The Arctic Rider

Greeting from The Arctic Rider! For those of you who follow me on facebook or twitter will know that at around 2315 on Tuesday 5th of July I completed my Iron Butt challenge!!!! It was an amazing feeling to do this on behalf of Tiny Lives but boy was it tough and my body wouldn't thank me after. Here's a first look at my adventure. Day '0' - Getting there Journey - Newcastle to Lands End  Mileage - 500  In order to do the Iron Butt I needed to get myself down to Lands End to start. So I set off on Monday morning from Newcastle around 0830 for the 500 mile ride down. My previous longest days ride has been on the way home from the Arctic in 2014 when I rode 550 miles through Denmark, Germany, and Netherlands  so this was going to be a very big day for me. Fully loaded and ready to go  The ride down was pretty uneventful. Apart from a few mobile speed cameras keeping me on my toes it was a solid days ride down the motorways with a few stops for fuel a...

Hi everyone, Thanks for tuning in to my latest Arctic Rider blog! Its now just 3 days to go until I take on the UK Iron Butt challenge.. riding from Lands End to John O'Groats in 24 hours. While I've been planning this ride for around the last 18 months, I'm feeling a little unprepared. When I rode to the Arctic in 2014 that ride was pretty much my sole focus. Every day was Arctic Ride prep. Now 2 years later... my life having a toddler and a more demanding job has meant I haven't been able to spend as much time as I would have liked planning and preparing. Luckily, while this trip is going to be a big challenge, I'm only going to be away from home for 4 days rather than 4 weeks. This week I picked my bike up from its big service at M&S motorcycles in Newcastle. To get the bike ready the team did an oil and filter change, spark plug refresh, air filter change, and a general check of the bike. Also I got two brand new Bridgestone  Battleaxe tyres put ...