The Arctic Rider

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...

Greetings! Welcome to another edition of the Arctic Ride 2014 blog. For those of you who are new to the blog basically in May and June of 2014 I will be riding my motorbike 6,000 in 3 weeks to the Arctic Circle and Nordkapp from my hometown of Newcastle upon Tyne all to raise money for brain-injury charity Cerebra . I've had another very busy week (I know I need a holiday right?) and not only has it been busy but rather successful. On Thursday evening I set off from my house around 8pm on what was a warm summer's eve with my destination the North East MotorCycle Racing Club (NEMCRC). I was kindly invited by Bruce Allinson to present to the club about my adventure. Parked up ready to chat to the NEMCRC committee After chatting with the guys and gals of the committee for an hour or so the club kindly offered me a place on their stand at the BikeWise show in Durham on Sunday 28th July to help promote my trip and get my my story out to the wider biking community. not on...

Hi all, Welcome again to my blog. If you are a new (or new'ish) visitor, be sure to check out the other parts of my site including 'What is Arctic Ride 2014', 'The Route', and 'Merchandise' along the top banner. Things in the Arctic Ride space are starting to come together and I've been getting busier and busier having meeting and putting a lot of time and effort into making this trip as success and this week has been no different. On Tuesday afternoon I had the pleasure of finishing work early (no, my employers weren't being kind but I started early to finish early) and it was a pleasure not only because it was 24 degrees and perfect biking weather but I was off to visit Jon and Phil at MPH Studios in Gateshead. I linked up with MPH Studios on Twitter and they very kindly invited me in to their office for a chat about how they can help with my trip as they were really interested in what I am doing. As hopefully you know by now I am videoing m...

Hi All, I hope you are well and enjoying the nice weather. So, once again I'm deviating from my Sunday blog to bring you a very special video message... Please watch this video as I really need your assistance to make something awesome happen and please comment on the video if you can. That's it for this blog. Look out for my next blog on Sunday. Please keep spreading the word about my trip. Twitter - 'Follow' @arcticride2014 Facebook - 'Like'  Arctic Ride 2014 YouTube - 'Subscribe' -  Arctic Ride 2014 Donations - With 100% going to charity Cerebra CLICK HERE TO DONATE Ride Safe, Gordon