The Arctic Rider

Hi everyone, Welcome to my blog. For those new readers, my name is Gordon Stuart and in May and June of 2014 I'll be riding my motorbike 6,000 miles in 3 weeks to the Arctic Circle to raise money and awareness for brain injury charity Cerebra. Please use the navigation bar above to learn more about my trip. Well with winter being well and truly here there hasn't been much biking happening and not too much to update for the trip. This being the case I've been spending my time being creative. This weekend I spent an hour or so making the below info-graphic.... it started out as being 'Arctic Ride 2014 in numbers' but kind of evolved into numbers and words. In other news this week, I've had another win from twitter (I'm truly amazed at how much twitter has helped me for this trip). I've linked up with Auritech who are specialists in hearing defence (ear plugs to you and me) and make specialist hearing protectors for Biker, Water Sports, Shooting an...

Hi everyone, So exactly 6 months today I'll have started my journey to the Arctic and, all going well, I'll be sitting by my tent in Dover chomping down on some food having ridden the 360 miles from my hometown Whitley Bay. St Mary's Lighthouse, Whitley Bay It is all starting to get very real that I'm going to Nordkapp and the Arctic Circle. I know in no time at all I'll be on my bike, all packed, zooming down the motorway towards the continent. I've still got a lot of details to plan and work to do before I set off. I'm trying to remind myself that even though my trip has some very serious aims, I have to make sure I enjoy the ride. I've already written a blog about my details of first day ( click here to view) but there are still even more details to plan. The first is how I'm going to link up with all my biker buddies along the route from Newcastle to Dover. If you are interested for joining me for any part of the ride please drop a c...

Hi everyone, Welcome to the latest edition of my blog for Arctic Ride 2014 - A 6,000 mile solo motorbike adventure to the Arctic Circle to raise money for brain-injury charity Cerebra and to raise awareness for disability rights. To help multiply the impact of my trip to the Arctic I've been looking for companies to partner with me on Arctic Ride. To date I'm being supported by Newcastle Rider Training, North East MotorCycle Racing Club (NEMCRC) , Nomad Biker , Allinson's Photography , A-Plus Racing , and NEfit . All of these companies have been helping me by using their expertise and experience, or by providing funds for the 6,000 mile trip. With it being November, and winter pretty much here, the season for biking is almost much over. Due to this, and the expense of Christmas fast approaching, my hopes of getting any more sponsors on board before the new year are pretty low. Over the past weeks I've been sending out letters, emails, and tweets to local comp...

Greetings to another Arctic Ride 2014 blog, In this post I'll be talking about contingencies plans for my trip. For those of you that didn't follow my 2011 attempt to the Arctic, I had a crash just over a week into my trip near a town called Ornskoldsvik in northern Sweden. I hit a piece of metal that was lying in the road. Somehow I didn't come off the bike but my Kawasaki took the full force blowing my tyre and denting my wheel rim in the process. After my crash in Sweden June 2011 I got recovered back to Ornskoldsvik only to find it was Swedish bank holiday weekend meaning I couldn't get a new tyre and wheel for 5 days. This wait was nearly a quarter of my whole trip which made making it to Nordkapp and home in the time remaining impossible. The crash in 2011 is an example of thing that go wrong which can't be avoided but I'm going into this trip more well prepared for if something happens again. First of all, I've noted down when all the pu...

Hi everyone, Thanks for tuning in to my Arctic Ride blog. Just a quick update this week. I've really been pushing the boat out to local companies to try and get some more sponsors on board as getting to the Arctic by bike isn't cheap. Its like an investment and the old mantra of 'You've got to spend money to make money' and that principle applies to my trip. I'm able to offer companies brand exposure by having there logo on the bike, on this website, and through my documentary.  So far this bait has caught quite a few companies, see my sponsors page, and the support I've had from them has been great but so far only two have been able to offer me funds towards the budget of my trip. As a Project Manager by trade, you can imagine that I have managed the hell out of my Arctic project so far so I thought I'd share some of 'management' including the breakdown of the budget for my trip. So you can see I only have 5 different expenses for my...

Hi everyone, Welcome to the Arctic Ride 2014 blog. In May/June of 2014 I'll be riding my motorbike 6,000 miles in 3 weeks to the Arctic Circle and back to raise money for brain-injury charity Cerebra, and to raise awareness for brain-injuries and disability rights in general. The Suzuki I will take to the Arctic in 2014 People with a disability are in a very unique situation when it comes to prejudice and discrimination which a lot of people often forget and something I am very keen to raise awareness for. So why is having a disability unique when it comes to prejudice and discrimination I hear you ask... well let me explain. I'm a white male. Chances are I'll always be a white male therefore, in the future, no one is going to treat me differently for being black, for being Asian, or for being a woman. I don't consider myself disabled... but there is a chance that I could become disabled in the future and thus suffer prejudice and discrimination. That's how ...

Hi everyone, Welcome to another edition of the Arctic Ride 2014 blog. Thanks for tuning in. Regular readers will notice that this blog is being posted later than usual. This is because my work has whisked me off to Johannesburg in South Africa to attend the One Young World Summit.  Usually I post my blog on a Sunday evening ready for all to read on their Monday lunch break but as I’ve been packing and preparing for my trip this blog is being written from 30,000 feet and will be posted when I land and get some Wi-Fi. So this week has been another busy week. All the kit for my GoPro finally arrived so I am now able to vlog on the bike to keep you all up to date about what I have been doing! My first ‘proper’ vlog is below so give it a watch and let me know what you think! I’m using the vlog and filming around Newcastle as a practice for my trip. As I’ve said in previously blogs I’m planning to film my entire adventure to the Arctic next summer so that I can ...

Hallo. God Dag. Hvordan g å r det? I've just practicing my Norwegian! Although at the moment saying 'hello' and 'how are you?' is as far as I have got. Luckily English is very widely spoken in Norway so I should be alright, although I do want to try and learn some key phrases before I go out of politeness. The kind of things I am thinking of are: Hello. Do you Speak English? Can I camp for one night? Two beers please! (One for me and one for Brian) These phrases tend to be the limit to my vocabulary in most languages that I dabble in  which is mainly French, Belgian, Swiss, Luxembourgian.. OK just French! and a small bit of German, and Spanish. Anyway moving away from my cultural naivety its been another action packed week in the build up to my Arctic adventure. I've been working away on several aspects of the project, none of which have come to fruition yet, but in the middle of the work I came across something rather surprising. Basically, s...

Hello! Welcome to the latest Arctic Ride blog! Thanks again for tuning in to the latest update on the preparation for my 6,000 mile solo endurance charity motorbike ride to the Arctic Circle. For those of you who are new to the blog and what I am doing I have a short promo video (just over 2 minutes) which tells you all about what I am doing. See below or click on this LINK So what have I been up to this week? Well its been a pretty quiet one to be honest. I've spend most of the time taking stock of what has happened over the last 6 months since I announced that I was heading to the Arctic to raise money for Cerebra. I'm pleased to say that I think I've come a long way in 6 months. I've managed to get a new motorbike, several companies on-board, raise £375 for Cerebra already, and I've acquired a base of followers and companies who are keeping me motivated and on track to make it to the Arctic Circle in May & June of next year. For all of this I ...

Hi everyone. Summer is nearly over so I've been trying to cram in as much biking and Arctic Ride stuff before the weather turns. As you can see from this week's blog title its all been about filming! The first exciting news it that I have ordered my GoPro helmet camera, some memory cards, and a helmet mic, all of which I will need for my trip if I am going to document it and turn it into a film. They should all arrive this week so I can't wait to test them out! My first lot of filming happened on Tuesday when I went to see Neil at Newcastle Rider Training. The idea of visiting was to get some tips on biking from a professional instructor and share those tips with all my readers and viewers on YouTube. As a biker there is always room for improvement. Filming at Newcastle Rider Training The topics we covered included; Braking, Riding Abroad, Overtaking, and positioning. We managed to get a lot of footage on the day which is all still to be processed, edited, and...

Hello! Welcome to the latest Arctic Ride 2014 blog! For the regular readers of the blog you will notice that its been a few weeks since I have posted and this is because I moved house and I've been without the internet (which makes blogging somewhat difficult). The good news is I am back online and even though it was my birthday on Friday and my wedding anniversary today I've managed to squeeze in a blog to give everyone an update of what I've been up to. Even though I've been busy moving house I haven't let it get in the way of my preparation for my 6,000 mile solo charity motorbike ride to the Arctic Circle. As ever I've been rather busy and I have two major updates to tell you about. The first was my photo shoot with Allinson's Photography. The aim of this session was to produce some professional photos that I could use as publicity shots for both press releases/media articles and for my social media network. At Whitley Bay Lighthouse where I wi...

Hello there, Welcome to the Arctic Ride 2014 blog. In May and June of 2014 I will ride my motorbike solo, 6,000 miles from my home town of Whitley Bay in the North of England to Nordkapp, Norway the most Northerly point in Europe and 500 miles North of the Arctic Circle. Its going to be an epic journey which I very excited yet very nervous about. Now I know in the tagline I say that it's a solo motorbike ride but that's not strictly true. I will have an accomplice.. Gordon and Cerebra Bear (A.K.A. ???) As you can see from the photo I will be taking my Cerebra Bear with me on my Arctic Ride as my mascot. I was presented with him as a thank you after my trip in 2011. However when I decided he was going to come to the Arctic with me I knew he needed to have a real name. Big thanks to those who suggested names and voted (as I couldn't decide by myself with all the great suggestions). So here are the results.... In 5th place with 6% of the vote was... Pads. In ...

Hi Everyone, Welcome to another edition of the Arctic Ride 2014 blog! This week's blog is all about my trip to the BikeWise show in Durham on the 27th July. BikeWise is an annual motorbike show held at the Durham Constabulary Police Headquarters. The event sees thousands of bikers flock to Durham to see stalls from local bike clubs, clothing and helmet stalls, dealers, and anything BIKE related. I was lucky enough to be asked by the NEMCRC to attend with them and be on their stand. NEMCRC  have recently become a sponsor of Arctic Ride 2014 ( click for blog on this ) and it was a pleasure to attend with them and represent them at the show. Being at the show allowed me to get out there what I am I doing and why to a large biker community audience. To help promote the Arcic Ride 2014 brand I got the bike logo'd up with my sponsors and the charity's logo. I also got some literature printed off and my wife Kirsty baked some motorbike related cakes and we popped them on th...

Good day! Welcome to the Arctic Ride 2014 blog! In May and June of 2014 I will be riding my motorbike solo 6,000 miles in only 3 weeks to the top of Europe and through one of nature's most barren and un-populated landscapes... the Arctic Circle. This challenge is all in aid of raising funds and awareness for brain injury charity Cerebra . In planning my Arctic trip over the past 6 months, and on my previous motorbike endeavors, I've come across plenty of bikers and travelers. One thing I have noticed is that both solo travelers and groups often have a mascot or good luck charm travelling with them along the way. I realised that when I set of for the Arctic next May I'm going to be on my own for a good few weeks and after the back luck of my 2011 trip (see my blog post the day after my accident) I thought I could do with a good luck charm to come along on the ride with me. Cerebra Bear chilling on his Suzuki My immediate thought came to my Cerebra Bear which was g...

Hi All, Wow... what a 10 days or so its been since I last blogged. Sorry there was no blog on Sunday. I had a very busy day promoting Arctic Ride 2014 at the Bikewise show in Durham. More to come on that in a separate blog though. The reason for the delay in blogging are aplenty. First of all I've been trying to move house and on Saturday morning I encountered a massive issue which caused Kirsty and I to spend the whole day looking for a new house. This then saw us prepping for the Bikewise show until 11.30 pm! Which is never fun when you have to be up at 6 am the next day. Then of course there was Bikewise all day Sunday. I thought on Sunday evening that I as I'd had a stressful day that I would do my blog on Monday evening... WRONG AGAIN Gordon... the luck gods had obviously decided I needed to be brought back down to earth after my fine day at Bikewise and decided the best way to do this would be to make the clutch on my car break on the way home from work... 4 hours lat...