailors are out there. Mm-hmm. And my parents are super supportive of my racing. They loved going to the coast, I think.

And it's great community. Yeah. So I started racing, opties got progressively more, more serious. I'm not sure if they ever intended it to, to lead where, where it did, but. I got to travel like all over North America. Really? Yeah. That was fantastic and really cool way to grow up. 

Didn't know that at all.

Someone was messaging me on Instagram today and, and asked why I didn't have as many sailors on the show. Which is, which is quite You didn't act competitive then. 

Yeah, I was, that became quite competitive for me, going to these regattas and, and racing the single handed dinghies and then getting into lasers, which is like a more evolved dingy than an opti.

And my dad bought a Snipe, which is like a two person boat, and there's a yacht club on the little lake near Atlanta. And I'd, we'd go every weekend. Mm-hmm. And I'd either sail with him or one of the older guys was, was looking for crew. I'd be running around the, the yard, like trying to get on boats to race.

And that was really, that was really the beginning. And that was really cool because you've got like the lake sailing, but then obviously in summertimes. When you go to these bigger events on the coast, it's not just about the racing, but about like the whole experience. And it was so lovely. You get to meet so many different people, but also 14, 15, you finish up the day sailing and then there's, it's still beautiful al and so everyone's be.

Grabbing surfboards and going surfing and bodyboarding and a bunch of folks got really into kite surfing. And so I got a bit into that and becoming proficient at everything, at the whole lifestyle. And I feel like that, yeah, that, that was definitely the, the stepping stones to where we are now. 

Wow. What, what's, what's Atlanta in that lake then?

So besides the coast, in terms of lakes and stuff, what can I access to water? 

Pretty minimal. So Atlanta, for those who may not be familiar, is the capital city of the state of Georgia, which is in the American South. Kind of what you'd, when you picture like the American south, that's kind of like what Georgia is.

Atlanta is different in that it's super diverse and really quite large and very, just what you'd think of as a, a city. And so you're, you're driving probably an hour or two to get outta to a lake to go sailing or skiing. Uh, skiing on the water that said there is pretty good mountain biking and things.

And I got super into that. Uh, later on in high school, could learn how to drive and stuff and my friends would drive up to the trail centers and go ride bikes and stuff. And I was always, I loved that as well. I really just loved, loved sport in general. I, we grew up playing American football and that's pretty indistinguishable from my time growing up too.

'cause most of my experience in high school, I went to a school that valued that playing American football is pretty. Yeah, dominant of my time in, in high school as well. And so it's a lot more about the um, the team sports and stuff, but there is access to nature for sure. 

You seem to have quite a repertoire of kinda adventure sports type skills as well.

'cause you're, you've quite done a bit of like skiing, mountaineering, cycling and, and all that stuff. So has that been a gradual progression or is you just kind of trying your hand at most things? What, what's that like? 

Yeah, I think we can blame my parents for that actually. They're, it depends on your term, adventurous, but I would say they're both quite adventurous people and so it mattered to them that I grew up traveling and things and I was just super privileged to have that opportunity.

And so most years we would take a trip out to Colorado to go. To a ski resort to go to Keystone primarily. So that was where I got interested in the skiing. And it's quite different going on a four or five day holiday every year, every other year than skiing like a hundred days a year. 

I've never skied at all, but in two weeks time I've booked all of my family and there's about 10 of us, 8, 9, 10 maybe, going, uh, for our ski a skiing lesson as a family.

'cause we're trying to convince everyone to go on a skiing holiday rather than going to the sun. 'cause it's cold in Scotland. So we go to the sun most times. But I want to go and do a, a skiing holiday and a few of us do. So we're looking forward to doing that for the first time in a few weeks. Where are 

you going?

It's just in Glas, in a dry slope, unfortunately. But there is, we have less ski resort in Scotland. That has been pretty good, uh, in terms of, uh, snowfall. Eh this winter. But yeah, I think the, it will be the dry slopes first to see if people like it and then hopefully we can get up north. 

Yeah. Super cool.

I'm excited to hear how that goes. I, yeah, that'll be really cool. 

Coming back to your kinda story then, did you have a kinda plan in terms of what you wanted to do when you, when you kind started to grow up? Did you have a, a view in competitive sports and what was your plan? 

Yeah, so the plan through kind of high school, which is 14, 15 through 18 here in America, was American football.

Uh, was pretty competitive, going to college camps, going to play, well we call it college, you guys call it university. 

Yeah. 

Which is the primary stepping stone in terms of elite team sports in the United States. And I kind of fell outta love with football as I got on in high school a bit. I liked the team and I liked the environment, but I felt more called to the adventure stuff and the water and the mountains.

And so the plan definitely shifted around 17, 18, I decided I wasn't gonna. Try and play football at a higher level. And so then I was looking at going to university outside of Atlanta or outside of Georgia, so I was looking at a bunch of different universities, but I ended up coming to college here in Boulder, Colorado where I live now.

And the primary drive of that is I've got my window shade closed right now, but if I didn't, I can see the canyon, which defined American climbing for the past like 50 years, and I can go skiing like 30 minutes up that canyon as well. That then became kind of the plan in terms of what brought me here and then.

In terms of work and a life plan, I, I came to college to study environmental sciences. I was looking to get into environmental consulting or working in sustainability or like climate nonprofits and things like that, which has somewhat been the direction. But yeah. 

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It's taken a few turns for sure. 

How did the expedition come to be then? Were you drawn to do that? 'cause we're going to talk about the global cycle for sure, but I believe you had an attempt at rowing from New York to Ireland.

Yeah, so I guess stepping a bit back, so this is actually why I brought up the sailing thing because yeah, I think there's this thing in sailing competitive dinghy racing day cruisers, anything where the idea of circumnavigating or going on these long sailing trips is somewhat normalized. Obviously these are like intense long trips.

Not everyone's doing them, but when you grow up sailing and you, you read books of Robin Knox Johnston and these iconic sailors going on these adventures. The idea of the like long adventure, I think kind of seeped into my. Into my psyche, if you will. And so I've always wanted to do something like that. I, I remember talking to my, my dad growing up being like 14, 15, saying I wanted to sail around the world.

And my parents have always been supportive of that type of. Of thing, which has been really nice. And so I think that's where the, the expedition stuff, the interest came in. I'd done a little bit of, of, I did a through hike, I walked across Vermont in 2018, took like three weeks and I really enjoyed the doing that day in, day out, pursuing a goal.

And I wanted to kind of take that to the next level. I was working as a mountain guide going down kind of the guiding track in 20 18, 20 19. And then COVID happened. It kind of disrupted that I was actually supposed to be going back up to Alaska to work as a mountain guide again that like kind of COVID summer.

And then I didn't have any work. I was like living by myself and Colorado and I just needed something to do. And so I decided I was gonna start bike packing 'cause then I could be away from people and be safe and, and still have a bit of, a bit of adventure. So I got really psyched on, on bike packing then.

And that kind of started this downward spiral into the long expeditions. And so I, I started keeping an eye out for her. And, and so I found this guy Ray on a Facebook group. Hm. And he had been trying to row the North Atlantic. He's Irish and he was trying to row from his current home in New York City back to Dungarvin, where he grew up in Ireland.

Wow. And I thought the story was super compelling, kind of recognized that he'd been pursuing this and think he'd sort of tried twice and things had fallen apart logistically, or with crew and things like that beforehand. So I just shot him a message and he's told me that he had other people already lined up to join him on the boat, but that he already owned the boat.

That was my main thing. 'cause ocean rowing boats are really expensive. He told me he had other people lined up and that we'd stay in touch. We had a good phone call and he called me a couple days later and he was like, look, if you can, if you're committed to coming on this adventure with me, then I'll have you.

And so then my, my only requirement for him was that I could bring, like one of my best buddies I've been adventuring with for a while. I actually met guiding up in Alaska and then the three of us. Got on board and, um, decided to take a rowboat from New York City to Ireland. 

Had you met this guy before?

Just talked to him on, just talked to him on the phone. Met him on Facebook. Wow. And, uh, he had a nice accent, so I figured he must be trustworthy. 

Wow. So how did that unfold then, 

without spending the next like seven hours talking about this row? We spent a few months in, in Rockaway and Queens and New York City work, working on this boat, getting it ready and getting to know Ray, it was one of those things where within a few days, the team was, it was perfect.

It was ideal. For this type of project where it had been Ray's project for years, Ryan and I came in with our own different expertise. 'cause Ray hadn't done well. That's not true. Ray like was an ultra marathoner, but he hadn't done a multi-week or month long expedition before. And the team gelled really well and we got to have that month or two of getting to know each other, which is really nice and really important I think.

And then, yeah, so we set off from Rockaway in New York City and this rowboat is 24 feet long, or what is that? Seven meters ish. It has a small cabin in the back, just big enough to sit up in and the three of us can fit, like squeeze shoulder to shoulder in it and a storage cabin in the front, and two open rowing seats.

And so we set off, we had an. Not the worst storm, but not a great storm. After a couple days and we realized our electronic system wasn't substantial enough for what we needed, so we were quite close to Cape Cod at that point. So we'd rode up north toward Cape Cod and just got like a local tugboat to pull us in so we could work on our electronic system.

An amazing experience in Cape Cod. This, uh, lovely couple that had been following our, our row on Instagram and on our Garmin inReach and stuff reached out saying they lived there and they hosted us. 

Oh yeah, 

it was an amazing experience there. Fixed the boat, got a new system set off again from Cape Cod, and spent the next couple months rowing East Day in day out.

Crazy fog, crazy storms. The most incredible experience you could. Possibly have asked for, 

had any of you rowing experience before? 

Nah. None of us had ever rowed a boat before Rowings, like, you know, we figured we'd get a lot of practice when we were out there. See, so really you should keep your rowing as minimal as possible.

Therefore, you're like most psyched on rowing. 

Because I've spoken to a couple of people that have actually done this be before and, and including one guy who, who had, who, yeah. Had a couple of really horrendous experiences trying to roll across the Atlantic from east to west. But what, so how did you get on then, Chris?

How far did you get? 

Yeah, I think the total distance we were looking at was like 2,700 miles from mm-hmm. New York City to Ireland. And we'd made it probably like two thirds of the way across. It's difficult to judge distances. Yeah. 'cause it's not exactly a straight line because mm-hmm. You're rowing between the current systems.

But yeah, a bit of foreshadow of, we ultimately were unsuccessful. We got hit by a hurricane and had this pretty full on experience. We'd had like all these incredible experiences beforehand. And so this was, we were quite prepared for it, uh, emotionally and all those things, which was good. But, uh, yeah, so we knew this hurricane was coming.

Not really anything you can do about it, so we just, we were just gonna ride it out. You can use this thing called a, a drogue, which it mm-hmm. Like a chain sea. Yeah. Yeah. So you've got a sea anchor which goes off the bow and a drove, which goes off the stern. In ocean rowing, you're really relying on the currents and the winds and then you're kind of rowing with them to carry you because it's so hard to row against strong winds and current in a boat like this.

And so the winds were really favorable with this hurricane, so we're kinda psyched. Um, yeah, drogue, you hang off the stern and it just keeps the back straight and slows you down a bit, but allows you to still make forward progress. And so we were using a drogue and um, for the first 12 hours things were, things were pretty good.

It was, you know, big seas, five, seven meter swell, a couple bigger on occasion, so none of us were rowing, we're all like, locked down in the cabin When the meat of the storm hit, I remember I was asleep, I was asleep on the port side of the cabin, Ryan was awake and he was like on watch, just monitoring the situation.

And I think Ray was asleep or at least pretending to be asleep. He wasn't the best at sleeping in, uh, hairy situations. I was out like a rock. But, uh, I just remember. Yeah, yeah. Well, the actual quote was, I remember waking up out of this, my, uh, my slumber to Ryan being like, oh fuck. And I had this few seconds where I was like, ah, like he's probably overreacting.

Like it's fine. What could it be? It's been like gnarly for so long. It's not gonna be a big deal. After having that thought, I was just immediately airborne. And what had happened was a wave came on a different angle and the drug is holding us square on to the primary wind and wave direction. But when a wave comes from a different angle, it hit us on the side and like just threw the boat over.

Hold up. Yeah. 

We didn't fully capsize like we rotated back the way we went over. But it was so violent that me being on the port side, which became the high side, the ocean was so strong that it like flung me across, like up into the air and I hit the ceiling of, of the cabin. So I went from being sound asleep to being like on top of Ray on the ceiling of our boat.

And then we ride it back and I was like, oh my God, that was so scary. We're all freaking, you know, I was not freaking out, but I was, uh, it was an engaging experience for sure. And what actually ended up being the scariest was we had a auxiliary battery in the cabin, so we could use the boat's battery system to charge that up so then we could charge phones and things off of that.

Mm-hmm. That had gotten flung as well at a similar force and had missed Ryan's head. 

Geez, 

by like a foot. It hit the wall next to him, like right here. And that was pretty scary actually, because the, you know, weighs like 10 kilos. 

Mm-hmm. 

And I'd be bad to get hit like square in the face a thousand miles from the nearest land by something like that.

The rest of that day was pretty, pretty exciting for sure. We had a, a big wave came and it ripped the whole steering system off the boat, like broke the shackle that the chain was, the drove was chained onto, just snapped it, steel, snapped it straight in half the rudder system, which had been bolted metal onto the back of the boat, just totally gone.

So we switched to a sea anchor, we ride it out for the next, I think it was like 12 to 24 hours, but with no rudder. There's nothing stabilizing the back of the boat. So we're just swinging wildly like a trebuchet or a catapult. This back and forth. Geez. And we made it through, which is quite nice. And um, and then we got about rebuilding and Ryan is just a, a wizard.

He's a carpenter and contractor. It just amazing the way that he can see a problem or something that needs to be built and then also see how to fix it, is just like totally next level. We had a spare piece of wood that we could use to repair various things. It could replace a broken centerboard, it could replace a broken rudder.

We never considered a wave would be strong enough to actually rip like the entire steering system off the boat. And so Ryan takes like the scraps of this thing and this spare piece of wood and like builds an entire new rudder and steering system, like with Ray. And I like hanging him off the back of the boat, like in the water.

Wow. It was nuts. And he built it and it worked and we kept rowing and we made another, I think it was another like a week and change. 

Wow. And had 

another stormy night. All of us were in the cabin and we cut a wave at a weird angle and some water got in the boat and. And it damaged the electronic system, which had already been pretty badly damaged during that hurricane by by water as well.

And that it fried it and it was done. So we lost our ability to charge anything. We lost our ability to run the radio off, off charge. 

Mm-hmm. So we 

had this remaining battery in a radio and we had the remaining battery in a SAT phone. And we knew we had another probably month at sea to go and going into August and or going into September in the North Atlantic during hurricane season.

And we made a call to the Canadian Coast Guard just letting 'em know the situation, but that we would like to continue, but could they advise? And they said, actually there's another like big storm coming. You guys need to get outta there. We were like. Okay, great. Come pick us up. And they're like, nah, you're like, it's too dangerous.

You're too far out. You need to figure it out. And so we, we debated continuing, we debated what we should do, but really at the end of the day, it's, it's better to come home alive and get to chat with people on a podcast about it. So yeah, we, um, we uh, we, we contacted the Coast Guard again and got put in touch with an oil tanker, the Magnolia Express out of India.

They came and picked us up, like plucked us off the rowboat with a rope basket and then took us back to North America. 

And that 

was a lovely experience getting to hang out on a oil tanker for a couple weeks. 

Yeah, that's just, it's just bad fortune really. It's, you know, that, that's just really fortunate.

I mean, but that sounds like an epic experience. I actually capsized in a, a hit sea kayak in the middle of the, the North Atlantic getting hit side on an ex, not. Paying attention, struggling with it. The, the swell, it was just you had three, four meters and Yeah. My, I've just lost my faculties and upside down.

Uh, and it was, it wasn't the best experience. It was the best experience trying, trying to self rescue when you've got swell and, and all sorts. Uh, so the, the thought of being in a ca, I mean, my mind goes back to that and the thought of being in a cabin being thrown about is, uh, it is quite terrifying to think about that.

Yeah. 

Barney, uh, Barney, our boat, who is, is named after, uh, after his Ray's dad who had recently passed away. Barney cared for us for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Which was, uh, yeah. 

Wow. 

Which was good. Would you attempt that again, it's an interesting thing because I remember talk, chatting with Ray about this in many ways.

We had the full experience that we set out there to have. The only part of the experience we didn't get to have is finishing. 

Yeah. 

And in some ways finishing is finishings for other people anyway. 

Yeah, exactly. Finishings for 

the people who care about it and support you and 

yeah, 

finishings for the ego and, and the temporary joy 

past the outlook on it.

It's a fantastic outlook because imagine you, you imagine you went through without any of that experience. Would it be as good as a type two reflection? Maybe not. 

Yeah, I don't know. I would, uh, I'd choose the experience we had and not finishing over not having as meaningful an experience in finishing for sure.

Were you dealing with any of that in the dark points? 'cause you're talking about you were kinda 1224 hours at points anchor potentially. Were you dealing with that in the dark? Oh 

yeah. I mean, we were in the hurricane for like a day and a half. 

Yeah. 

Shit. But we had a lot of the storms always seem to hit at like one in the morning.

Yeah. Which is maybe just a, a psychological thing because when the waves are big and the winds ripping Yeah. In the middle of the day, then. You can just have a bit of a party about it and enjoy it. Yeah. Where at night we were usually, we were often alone on the oars so that people could try and get more sleep.

'cause we, we would row in, in shifts and, and two hour shifts. And then at night we would do a three hour shift so that each person could get a six hour block. And that would be, and then you, you know, you gotta eat, you gotta take care of yourself. So realistically you're maybe getting like four hours of sleep in that window.

Yeah. And that'd be like your sleep for the day. Pretty much. 

How did you deal with, with the actual physical side of, of the, because if you hadn't really done that mentally. Tough, but physically that must have been tough. 

We were training beforehand for sure. Okay. Listeners can't see. I have the ideal build for, for this type of thing.

I'm like pretty big. Muscular. I'm, I'm not a runner, let's say that. And uh, and so that was, I mean, that's an advantage. And we all tried to like, put on weight beforehand 

mm-hmm. 

And get in the gym, get on the rowing machine beforehand. It's really, it's not even the muscles that were the biggest issue, it's salt sores and blisters on your hands that are, can people have had to bail on, on ocean rowing trips because of those?

Yeah, because a salt soar from sitting on the seat, moving back and forth can go from an annoying pain to like, seriously, like a serious issue by becoming infected and developing, you know, sepsis can kill you and. And managing that is really critical. We used, we had a, we were fortunate, we had a great sponsor all good.

They make like really, really high end skincare products, all natural, all that type of stuff. 

Mm-hmm. 

And we were putting, um, their product is called Goop. We were putting goop on our, on our hands friction points. Mm-hmm. And it seemed to work fantastic. Mm-hmm. I think I still have calluses from like four years ago.

But yeah, it's definitely more of a, a mental experience, that type of trip in many ways. Like we were in the fog off the banks of Nova Scotia and the grand banks. Like weeks where you can't see more than like a hundred feet and there's just like foghorns in the night and 

yeah. You, 

you can see how the old sailors' tales of, of sirens and krakens and things.

What was it like when the tanker picked you up? What was that experience like? 

Oh, it was so gnarly. Risk is an interesting thing because as humans we're not always the best at, at identifying it. How is sketchy getting from a like 20 something foot robo onto a massive like chemical tanker? Yeah, 

I know.

Just a thought that is just 

lowered a like literal rope basket off the side in swell. It's so sketchy and uh, I remember Ryan went first, the basket like swung if I'm, it's one of those things, the memory's kind of a blur, but I have a memory of the basket swinging and Ryan kinda like catches it and then just jumps and.

Or we're like banging up against the side of this tanker. I'm like, nah, I can't do that. Like, there's no way. And, um, then of course, like you figure it out and you just jump in and, and it worked out there a bunch 

of guys pulling up. Then how, how did that They had like 

a winch system. A winch? Yeah. Okay.

It's, it's actually how they, how they carry like baskets I think like, like food and stuff into the tanker, um, if I'm not mistaken. Ah, okay. But they, they also trained, these are super, highly skilled mariners, but it was pretty engaging for sure. And then we're in this tanker and it's, we're in the basket of the side of the tanker and the tanker's rocking.

You like swing out away from the tanker and it's like, 

oh, 

if you come 

smashing back in peak, if you had that, you'd had a GoPro or something on that would've been pretty epic each. Yeah, totally. 

Yeah. I should, I should have done, I was, I was technically in charge of the filming stuff, but um, we were a bit distracted trying not to parro.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. What, uh, what was the reception like when you got on? Did, did you get booed or applauded or put into this Oh, that 

we were, everyone was super nice and bringing his jackets and, and then we had to take a, we had to do like COVID testing stuff. 

Alright. Shit. Despite 

the fact we've been at sea for like two months, which I mean makes sense.

They need it for their paperwork, but, um, yeah, it's 

crazy. 

And we had to do that and, and then we went down to the, like the mess hall and it's all Indian crew except one guy from Georgia. It was the security officer. It was a pretty funny experience 'cause they all had like these like, just incredible smelling.

We'd been eating like, you know, these like expedition foods, like dehydrated stuff. And now all of a sudden there's these smells of, of like Tika Masalas and Saag and, and Shauna Masala like the, you know, the chickpeas. 

Wow. 

And they bring us our dinner and they'd, the chef had really generously like, prepared us what he thought Americans ate, which was like boiled unseasoned, like carrots, broccoli, and chicken.

And like, we, we were very hungry. And so it was, it was very delicious. So we finished our meal and then we saw there was like, you know, still some of the Indian food going around. 

Yeah. 

And uh, we were like, oh, could we maybe like have some like. And they were so excited that we knew what so was. 

Oh, wow. 

Yeah.

Which is like a spinach dish from India. Yeah. And then we gorged ourselves on Indian food for the next like week. It was amazing. 

Oh, wow. Wow. They threw, 

they, they don't have alcohol on board and they threw as a, a party and I don't think anyone has, has ever gone harder off of a alcoholic beer than, than those guys do for sure.

But yeah, it was a lovely experience and oh, that was excellent. 

Really thankful 

for them. Of course. 

Perfect baseline. Before we get into the kinda crux of today, so the, the global cycle, so what was the time, when did you finish the cycle? Chris, can you I've finished the cycle 

in November and it's February.

So yeah, like three months ago 

and that was about 16 months, so that, yeah, I left 

in June of 2023. 

Yeah. So you, a few years between both those expectations. Yeah. With the rows in 

2021, so I had a couple years. 

So how did that come about then? What was, what where'd the seed of that come from and had you done much bike pack in a cycling?

Well, I went back to uni, finished and graduated and had a pretty, that was important, I mean important for myself as well, but really important for my parents. And so I wanted to go back and do that and mm-hmm. They've just supported me so much with education my whole life. So it felt important that I went back and finished that, particularly given all the opportunities I had to do so.

And that said, I am not very good at the environment of school. Doesn't really play to my strengths, particularly from like a mental health standpoint. And so I like got through it. But I knew I needed a carrot at the end. I actually left on my ride around the world I at, so I left at 10:00 AM on a Saturday, and I turned in my final paper for university at 8:00 PM on that Friday before.

And so that was, that was the time in between and working in the outdoor industry and fortunate do some other like, sailing stuff up in the Arctic and a lot of ski touring and ski mountaineering and things. Mm-hmm. And the in between. But, um, I made this list, uh, a few years ago of what I thought were the hardest, I guess phrase it slightly differently, there's rugby, for example, I've, it's like my favorite sport to watch.

It's kind of clear what the pinnacle is. If you're growing up in, in the UK or in Scotland and you're a rugby player and you want to. Feel the pinnacle of rugby, like you're gonna play in the Six Nations for Scotland, or growing up in, in Ireland or England, maybe making like the British and Irish lions and getting to go on tour with them.

Like that feels like the pinnacle. It's less obvious what the pinnacle is and the adventure stuff. And so for whatever reason, maybe it was 'cause Ida gone through like kind of a challenging breakup, but uh, I made this list of like what I thought the absolute hardest things that someone could do in the like, adventure space were, it was like, okay, Rowan Ocean.

Okay, but other people row oceans, like, what's the hardest ocean to row? And it's like either like the full Pacific or the North Atlantic. And the full Pacific takes too long. So North Atlantic, it west, there's a few like 8,000 meter peaks that the ski descents are, are quite technical. There's some eight climbing roots and, or I should say like big wall roots made that list and then riding a bicycle around the world was on there.

I had the opportunity particular like with graduate university and, and my parents were to help support with some stuff after university and I knew I like had this opportunity and the opportunity cost was relatively low given that I didn't really have much of a career outside of guiding and working on ski boots and working for ski companies and stuff.

But I wasn't stepping away from, from a track that was gonna significantly impact my career. I was going to just finish university and it seemed like the riding a bicycle around the world was ever gonna do it. The time was then. 

What did your parents say when you said, were they quite supportive of your plan to do that?

Yeah. 

You hesitated there. There must have been a, 

I think there's other things they're psyched that I don't do, if that makes sense. 

Yeah. 

Like, I dunno, I don't, I don't really drink, well, I don't drink at all. I don't party or anything like that. I just ride bikes and ski and there's, and there's lots of, and I think that they, particularly with this, with the, around the world, both of them felt like, well, A, it looks pretty sweet on a resume in general.

Mm-hmm. But also it's just such a cultural experience that I think they thought would, would be important for me to have like through. Later in life. 

Um, uh, yeah, I've got, yeah, I'm gonna come to that actually, in terms of like, if you think about where, so if you think about, I won't ask it now, but if you think about your baseline as a character, mental wellbeing, you know, outlook in life.

Pre and post that and we'll, we'll come, come back to that. 'cause I think that is, it's to see how much you think, you think it might have changed you for better or worse or, or whatever. Because it's, I mean, of mammoth undertaken and you know, some of the countries that you've gone through and the cultural experiences and we'll touch on some of, some of that touch on the route itself.

'cause I think you started in. Us. And was it, and you came back full circle, didn't you? You came back to kinda where you started, but was it into Canada, France, Italy, Croatia, Turkey, through the stands, India, and then Asia, Thailand and Australia. So did you plan it out then and, 'cause there's countries, you could have, other countries you could have went to and things that you missed.

So just can you understand how you, you planned that out, Chris? 

Yeah, so one of the things that my dad was gonna help me, like with the financial side of it, and one of the things we, we agreed on was that I was gonna give him like a plan. I was gonna try and stick to it. In hindsight, it was way too ambitious.

It's one of those things that like if everything went perfect every day, it was the ideal plan. Nothing went perfect on like almost any day. And so, which was foreseeable of course, but um, yeah, yeah. So actually my original plan was to take seven less months, ride, 3000 less miles. And I was gonna go like a totally different route through Asia, more or less.

Totally different route. But yeah, so the route I ended up. We can start with, I started in Boulder, Colorado from this bike shop called Full Cycle. 

Mm-hmm. 

It's one of the kind of premier bike shops in Colorado, which is the premier cycling state. And they were supporting me beforehand, helping me with, with parts and resources and things, which is super helpful because otherwise it'd be so hard building a bike up and figuring all that out on my own, not being a bike mechanic.

Yeah. 

And so Full Cycle has this awesome cafe bar hangout cycling space. So I left from there and headed east with the goal of cycling to St. John's, Newfoundland. I've been going to Newfoundland and I've been to Newfoundland for, I guess, work slash expedition, somewhere in the middle doing like some sailboat delivery stuff.

Um, and, and going up to Greenland in the past. And I really valued going to St. John's. And St. John's is also the eastern most point in North America. In my opinion. It looks like aesthetically pleasing on a map ride there. And so I set off East Road from Boulder through the Midwest, pretty spicy, crazy like tornadoes and weather and stuff through New England and Crazy Rains and into Nova Scotia and Canada.

I went past Niagara Falls and mm-hmm. That was a really cool experience. And riding in Nova Scotia is just these crazy rains. And the roads was like, I found it came upon roads that were just totally washed away and that was pretty intense. And uh, then took the ferry to Newfoundland, rode this epic route called the Newfoundland Trailway, which is this removed, they've pulled this old logging railroad out, and now it's just this dirt trail that goes to St.

John's. And that was just epic. I love Newfoundland so much and I love the people there. And I got to hang out with folks I'd met before and that was lovely. And then I flew to Paris, and now the original plan was to ride from Paris to Hong Kong. I had two original plans. One was to derived from Paris to the south of India and then fly to.

Australia from there. And then I realized, um, I was gonna ride 15,000 miles. Then I was like, yeah, let's go for 18, because 15,000 miles is the original definition of riding a bicycle around the world. But in the recent years, they've upped that to 18 for the like Guinness record. Mm-hmm. And so I just wanted to sit somewhere in between 15 and 18.

And so the original plan was ride through Europe, through Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, take the ferry across the Caspian Sea through the STAs, up into around through Kazakhstan, Almadi, and then through China. Europe worked out relatively well. Super hot. Some things didn't go great. I broke a wheel like just before Bulgaria and had to like fly over Bulgaria, which is a bummer.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna go back and ride that section someday. Yeah. But I flew to Istanbul and uh, and then continued east from there. That was incredible. Turkey's just such an amazing country. Met so many amazing people. Beautiful mountains there going along. The Black Sea was cool into Georgia, Georgia's epic, and then the Azerbaijani border was closed.

And that kind of set the precedent for the next chunk of the trip because border issues are a real challenge. They're a challenge for the people that live there. And obviously, but for my trip they presented a, a conundrum for sure because there's a lot of time where you can push things but you just dunno how far you can push things.

Mm-hmm. Um, and there wasn't really anywhere to push with Azerbaijan, to be honest. So I flew from Tbilisi, well I flew from Tbilisi back to Istanbul 'cause I had needed to have a layover 'cause there's no direct flights to where I wanted to go. Like the closest city in Kazakhstan to where I'd, where I had to get on a plane.

So I, and then I ended up spending a couple weeks in, in Istanbul on that layover, which was really lovely. Flew to Tau and Kazakhstan on the Caspian Sea. And that was really the meat of the trip, if you will. But yes, I rode tau to Deon Bay. Tajikistan couldn't get a visa for Tajikistan, which meant I couldn't get a, a permit to cross the full Pamir highway.

The Taji Chinese border was closed. The Taji Kgi border was closed. The Kgi Chinese border was closed, and the, and I couldn't get a Kazakhstan Visa to go back into Kazakhstan, so I couldn't get into China that way. I then also, I was gonna fly to China, but then I found out that I wasn't gonna be allowed to ride through like, large sections of China, like a thousand mile chunks, two 600 mile chunks on like a thousand mile chunk, but like, was gonna be very difficult.

So I ended up rerouting, flying down to India, riding through India and Nepal, and then down through Southeast Asia to Singapore. Yeah. And then I did Australia. Flew to LA and rode back to Boulder. Is the, uh, mid-length version of, of the route I rode 

coming back to, what was the name of the bike shop, Phil?

Was it full cycle bikes? Yeah, it's 

called Full Cycle. 

Full Cycle? Yeah. 'cause I've seen the, the pre and post photos and the, the welcome party when you came back and stuff. S did you have with bike repairs or, 'cause you're not a bike mechanic or anything like that, and I, and I've seen from various stories you the amount of bike shops and repairs and all that stuff that you had to contend to.

So, so what did, what did you leave with in terms of spare parts and how practical are your skills in terms of repairing 

Cooper? My mechanic. So mechanic at full cycle 

Yeah. 

Helped because we built my bike frame up together. 

Mm-hmm. 

And he was showing me how he was doing everything and he would generally show me the bike mechanic way of doing things.

And then the. Chris, who's not very good at working on bikes. Way of fixing things. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Which to be honest, like worked great, but I mean, I grew up, I grew up riding bikes and, and then riding mountain bikes in particular. And, uh, so I, I can fix like the most basic things I can fix a broken chain. Yeah.

I can change a tire, stuff like that. And yeah, I brought basically the minimal spares that I thought I could get, get away with a couple spokes, a bunch of spare tubes if I got a flat and needed to change a tube, um, and one spare tire in case I like cooked a tire, I needed to put it on. And overall the bike looked, worked quite well.

We chose components based on durability. 

Mm-hmm. 

And. That worked. Yeah, that worked great. 

Did you have to consider, like te, because I know you were in a f you were in a few very, very hot places. Did did that become a factor in terms of like the, the spears or the tires or, or anything like that at all?

Because I know you'd have quite a few punctures and stuff like that as well and that's just to be expected naturally. 

But yeah, I am the only place it, it did that. Like the heat was mostly a personal thing. 'cause I'm just horrible at dealing with the heat. My Instagram handle is Chris in the cold for a reason.

Yeah, I know. And you, and you, I think you heat stroke or something, didn't you at some point as well? Yeah, I 

uh, I got pretty heat strokey in, uh, in Italy. It was like pretty, pretty heinous. I was like, yeah, we can, yeah, we can get in that stir. Like yeah, I was in Italy and uh, I just got so hot. It was so hot.

It was like 43 Celsius. Which is what, like 106 Fahrenheit or something? Yes, huge. It was like 38 at night or something crazy and I was just not cooling down in between days for a couple days. And I just had this one day where, yeah, I'll spare people the, the graphic details for sure. But things were, were not right in my body.

And uh, yeah, I was just like writing like 10 minutes and I'd like pull over and just like throw up all over some bush. It was horrible. And I, I, yeah, I ended up uh, having to take a bit of time there for sure to recover. Yeah. The body didn't do well with the heat. The only time the bike didn't do well with the heat is I tried to ride on like the interstate in America briefly.

'cause I was trying to get around this like, narrow country road that had a bit of traffic. I was kind of nervous about it. Interstate is a wide shoulder. I was like, oh, it'll be fine. Didn't consider that. So many cars driving on the interstate. The rubber of the tires embeds into the road and it was like 39 Celsius.

Oh. Melting and 

sunny. And so my tires started picking up like the chunks of. Car tire that had, were like melting out of the pavement. And uh, I, it gotta to the point where like, I couldn't ride my bike because the ti my tires had become so like thick with a rubber goop that they were melting with. Uh, but other than that, other than that, it was, it was fine.

And, and the bike did, I chose this bike because it's super versatile. 

Yeah. What type of bike was it? Is it, it's 

a brand called Oso. They're um, yeah, smaller frame manufacturer. It's a steel kind of gravel ish touring bike. Lighter end of touring, but durable end of gravel. 

Yeah, I was gonna say. So it was durable enough to, or fraud 

ish?

It's designed to be able to ride it on trails and stuff. Yeah. I dunno if it's designed to be able to ride it on trails with 220 pound person. It's like a hundred kilos and yeah, a bunch of luggage and stuff. But the bike did great. It's sitting next to me now. And that's, uh, ah, 

excellent. Uh, a couple of quick, actually before I forget, because where you were in, I can't remember if it was maybe Thailand or somewhere, but you were somewhere where the, you had to, you were in a bike lane that was also used by motorbikes as well?

I'm pretty sure. So, so did you have to cycle alongside motorbikes amongst 

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That was actually kind of a net positive. Yeah. Uh, that was both in Thailand and in Vietnam where they, the roads that kind of go places are these kind of main artery roads. Mm-hmm. But the way it works is you have a shoulder and then you have kind of a slow moving vehicle lane.

Mm-hmm. 

Which is the motorbike, scooters and me, and then you've got the cars. Yeah. And then you've got like tuk-tuks and then you've got cars. And that actually felt super safe because the, like heavy vehicles that will like crush you if they hit you. 

Yeah. 

Were kind of separated, although it did get a bit engaging 'cause you are like riding along, going relatively slowly and there's just a stream of scooters like flying past.

But, um, yeah. 

Yeah. Yeah. And what, and you had some experiences with the local wildlife in, in Thailand, aggressive dogs. What, what was that? All it? Yeah, I 

had some, I had some rather spicy encounters with dogs. I uh, in particular, I had one encounter where I thought this dog was on a leash 'cause it was standing with a person.

But the le owner had unclipped the leash already. They were like in their yard. And as I rode past, the dog saw me and just like bolted and, uh, it bit like my panier and I tried to like sprint away. 

Oh. 

And uh. It like pulled me a little bit and then like caused me to crash pretty hard. And uh, and so I went down and I just saw this dog still coming.

So I grabbed the bike and like pulled the bike over me as this dog was like going to jump on me and as soon as I grabbed the bike it kinda like backed off. 

Geez. 

But that was pretty, that was pretty engaging for sure. I didn't do too much damage to the bike, but scraped, uh, scraped myself up and scraped the bike up a bit.

Can I scrape you? You were pretty ill, weren't you at one point as well? I think you'd food poisoning from what I recall. But you also turned it to, you contracted typhus as well, was it wasn't. Yeah, so that 

was, uh, that's kind of the other major thing of the ride that's been pretty defining. I was on pace for that like year-ish time, 13 month time that I wanted until I got really sick.

So I ended up in the hospital in Hanoi. Like the most vivid memory I have of that is I'd gone to the hospital, I had this fever, they gave me medication for the fever. My dad had got me this nice hotel, so I wasn't in like some hostile. Just way, way better for recovering. Mm-hmm. In the hotel, obviously I'd been to the hospital, go back to the hotel like a day later.

I'm feeling way sicker. So I talked to the hotel, I was like, you know, is there any concierge? I was like, is there anything, like, what should I do? Is there like a international hospital? And they were like, yes, this is the one you should go to. So I went to the hospital and they admitted me, did a bunch of tests.

I had some weird stuff. Swollen liver, swollen spleen. Geez. Like weird blood work. And I was diagnosed with dengue fever, go back to the hotel and like three days later I'm just not getting better. I felt really sick. Like I'm, I like, felt like I was dying. Go to the, go back to the hospital. I'm sitting in, it's kind of waiting room and I cough and it's just this like dark red, like clotted blood type thing.

Mm God. And I just like dribble like. I just like cough blood onto myself. And this like Vietnamese nurse who didn't speak any English, her eyes were just like saucers. Mm-hmm. And then they like actually admitted me, then did a bunch of tests, still thought it was dengue. I recovered a bit, but they gave me like an IV and stuff to like really properly regulate this fever I had.

So I had a fever for a couple weeks, recovered more or less, and then eased my way back onto the bike. Was then just like really sick. And after about a month of on the bike, I think I kind of just like, my body sort of broke. I just, a whole bunch of weird stuff. I started like gaining weight, like crazy, like riding, even like riding the bike was gaining weight and couldn't really eat.

I was nauseous all the time and it was really the worst thing. I was really dizzy and like brain foggy and uh, yeah. So I was in, near in Thailand and staying with this like local family and uh, I had gone to like the seven 11 to get a sandwich and I was walking back and, uh, walked into my room. And the whole place felt like it was just swimming.

And then I got this like black spots that started like crawling up from the bottom of my vision and I was like, oh, this is really not good. I actually thought I had, it was going into shock from a lack of salt, so I'd had a, a bad sunburn and it was riding long way. It was hot. So through my like rescue insurance, I have access to a doctor.

I talked to a doctor and they kind of noted that I was just devolving as we were talking. And so then they spoke to the family I was with. For me, the mom of this family takes me to what I thought was gonna be like the large regional hospital because I thought I was dying for sure. And uh, it turned out to be this like open air clinic and uh, I have this pretty distinct memory of like getting put on this like rolling bed and like looking at the wall and there's just like lizards and stuff on the wall and I was like, alright, this is it.

That's really unfortunate. And then I woke up and then I was out and I woke up the next morning and the mom was still like standing beside the bed. She'd been there like the whole night. Wow. Just standing there. Didn't really speak English, like couldn't communicate with me, but had spent the whole night with me in this like hospital.

And apparently they'd done blood work and stuff and given me an IV and coaxed me through it. And at that point I kind of had this decision of do I go home and just end this trip or do I continue? And the family took care of me for another couple days, you know, bringing me breakfast, lunch, and dinner and, and caring for me, which was just fantastic, obviously.

And, and the world over. 

That was 

amazing. We're just super generous. And, um, yeah, so I, uh, I stayed with them for a couple days and I improved a lot. A, like a lot, but I was still just really out of it mentally. And, um, I came to this place where I realized that I'd gone through the rural parts. There was no more extremely rural other than like these two spots.

And I was so close to Singapore and I'd been on this adventure for so long and I'd put so much into it and I'd, I'd had so much risk elsewhere. Like, we could talk about it later if you'd like, but like, I was hit by a car in Uzbekistan. Like I, I'd Wow. It felt like, it felt like I'd been through so much the possibility of like, not finishing, like for, for better or worse.

I, I mean, to be honest, like totally worse. I remember feeling like really like disappointed in myself, but like having this thoughts, but like the thought of like going home and like not finishing. It felt like worse than like dying. It felt like the worst thing I could possibly imagine. And if there was any chance that I could finish this ride, I was gonna take it.

And that was a pretty, it was a really heavy experience. There was three or four days of just like really heavy. And, um, so I stayed with the family, stayed in this place where I knew I could generally get care and, uh, got better enough where I realized like, okay, like if I'm like, if this is gonna get worse, I'm probably gonna experience it getting worse.

And if I continue on the ride, I'm only going towards more opportunities 

Hmm. 

To like go home to bail to get healthcare. And so I kind of talked myself into it and, uh, and continue towards Singapore. Which was, yeah, brutal. It was like a thousand or 1200 miles I think. Wow. To jump on, 

did they give you medication or anything?

Even if they misdiagnosed it? Did they give you like antibiotics or what, what was it? What was the 

They gave me some medication, but it wasn't the correct one, unfortunately. Yeah. Which is kind of where we're at now, I feel. Yeah. So I, I got much worse, but I made it to Singapore, flew to Australia, winter gp, 'cause I got worse again when I got to Australia.

I think I like worked myself into this head space where, mm-hmm I mean it's like mind over matter. I had like convinced myself the only thing that mattered was getting to Singapore and finishing riding bicycle across Asia, which I did and that felt like incredible. But then when I didn't have that like immediate nugget, I just like collapsed.

So I went to a doctor in Australia. Australia has great healthcare and props to this doctor. He was like. That doesn't sound like dengue. And he looked through their notes. He looked through the, and he was, he was right. And he ran a bunch of general screens that can kind of tell you the general generic type of disease that someone might have.

And I tested positive for like a Rickett seal disease. And he sent me to a infectious disease specialist too. Over a number of visits, we were able to lock in what I'd actually had and found the site where like a tick had bitten me on my leg and we were able to figure it out. And then the issue with, with typhus is you'll kind of just keep relapsing.

Mm. And each one will get worse. If you don't, each one will get worse to point, then you can, if eventually you can clear it. But then they gave me like a 21 day course of this specific antibiotic and that really helped. 'cause then I stopped having the fevers and all that stuff. Still had the kind of neurological symptoms.

So started working with a, actually a concussion specialist. I doing like physical therapy for my eyes and stuff. And that improved, I'd say probably 50%. And um, I always remember I was supposed to have a follow-up appointment with this doctor one week and I just decided like, screw it. Like I'm gonna alter my plans for Australia.

We're not gonna ride across the outback. We're gonna ride at the East coast. I'd been coming south from Hanoi anyway. Let's like meet those two lines riding up the east coast of Australia. It'll get me the same, it's shorter but good enough distance and it'll be maybe even better experience. 'cause Australian coast is lovely.

And uh, I called the doctor and I was like, Hey, like I think I'm just gonna get back on the bike. Like, do you think, like, what do you think about that? And this doctors, it was great. He was like, I think that's a really, a really good idea. And I went, it was pretty brutal. Definitely still pretty sick, but it wasn't nearly as sick as I had been finished.

And then, yeah, I was able to, I was able to get it done. My dad came out and helped me across the American West 'cause I was just really weak. 

Yeah, 

I could ride the bike, but doing things that weren't riding the bike were pretty hard. Even like holding a glass of water was becoming difficult for me. 

Have you recovered from that, Chris?

Or is there any lingering effects from that? 

Yeah, I do have some like lingering effects. I actually got a call yesterday that I've got like some, they found like some damage to my liver and some stuff like that. I ended up working with this great, great neurologist. Really like did all this testing, dialed in exactly what he felt was causing it, and gave me medication decem like late December.

I started taking it early January and it takes like a couple weeks to take effect. 

Mm-hmm. 

And I'm 90% better since then. 

Oh great. 

Yeah. And so it's one of those things where it's like, should I have just like flown home from Hanoi, gotten the treatment. Gotten this medication then gone back, like sure. That would've been an option.

Yeah. I feel, yeah, super thankful that it's worked out quite well and it's, uh, I was amusing on that yesterday. It's like, yeah. Wow. Just incredible. How, how much better I feel now that I've gotten, you know, good treatment stuff. So 

excellent cover you then, now that you've got that targeted and you've got the right healthcare medication for it.

That's, uh, you mentioned being hit by a car. Was, it was Stan, what was 

that? Yeah, yeah, that's another, uh, exciting story I used. I was riding, uh, central age is just incredible. I guess the kind of long answer to this is yeah, central age is incredible. Yeah. It's, it's really like the meat and potatoes of the ride if, if you will.

Yeah. Remember leaving tau and you just headed off into the desert and there's just camels and scorpions and it's uh, it feels otherworldly. And I took this dirt, this like dirt sand dish road and it had all been like washed away like years ago. So I carried my bike over this wash. And then the dirt road was still there because it used to access as power line, but like no cars could get down it anymore.

Yeah, I think it was a little bit longer than that, but I was just like by myself on this road that was totally inaccessible to anyone else that wasn't on a bike. It felt so surreal. And, and I go to the ride to the border with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan go into Uzbekistan and Western Uzbekistan doesn't actually have like a paved road to get through it.

It's just this like dirt track through the sand and uh, and so I just like, just set off on this like, so difficult to describe that feeling. It felt so ethereal. 

What was that like? Because you must have been going through like, you know, coming from the west, going through places that are quite populous, quite well developed to places that are probably.

Data sector world or other worldly lack of infrastructure and stuff like that. What, what, what was that like mentally? 

I mean, 

culturally even, what, what was your interactions like? 

To be honest, that part of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan isn't third world. It's, it's no world. 

Yeah. 

There's no one there. 

Yeah. 

And so I actually, I did have one really cool cultural experience, which was, I was, I had seen, uh, off in the distance a couple times, folks on, on horseback, and, uh, I'd seen one of them traditional cozak garb with eagles and falcons on their hands and shoulders.

And, uh, one of them had like. Raised his hand and like waved to me and he's got this like, I think he was a falcon and I was like, wow, this is, this is cool. And uh, and so at that point I was riding along, it's like this two lane paved road that goes to the Uzbek border on the Cozak side. And this like really nice, I think it was white Range Rover, like new fancy Range Rover pulls over and it was the eagle hunters and uh, and like perfect, like slightly British English.

They were like, yeah, like we live in, we live in Dubai and like sell, I forget what it was like tech software, but. Our grandparent, like our lineage is from here. So we come out once a year to go eagle hunting and that was pretty cool culturally. 'cause it's, it's cool that both can exist, you know? Yeah. But other than that it's, it's tough to have cultural experiences when, like culture's tied to people 

when you were just traveling through whether many places that you stayed for maybe days or weeks or a time to try and immerse yourself 

overall.

Yes. In Central Asia now I was just, I was just, uh, in the, in the tent every day. Ride the next day I'm just crossing 'cause it's so long. It's like a couple thousand miles of desert maybe lost like 1800 miles anyway. 

Mm-hmm. 

It's a long way of just desert on that side of it, it kind of becomes more developed.

Hit the city called Cus and this was actually, there is where I was hit by the car. You get like these. Then it becomes, you know, paved roads and stuff. I was riding along the shoulder of this road and this guy kinda like drifted over and drifted off into the dirt on the side of the road and, and clipped me, like going highway speed.

Pretty scary. I like bounced off the car and then bounced back into him, which kinda like kept me upright, like his car kept me upright. Yeah. Overall I was, I was pretty okay. I was pretty shook up for maybe like 20 minutes and then I realized I was gonna call the police and it was like, what's that gonna do?

I couldn't feel my hand and I'd like bent my bars. Was a little nervous about that. 

Did he stop? But I realized like, did they stop to help you? 

Yeah, they did and, and I feel kind of bad about it. I was pretty up in the guy's face, but I was just really shook up. Yeah. And he was just very apologetic. But, um, it all evened out in the end and yeah, we shook hands and he went on his way.

But, uh, then I realized like, what am I, what am I gonna do? Like quit. Yeah. Like. Even if I'm gonna quit, I'm gonna have to ride a bike like 400 miles. Like to buka. Yeah. And so, uh, I just got back on the bike and kept going. 

Planning this. Were you back at the beginning, did you, for, were you expecting that you were gonna have some bumps and scrapes and hospital visits and stuff?

What, what was your outlook on it? 

To be honest, no. I thought I was pretty naive. I think. Mm. I thought that I would better be able to control risks. That's the thing I love about, about the mountains, particularly the ski mountaineering and things. It feels like risk is so in your, in your hands in many ways.

Obviously there's, there's dangers that exist that aren't obvious. There's avalanches. Yeah, things like that. But you can always choose to back off. You can always choose to make different decisions. You can choose to have a plan B, a plan C, a plan D. That's still exciting enough to want to go ski it or climb it or, or whatever it may be.

But I realized that plan B and plan C and plan D on this trip we're still like, just scary in many ways. But it felt overall scary and intense, but it felt day to day manageable. And so I just focused on that. And um, 

so in terms of your planning and then what was your comms situation like? Did you have like, you know, just your cell phone and an inReach or something?

How did you plan all that in terms of, 'cause you must have been in very remote places at times. 

Yeah, that's a good question. To be honest, my cell phone worked like pretty much the whole way. Got one of like the phones with the eims. Ah, okay. So you can just get like the international plan. So it just changes each country.

Yeah. 

And it worked great. 

Yeah. Amazing. 

Like, I'd say almost every day it worked. Even in pretty wild places, which is, it's funny, interesting. 

I did, so I, I'm thinking pr probably like 2008 maybe, or as far back in that when I was in Vietnam mm-hmm. With my wife. I think it was at the time we, we had like 5G or or whatever it was when it first came out and we had like perfect reception and it was all blackberries at the time.

I think it was before the iPhone actually. And I remember perfect reception, uh, out in the jungle and stuff like that. Which is yeah, pre preconceptions, getting away some sometimes. But 

that was very cool. As I moved further east along the Silk Road, there's this great, yeah, there poem. I think it's Marco Polo, not the Golden Road to SummerCon, because SummerCon is really the spiritual heart of this Silk road.

Yeah. Many roads go Silk Road, many paths go many different ways connecting east and west. But pretty much all of them go through the redon of SummerCon. I was just like on this aesthetic voyage there. Yeah. And it felt pretty unreal. And you're coming upon these cities like Buka. And I stayed in this little guest house in Ada and uh, the house is like 600 years old.

Yeah. 

Made of clay. Yeah. And you like walk around the corner and there's like some square and there's like a little plaque and it's, this cafe was opened in four ad type of thing. Wow. Was cheesy, isn't it? Absolutely cheesy. And that was, yeah, that was magical from a cultural standpoint. And I had a really lovely experience actually riding out of, uh, one of those cities.

I think it was a cus one of the, one of the draws to wanting to ride a bike around the world is bikes themselves. I love bikes 'cause I like riding bikes. But also Susan B. Anthony quote, bikes are the greatest tool for women's emancipation. And she goes on to explain why. But bikes are such a tool, the world over for poverty to find work, to go to school.

And I was hoping that bike would be a cultural component for me as well. And it just totally was. I remember I was riding out of cus and I would always try and carry like a few bags of gummy bears because of like gummy bears. But also I'd always have a few spares. 'cause if I ever saw like kids or kids waved at me, I often, we couldn't communicate, but I could like open a bag of gummy bears so we could like share some harbo or something.

Yeah. And this 

kid, I think he was on his way home from school or something, we're riding outta cus and he rides up next to me or I, yeah, he comes onto the road I'm on and he's like waving and, and then we like ride together probably like five or six miles. Just this kid and I that have such, such different lives.

Yeah. That our lives 

are different then, and our lives will be different in the future. And the opportunities we have are so different. But we both got this experience of, of riding like bikes together along this, along this like beautiful road out in this beautiful desert and uh. I was like, opened like this bag of gummy bears and yeah.

Like eating gummy bears, like riding down this road and uh, yeah. I got to have a lot of really incredible experiences like that. 

Yeah. And 

that was kind of the distinction between the western or the eastern side of the Silk road and the cities and the culture and the western side of the silk road and the desert and the camels and Yeah.

Yeah. To get to, to get, to watch that transition was 

yeah. Magical. That must have been something what, what you said, just kinda rolling back there. What you said about the bikes and the, and the emancipation it. The, the, the bike and females in general are kinda accredited with helping the British code break through the Second World War because nobody would ever suspected a woman riding a bike could have any sort of influence, and they were responsible for helping, uh, transmit codes between the code breakers and, uh, in the UK in the Second World War.

So there's lots of, uh, little anecdotes and history being punctuated by the bicycle world wartime. So, uh, but yeah, but I, I mean, I, I, I must admit Chris, a bit of envy when I, when I hear you talking about the, the, the Silk Road, I think it would be a, a phenomenal experience to, to go and see. Yeah, 

yeah. I feel, I feel super privileged for sure.

It's just, yeah, it's just phenomenal. 

Yeah. What, uh, so did you get into Tajikistan at, say in, in like the premiers as well, or did you, or was that Yeah. So constructed. 

Yeah, that's a, that's a good question. I, I realized I phrased that poorly earlier. I did not get the visa, but what I did get was like a 14 day transit permit.

Okay. 

Which allowed me to ride up to the Pam mirrors over the Fond Mountains, which are a subsection of, of the Pamir Mountains up onto the Pamir Highway, and then down into Deon Bay, which is actually my hometown of Boulder's sister city. 

Is it? Wow. Wow. Yeah. 

And so that was important to me. Ah. Um, 

wow. 

And I had Oh, amazing experience there.

There's an exchange program 

for people 

from Deon Bay to come to Boulder and get like job placement and Wow. Visa help and stuff to study and work. 

Yeah. 

And DBE and Tajikistan built like a tea house in Boulder. Like they built it in, dbe, disassembled it, and then shipped it here, then assembled it here.

Wow. 

And so for my birthday, I was, I turned 24 and, uh, my, uh. Oh, a connection through, actually the owner full cycle connected me with uh, a woman who runs that exchange program. She connected me with a kid, with a guy that had come over to Boulder as this big climber, but he lives in Deon Bay. He's from Tajikistan.

Ah, amazed. 

And uh, he just tells me he is gonna like pick me up at whatever time from my hostel in Debe. And uh, I get in the car and there's like five people in it. I have no idea where we're going. It was one of those where it's like, alright, we're just gonna, we're just gonna see what happens here. He seems like a nice enough guy.

And, um, we end up at his mom's house and they were throwing me a party. 

Wow. 

And Tajikistan like the cultural festivity there is, is plum. It's like this cultural dish where they cook in this giant, like ceramic dish over a fire, and they make like a ton of food and they bring it to all their neighbors and.

They'd invited like 12 or 15 people to come to like my birthday party in deve. Oh, 

amazing. 

And it was so lovely. 

That's amazing. And, 

uh, yeah, he, he spoke a bunch of the, a bunch of them spoke fantastic English, but yeah, his mom was like cooking as PLO and Oh wow. Didn't speak any English, but, uh, it was lovely experience.

I mean, there's so, there is so much bad that gets pub publicized in the world, but there are some wonderful humans, the world over. It's, these are, you know, these, these experiences is Yeah. It's what I love about doing this show and, and hearing that and hearing the, these stories. 'cause it's, yeah, people are just so welcoming at times and just want to share their, their culture and their heritage and make you feel looked after and stuff.

It's, it's lovely. It really is. Yeah. 

Yeah. It's, uh, it's funny you say that, maybe a touch of like a, a fourth wall break or something. Yeah. But, um, whenever I needed like reminding of the. Experience and, and, you know, to kind of revel with it, I'd always turn on a podcast of like, turning on the adventure diaries Yeah.

And listening to you guys chat about whatever it may be. 

Yeah. 

To both pull me somewhere else, but also like, help me 

Yeah. 

Appreciate the experience I was having in the moment. So, 

yeah. Because sometimes it, it can be, when you're in these types of situations, it's like, you know, you, you kind of breeze through it and you're, you don't, you're not really as immersed in the moment at times sometimes.

And it, and it becomes a bit of a Yeah. Get Yeah. I, I, I get it. It's, yeah. But yeah, that's why people do these adventures. It's all part of the, part of the experience and the journey. What, uh, actually what, you mentioned food actually, 'cause I, I did follow your food. Journey stories, you captured quite a bit about food across different parts of it.

And you had a 10, a 10 butter chicken dish, which apparently is like some sort of famous restaurant in India. Is it? Was it India? 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, uh, I was in Delhi and, and uh, I'd gotten this like driver for the day, 'cause I had all these errands to run, but um, you pay for 'em for like the certain, you know, the whole day or whatever.

But I didn't need him for the whole day. 

Yeah. 

So I was like, oh, like thank you. And he is like, he was like, oh, I'm, I'm around my family and I'm gonna go visit my family. Like, go back home. I think he's in Dharma like the next day, but he's like, oh, we can go do other stuff. Like, I'd love to show you Deli.

And of course I was excited. So he took me to some temples and stuff. It was lovely. And then he took me to this restaurant, which the New York Times had written a review about saying it was the best restaurant in India in like 1960 or something. Wow. And this restaurant's been opened for like a century more because it was pre-World War I I think that this restaurant opened in Delhi.

Oh, they were one of the places first selling Butter Chicken, which was a home dish as a like established restaurant. And this is a restaurant that, um, it's right near the, the Indian Parliament. So when the Parliament members come from all the different places in, in India to vote and convene in Delhi, a lot of them will go to this restaurant because it's considered like one of the best Indian restaurants in all of India.

And, um, in my head, because of the experience I'd had elsewhere, I figured the best Indian food's gonna be the mom and pop shop, the local corner that has a line out the door of locals, which is my experience and, and ended up being my experience in a lot of other places. Totally wrong. This place like, blew everything I thought I knew about how food could taste out of the water.

Yeah. It was like one of, yeah. There's an argument to be made that it was like the highlight of my whole trip. I'm just like sitting with this, uh, yeah, this driver and, uh, at this restaurant. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. And it was just totally nuts. Yeah. Actually, I said, I was sitting with him. I sat with him for a minute and then he like saw one of his friends and then he just like left.

I was just at this like, restaurant by myself, like no one spoke English. And, uh, I remember thinking like, huh, how am I gonna get home? And then I decided I would just wait and like, hope he came back. He came back like an hour later. It was good. But, um, yeah, no, that a lot of good food. 

Yeah. If that was a highlight, what I, I did see something about you, eh, you bought a bottle of water with a funky bottle and it turned out not to be water.

This did happen once I knew it. It's a somewhat not, I I think we're talking about the same thing. It's somewhat not uncommon scam. Yeah. In some parts of the world. 

Yeah. Where 

people will just collect the plastic water bottles and then just fill it with like tap water. 

Yeah. 

And then reseal it or, or not reseal.

Resealed, but it's closed to tap and I bought one and then, uh, yeah. I realized it was um, yeah, like saw stuff like floating in it and I realized it was just from like the stream next to like the store and I was like really thirsty. I was terrible. Oh, the other store related to that, which is pretty funny, was, uh, I was wrecked in, I think I was in Thailand, I think.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure. No, I was, yeah, I was in Northeast Thailand. I go into this like big grocery store and I was so thirsty. Super hot. I went to buy like a gallon jug of. But what I actually bought, so I buy the gallon jug of water. I check out, I go like, sit down at like a KFC, I think it was, and I go to like chug this water.

And what I'd actually bought was distilled white vinegar. That, but the label was tie. 

Oh god. Yeah. 

And so a, the person checking me out didn't seem to think it was weird that I bought 

a gallon, like four 

Snickers bars and a 

gallon of vinegar, 

like gallon of vinegar. But also then I like, I mean, I was thirsty.

I like chugged. Oh my God. And so then I just like spewed vinegar all over this table in KFC. And then I had to go back and like find a big gallon of water and like check out again. I like sheepishly went to like a different counter. Oh. But yeah. 

Excellent. It sounds, I mean. It's epic. Chris, we could probably talk for days on it.

What was it like coming back to Boulder, coming back to the full cycle cycle store? 

That's an interesting one. That and a kind of a challenging one to answer in some ways. I had these experiences of riding to Newfoundland, arriving I, I cycled to this dock that I had set sail from in the year, like a year and change before.

And I just had this vision in my mind and I like came upon the, like, rode up to the dock and I just like, raised my arms and screamed and spent like 10 minutes like sitting on this dock, just like crying. And it was like, just like one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. And I had similar, you know, just profound, like riding into Singapore was just this profound experience of, relief is the wrong word, but just this like wave of, of emotion and, and like.

Pride and, and all those things. And I didn't really have that when I rode into Boulder. 

Yeah. 

Partially. I think it was because I'd done this whole trip pretty much by myself and everything had been for me, like, to be honest, I in like a quite like selfish way potentially. Like I didn't ride to Newfoundland 'cause anyone else was ever gonna get anything out of me riding to Newfoundland, I rode to into Newfoundland because it meant something to me.

Yeah. And therefore that experience just so profound. And when I rode into Boulder, like all these people, to be honest, I thought like four people were gonna come see me in and like, I dunno, it was like 20 or 30 people of my, you know, friends and people who had been following me came. 

Yeah, 

that was really lovely.

But rather than having this very internal experience, it was kind of an external one. And I didn't really have that like wave of emotion or acceptance when I finished. Yeah. I think partial, partially. That's 'cause I mean partially that's 'cause I was just wrecked. I didn't, was, yeah. I was just cooked.

Didn't feel well at all. Super tired. 

Yeah. I, 

but also partially 'cause I just didn't really want the trip to end. So there was more mixed emotions. 

Yeah. I was gonna say, what was an element? Was it an element of that? Did, did it feel like numb or flat or anything? Yeah. 

I don't know if it felt like loss almost.

Yeah. Like I remember if you would've been, I think it was the week after I finished, I like went, I was like out riding my bike again 'cause it's what I wanted to do. 

Yeah. 

And it's like, oh, I don't get to do this like every day now. That's such a bummer. 

Yeah. 

But also like there's just so many other people there that I felt I, I dunno.

It was an interesting experience. I'm still working through that. 

Yeah, you kinda, but 

also I think that, 

I was gonna say, you kinda lose, you kinda lose yourself in that kinda adventure in that head space a little bit. And then when it's that binary, but that's not happening anymore. It's now back to reality.

So it quite a thing. Yeah, of course. Yeah. 

Yeah. And that, that was, that was a bit tough for sure. Um, I think that coming home from all these things, it's one of them we talk about like journey and not the destination. Mm-hmm. Like 

that's so true. So, so true. 'cause it's, yeah. 

Yeah. But also like, if I wanted to go to Boulder, I would've just stayed.

Exactly. Yeah. That's very true. Yeah. 

And so it was like the most journey, not the destination. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. And so, yeah, it, it was a really interesting experience. I think there's also, I mean, I, anyone that does adventures of, of any kind. It could be anything. It doesn't need to be riding a bike around the world.

Your motivation and your why, the why that you set out with, and the why that like keeps you going and the why that causes you to finish are inevitably different. And I mean, that's true for like anyone going to university, let alone it could be anything. And so navigating that is really interesting. But I think that there's this trope that you're gonna set out on a great quest.

You're gonna have this like hero's journey and then you're gonna, you're gonna be forever changed and you're gonna return victorious. Yeah. And, uh, and then you like ride back into this exact same place you left from and it's like, I, I don't know. 

Yeah. 

I feel surprisingly similar. You know, you're still the same person.

Yeah. Well that, so that, that leads me to, to kinda question I teed up earlier to. Are you the same person? Do you have any, do you like mentally, perspective, culturally? Have your views changed in the world on yourself? Have you view people without getting too deep and philosophical about it, but how do you feel since you've returned?

That's an interesting, yeah. I don't know. It's difficult to pinpoint. 

Yeah. 

Because I think that change happens so slowly that you don't, um, you don't necessarily notice it. And so it's difficult to know how much you've changed without a gap of time to look back on 

Yeah. 

To think all of us looking. I mean, I'm only 25, so I don't have that many years to look back on as an adult, but I feel like the way I was at 18, I feel so different now.

But you don't necessarily see the change. 

Yeah. 

And so I think, oh, oh, we'll see more change. I'll be able to reflect on more change with more time. 

Yeah. 

I think, 

yeah. I mean at 20, but I do think at 25, I mean that's, you've achieved significant amounts of life, experience and adventure at 25. I mean, I am, I'm 47 and I haven't managed this around the world, so, yeah.

Yeah. No, I feel, I just feel super lucky for like the opportunities I've had for sure. Which I think also makes me wanna try and make the most of them. 

Yeah. 

But I think the biggest change has been in prioritizations. Mm-hmm. And in values, values may be the wrong word, but it's, there's this kind of trope in the adventure world of you're gonna go do something hard and scary and then you realize like, the little things don't matter.

But I kind of disagree. I think I, I've come to the conclusion that like. The little things like matter the most when I get to wake up in the morning and make myself a, a cup of coffee, like in my Chemex and it's tastes lovely. And I get to sit there and read the story of the farmer who grew it. Yeah. Like, that feels so significant.

Well, you're light, you're probably light years ahead of a lot of people. Uh, being that grateful and that aware of things at that age, I think is, uh, is great. Yeah, it's great. Yep. 

Yeah. Um, yeah, we'll see how it, uh, we'll see how it changes when I'm 47, but, 

well, I mean, I do quite a lot of self-reflection away and I do gratitude journaling and, and things.

And, and one of the things that it regularly appears in my journal as my morning coffee is simple as it is. And, and that's, it's taken a long time to dial in the specific blend of, of, uh, coffee beans in the specific way that it's made, that only I can make. And that is just the simplest things. It doesn't, and I don't need to be drinking that in the himalays, you know, it could be sitting in the, the house in Glasgow.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. I agree with the, the simpler things and, but that's a maturity thing as I've got older, so it's quite warming to hear you speak like that at your age. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, so, so maybe, yeah. Your experiences are shaping that. So kinda switching lanes a little bit, Chris. So thank you firstly, fucking through that.

That's, uh, that's, it's been quite the, the adventure. 

Yeah. Thanks. Hope I haven't kept you too long. No, 

no, absolutely not. No, no. I'm, I'm, I'm loving this. I'm loving this. But yeah, because we've got some stuff to step, step through into in terms of closing traditions, but now that you have, and I know you're, you're probably still processing, you know, the aftermath of, of the journey.

It's been concluded fairly recently. Are you thinking ahead about any future adventures, any other grand plans? Are you planning to ski tour somewhere or descend an 8,000 meter peak somewhere? Or what's your future looking like? 

Oh, I've got a, we've got a couple things in mind. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. Uh, I'm on a map for Kyrgyzstan yesterday, so, oh, wow.

Excellent. Excellent. 

No, um, 

yeah, 

yeah, there's definitely things I think that, uh. It is so funny. Change is always, I think, appealing as a human in many ways. Mm-hmm. And scary in others. 

Yep. 

I'm so psyched for, I'm making a bit of like a touch of a career change and I'm, I'm working a new job now and, uh, like I find it so fun.

Yeah. 

Like I get to like, sit down and like email people. That's so cool. And so just enjoying the, the ebbs and flows of, of that draw For sure. Yeah. And I've got a friend staying with me now, you know, I haven't been able to see since I finished 'cause they don't live in Boulder anymore. Mm-hmm. And those types of things are the top of, top of the mind for sure.

Yeah. Excellent. Well, I'll be following along to see what comes from Kyrgyzstan potentially. So, yeah. So let's switch into the, the closing traditions. Kristi kinda close out. Uh, of which there are three, a pay forward section called to adventure. And finally, to end on a bit of fun, a quick fire, 10 questions that you don't know, which we're coming to, to kinda close out with a bit of a fun note.

So starting with the pay forward, what I, I, you know, that can be a, a charity, a project, a cause, something that's maybe important for you. So what would you recommend that people check out or paid forward? 

Yeah, so, so right now, I know you have a very international audience, but mm-hmm. People probably have seen, there's been huge budget cuts from the current administration to the National Forest and the National Parks Sweep sweeping cuts where parks that had 4,000 rangers now have four.

And that's going to inevitably put strain. I mean, it puts strain on, on the people. My friend Nika is staying with me right now. I lost her job in, in the forest service up in Alaska. So of course it, it hits home for me seeing someone who like I care about so much. Mm-hmm. Who cares about the land so much, not being able to do what she wants to spend her life doing, which is protecting places.

Yeah. And obviously that will, that will, that will change with time and things. Um, but my call to action here would, or pay it forward here would be, um, for people to think about both like in America with the current changes, but also wherever you may be. Think about ways that, that you can pick up the slack for what may have been changing in, in the environment around you.

Because in the world we live in, all these places are managed and need management. And so if, if you're an American and you're, you're going out to say Joshua Tree, and it used to be lots of rangers that helped keep the park clean and and regulated, maybe taking that extra time to. To fill in for them.

Would, uh, yeah, that would be my, my uh, my pay it forward right now. Excellent. And also there's lots of cool individual local organizations. I've got my Boulder climbing community shirt on right now. Yeah. That BCC manages. Yeah. All the crags and trails and, and, uh, yeah. My friend just walked in. I think that's fine.

You're good. We can edit the audio. We were just talking about unique. 

Yeah. Excellent. 

Anyway, you can edit with Riverside, I think. Yeah. We, we can. Cool. Good. Lemme know if the audio's all good anyway. 

Yeah. 

What was I saying? Um, yeah, the board or we can leave it in, I don't know. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, organizations like Boulder Climbing Community manage, uh, the trails that, that we use every day.

And, and they also do lots of really cool things like Raptor management. They, the volunteers with BCC go up and. And make note of, of Raptor nests all around. Mm-hmm. All around Boulder. And ensure that climbers and the public are staying away from, from nests so that the raptors have the best, uh, the best chances of fledgling and, and, uh, whatever that word is.

Yeah, yeah, 

yeah. So, and there's 

lots of cool, uh, lots of cool organizations like that, so yeah. Fantastic. Yeah, it's cool to be involved with your local community once. 

Yeah. Great. We will, we'll get all this, we'll get these organizations actually, uh, hyperlinked and stuff in the show notes. Oh, cool. Excellent.

Uh, so secondly, a call to adventure. So your opportunity to raise a call to or suggest a call to adventure to listeners. It could be a people, it could be a place, an activity, or just whatever. Just something to get people thinking to, to go and actively participate in something maybe this weekend or whatever.

So what would you say is a call to adventure, Chris? 

Yeah, so my call to adventure. It would be that adventure doesn't need to be taking 16 months to ride a bicycle around the world. And that I've had similarly fulfilling feelings of completion spending a day out in the mountains. And so my call to adventure would be to do something you do regularly differently if you've got a, a favorite calf near you that you normally drive to maybe ride your bike.

And that could go up, you could take that to any level you, you really want in terms of, of fitness and, and in terms of the human powered side of it. So my following my own advice here is gonna be, I've got this poster on my wall of all the local cycling climbs here in Boulder. 

Mm-hmm. And 

I'm so used to start at down in town where I live, you ride up to the top and then you ride, then you descend back down.

Yeah. 

And so what I'm gonna do here in a bit is, uh. I'm gonna inverse it. And so I'm gonna ride up to the top and then camp up at the top and then ride back down in the morning. So you get, uh, the like bike packing experience and riding into town to get a, get a coffee and maybe we'll make that 

a couple 

day trip and spend a couple nights up top, but drop into town each day and 

Oh, 

that, that's amazing.

That's, I think doing something you do regularly differently is really fun. 

That's incredible. That's really, that's amazing to tell you why. 'cause I, I'm planning to do something exactly the same, but it's outside a lot of kayaking, so I'm kind of stealing your thunder a little bit here. But, so there's a route that I do quite regularly.

So the plan is to, to paddle across, climb camp. Climb back down and paddle back across the next day. So just to try and do it a little bit differently. So to combine the, the three activities into one. So I like that idea of doing that bike packing as well, so. Excellent. So do it. Yeah. That's 

super cool.

Yeah, that'll be really fun for sure. Yeah. I wish I kayaked more. Yeah, maybe I should. 

Yeah, I've, 'cause I've, I've never really done a summit camp a anywhere, so, uh, you know, done quite a bit of camping obviously, but never really camped, uh, on a peak anywhere. So, so I'm quite excited about that. So, and it's good to hear you say something similar as well, and we haven't even rehearsed that.

So that is No, that's nice. That, that is excellent. We nailed it. Excellent, excellent. And that's what it's about is, you know, for people listening and watching, it's, it's, you know, these stories are fantastic. These grand expeditions are amazing, but yet it's making it accessible. People can do all this stuff locally as well.

Which is great. So finally the quick fire round. So this is just 10 questions, Chris. Just whatever comes to mind and we'll see. Alright. We'll see how it goes. Alright, sounds good. So question one, you can have a dinner party with two guests, dead or alive. Who would they be? 

Oh, that's so hard to answer quickly.

Oh, no. Um, I'm gonna go with, oh, uh, Brad br, local climber from Boulder who, or not from Boulder, but spent a lot of time here. Yep. Passed away a few years ago. And, uh, I would be curious in his perspective on adventure sports having, you know, eventually like passed away in a not serious adventure sport accident.

Did it make it feel like the serious and the scary stuff was even more worth it? Mm-hmm. Um, and because that's a question we can never know an answer to. 

Yeah. 

And, um. And maybe you, Chris, 'cause you're good at asking questions and we'll get a good answer out of them. 

Ah, excellent. Thank you very much.

What's the craziest experience you've ever had on the road? I think we've probably covered some of that, but is Stan aside, what's the craziest experience you've had on the road? 

I almost hit a monitor lizard on my bike once. I didn't see it, it was in the grass and they're kind of green. 

Yeah. 

And I wasn't paying attention.

I think I was listening to like, actually no, I was listening to like a Katy Perry album. God just like had some like pop music blasting and I spooked this thing and it like stuck its head out into the like road and I almost hit it this like six or seven foot long. Yeah. Like Dragon. Yeah. Christ. It really stuck with me.

It was nuts. 

Yeah. 

Amazing. One of those where you just reflect on your life, you're like, how this happened? How has this specific scenario ever occurred? 

Huge. Those things as well. Uh, number three, do you have a hidden talent? 

I can play the jaw harp. 

What's that? Joe Harp. 

He was like DD dw dw. 

Right. I'm gonna have a look at that after.

Excellent. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

What's your favorite movie question four. 

Uh, rush Hour. 

Oh. 

Uh, favorite book. The night circus. 

Oh. 

I actually met my friend Nika, who's staying with me, recommended it to me while I was on my ride. It's very good. Highly recommend. 

Yeah. Uh, the last music gig that you went to, don't say Katie Perry.

Well, it'll begin edited out. 

We went to a, uh, an open mic night at this art house in, in Boulder last night actually, which has a bunch of of artists that live together. 

Yeah. 

Uh, making and producing music. And there's lots of, like Gregory Allen Isikoff 'cause covers and things. 

Ah, 

it was fantastic.

Whereabouts in Boulder, is it a place that you would recommend? 

Uh, it's not really like a venue, it's just like someone's house. 

Oh, okay. 

But, um, there is a. Lots of good music at a place called the Gold Hill Inn and the Gold Hill General Store. 

Gold 

Hill for bluegrass music in the summertime outside of Boulder.

Excellent. Question seven, if you could snap your fingers and be anywhere doing anything, where would you be? 

I think I'd be right here chatting about adventure. 

Ah, it's my 

favorite thing to do. 

Excellent. 

Uh, yeah. 

Question eight. What 

scares you? People being apathetic. 

Oh, 

I think that caring and having strong beliefs is easier to address than having no beliefs.

Yeah, excellent. And not everyone has to have the same beliefs and it doesn't mean you need to. Totally. You need to be I agree. You don't need to be enemies as well. Yeah. Excellent. Exactly. Uh, question nine, if you could relive any moment of your life, what would it be and why? Not a butter chicken. 

Tough to say this in like a very short one, but I went on a pretty wild ski mountaineering trip up in Greenland and I was with my buddy Mango and we skied to like the greatest line of my life, this like big shoulder of this peak that we like skied out to from town and nuke.

And uh, the top of it was kind of windy. It was like wind swept. So it was kind of firm. And the first turn after the firmness ended, I could just like relive that like four seconds. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Over and over and over again for the rest of time. And I'd be. Quite pleased. 

That's so incredible. It's great that you have that in your memory bank because not everyone has a, has has an experience like that, which is, which is partly why this question is to seed this into other people that you need to have, make your life extraordinary and do, do hard things, do fun things.

Question 10, what's the best advice you've ever received? 

I'm struggling to phrase it as, I don't remember like the specific phrasing of the advice, but the advice originally was there's like the general advice, like there's more than one way to do something, but specifically what this person was talking about was like how to accomplish like difficult things.

Mm-hmm. And my takeaway has been that I am just not like the hardest grittiest person in the world and I rely way more on finding. Joy and pursuing like a love for the experience. Like if I tell myself I have to get outta bed at whatever time in the morning to go ride my bike a really long way, I'm just not gonna do it.

But when I'm able to appreciate the possibilities the day holds, then I find it much easier. 

Excellent. Excellent. There's a little bit of a visualization I think in there as well, so Excellent. And that's it. That this has been epic, Chris. Absolutely. Epic. Yeah. Thank you. It has been excellent. I mean, there's probably stuff we could go down the rabbit hole on for hours.

Yeah. We budgeted an hour and we're nearly at two, so it's And it's flown by. Yeah, it's flown by. Thank you. Where, where can everyone, you know, after they've listened and watched this catch up with you and, and keep tabs on what you are doing adventure wise? 

Yeah, so I'm on Instagram at Chris in the cold.

I've taken a little break from it following the ride, but gonna start getting back on there. I'm not, I'm not the best at the social media stuff, but, uh, I do enjoy it and I appreciate the opportunities it holds. Yeah. Thank you for messaging me on Yeah. On Instagram one day. Yeah. It's, uh. Yeah. 

Yeah, 

it'd been a pleasure.

Yeah. Some captivating, uh, short stories and stuff on that, which is what I, I liked. It was very raw, a lot of unfiltered, not overproduced, not trying to be anything other than just capturing the adventure, which is, which is why I reached out. It was, it's great. So I thank you for your time, Chris, today, and we'll look forward to seeing what the future brings.

Thank you. 

Yeah. Thank you, Chris. Yeah, thank you for having me on. 

Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. For the show notes and further information, please visit adventure diaries.com/podcast. And finally, we hope to have inspired you to take action and plan your next adventure, big or small, because sometimes we all need a little adventure to cleanse that bitter taste of life from the soul.

Until next time, have fun and keep paying it forward.