The Arctic Rider

Hello! Welcome back to The Arctic Rider blog! 5 weeks today I'll be setting off once again for the Arctic Circle on my motorbike to raise money for charity. I wanted to do a quick blog to share my route with you all. Its been chopping and changing due to different flights, not knowing what bike I was going to be riding, and where I needed to start from but now that it is all sorted I can share with you my plans. Now I'm going to be honest, this route looks tough... very tough for a number of reasons. Firstly, the mileage. I've got around 5,800 miles to ride in 18 days... but 2 of those days the bike and I will be flying, so its actually 16 days.. meaning I have to average 360 miles per day.. I've also included 2x contingency days into my plans, so its actually more like 400 miles per day   with a few 500+ mile days thrown in there for good measure. Now I might have completed the UK end to end Iron Butt which was an 875 mile day but that just about killed me. ...

Hello! Welcome to the The Arctic Rider blog. This summer I'm heading to Canada and Alaska to take on the mighty Dalton Highway to raise money for Tiny Lives Trust and Cerebra, 2 great charities. Since my last blog, there have been some major developments. Firstly, I've booked my flights! So I now have an official start date. I fly to Calgary from London on the 27th June meaning my departure date from Newcastle will be 26th June. That gives me just 45 days until liftoff! Wow its getting close. Secondly, and the really big news is that I now have the bike! I must say it felt like this day would never come and I feel so privileged to have the backing of Suzuki for my ride. I feel even more lucky that they have given me a brand new VStrom 1000 XT to do the ride on. What started as a hopeful, pie-in-the-sky email, has ended up with the bike sitting in my garage.. I think I'm still in shock. 'Morning Gordon' at Newcastle station Now it wasn't the mo...