The Arctic Rider

Hi everyone, Due to the very short time-frame to my rearrange ride to Iceland I've got a lot of blogging to do to update you all. This blog will be all about the route I will take to get to Arctic Iceland. Overall I've got 3,700 miles to ride across 18 days although 6 of those days I'll be at sea in transit between countries. This means my average daily road mileage will be just over 300, which is almost the same as my Arctic Ride 2014 to Norway. This gives me confidence that I can do these miles but I also know having done my Iron Butt that if the unexpected happens I have it in my locker to put in some big days to catch up. Days 1-3 In order to get to Iceland I need to catch a ship from the port of Hirtshals in Northern Denmark, so the first part of my journey is to get from my home in Newcastle to Denmark. On day 1 I'll head 320 South from Newcastle, leaving early to afternoon, heading to the the Port of Harwich in East Anglia. I've decided to catch t...

Greetings, Welcome to the latest Arctic Rider blog. Further to my blog a few days ago announcing that I've had to postpone my Arctic Ride Alaska, I'm very pleased to say that (in quite short order) managed to sort my next adventure which I will take on in July 2018... That's right (as you probably guessed from the blog title) I'm please to present... ARCTIC RIDE ICELAND To find out more about how I came to my decision to take on Iceland, please check out my below Facebook live announcement video. I'll be back on my blog with more details of the route and challenges on Iceland very soon but I just wanted to share this news for those of you who hadn't caught up with the Facebook live video. Thanks again for all the support! Ride safe, Gordon

Hi everyone, Wow... what a week I've had. For those who don't follow my social media... ***Due to unforeseen circumstances relating to motorbike insurance in USA and Canada, Arctic Ride Alaska has been postponed until further notice.. another challenge will be done in 2018 in its place and a new date announced soon*** Facebook update on Monday night Postponing my trip to Canada and Alaska has been on of the hardest decisions I've had to make as The Arctic Rider and is up there in the 'disappointing' list with my crash in Sweden in 2011 and getting ill the day after my Iron Butt in 2016. To try and summarize the insurance situation with the US and Canada, I've create a Q&A of the questions I've been asked by all the folk trying to help solve my problem. Insurance Q&A? What is the problem with your insurance? There is one provider in North America, via several brokers, who supplies insurance to overseas riders for their motorbikes visi...

Hi everyone, Its just 3 weeks until I head off to Canada and Alaska to take on my latest charity motorbike challenge! Since we last spoke I've been very busy getting myself and the bike prepared for this epic ride. Last week I headed up to the boarders to Duns Motocross to get some off-road training from former Scottish and UK Motocross champion Bryan MacKenzie. It was a great and tiring morning but much needed to get some off-road skills ready for taking on the Alcan and The Dalton Highway. I did the training on a Yamaha 250 which is about half the weight of the V-Strom I'll be taking across the pond, but it was a great introduction. After doing a few laps of a dirt road on the bike, Bryan taught me the basis of braking and cornering on gravel, and then gave me a crash course in standing on the pegs and being in control of the bike off-road. Ever since watching Long Way Round doing this sort of thing has always been a dream of mine. From there I moved onto the...