The Arctic Rider

Hi everyone, Welcome to the latest Arctic Ride 2014 blog. In May and June of this year I'm riding 6000 miles from Newcastle in the UK to Nordkapp in Norway, the most Northerly point in Europe. ***** 68 days to go ***** So a few weeks ago (sorry for the slow updates) I took part in an Adventure travel survival training weekend curiosity of the chaps at Nomad-Biker Ltd . Nomad-Biker is an adventure travel consultancy set up by Stuart, a former British commando who has served in front line units and seen active service all over the world. The team is made up of paramedics, close protection operators, mechanics, and survival experts. With Stuart's passion for bikes and the team's military background Nomad-Biker give the best arduous environment training for adventure travel trips like mine to the Arctic. Gordon, Cameraman Ant, Steph, Stu (Nomad Biker) Stu from Nomad-Biker contacted me back in 2013 and offered me a free place on one of their courses to h...

Hey everyone, Welcome to the latest Arctic Ride 2014 blog! *****90 days to go***** This week has been VERY exciting in the world of Arctic Ride 2014 and some big news indeed. Bikewise Firstly, I found out on Friday evening that the Bikewise team have pledged £500 towards my fund for Cerebra for the trip which is amazing and will go a long way to helping me hit my £2,500 target for the trip. Big thanks and shout-out to Gary Emerson and Bob Brown who fought my corner and argued my case to the Bikewsie team to help my trip. This is a massive boost and I'll remember this moment when I'm freezing my but off in the Arctic in May. Check out what Bikewise is about on their website and follow them on twitter . Also, check out my blog and video from when I attended the BikeWise event in 2013. Hewlett Packard I also got the great news that my employer, Hewlett Packard, will be supporting me through their employee money match scheme. So the next £1...

*****100 Days Until Lift Off***** Wow... OK ladies and gents... It's only 100 days until I leave for the Arctic. It seems like yesterday that I started planning my second attempt on the Arctic and now its coming up very very soon. It almost feels as thought I could be doing this as a full time job but I already have one of those. In the next 100 days I need to: Get the bike serviced, new tyres, new brake pads. Get a tent and any new camping equipment that I need. Get another sponsor on board to help with the trip funding. Get my helmet resprayed Arctic Ride style. List what I'm going to take with me. Half that list so it will fit on the bike. Get Andrew Pain (author of Going Small: A guide to Lightweight Motorcycling) to cut my half list in half. Download some songs and audio-books for the iPod. Interview with BBC Radio Newcastle. Complete my Arctic Survival training with Nomad-Biker . Get Kirsty (my wife) to complete Home Survival training (fuse box, cha...

Hi everyone, Thanks for tuning in to my blog for my charity motorbike trip to the Arctic. On May 24th I'll be setting off on the 6000 mile journey to Arctic Norway and back armed with my motorbike, a tent, a camera, and not much else. And why am I doing this? Well I've asked myself the same question many times but I am doing it to raise funds and awareness for brain injury charity Cerebra . Since my last blog I've been a busy lad. The highlight of the past few weeks has certainly been attending the NEMCRC annual dinner as a special guest. Showing off the bike at the NEMCRC dinner You can check out the full photo album on my  facebook page . If you haven't already please like my page to keep up to date with all the on-goings and preparation for the trip. As I was attending the dinner and it wasn't subzero I got the camera out and recorded a quick vlog. Annoyingly it missed off some footage but its still a good one. Check it out below or click here . ...

Hi, It only feels like yesterday that is was a year until I was due to depart for the Arctic. That means it must have been this morning that it felt like it was 200 days to go, and now its only 125 days to go... I'm not looking forward to how many days it will be tomorrow (although judging by the way time passes it will be 124 days). I still have so much work to plan my trip but its feels like its really starting to come together. This week I've been working on the priority scenes for the filming of my trip. While I can't predict what will happen when I am away, having done solo bike trip before, most notably my last attempt on the Arctic, I have a good idea about the kind of things I'll be getting up to. By splitting this down I've put together a rather large 'to-do' list to keep the ball rolling on my preparations. Hopefully you were able to read my blog last week from Iceland (if not click here to read). I did a vlog while I was away also but I had...

Hi everyone, Welcome to my latest blog post for Arctic Ride 2014 - my solo 6000 mile motorbike ride to the Arctic for charity Cerebra. This week's blog is coming all the way from Iceland!!! And no I haven't started my ride yet (that's not until May) but I am getting acclimatised to the cold and looking at what I might be experiencing when I ride through Norway, Finland, and Sweden.  Contrary to popular belief Iceland's mainland isn't inside the Arctic Circle, only part of a tiny island of Grimsey north of the mainland has the Arctic Circle pass through it. However Iceland really lives up to its name, it's covered in snow and ice almost everywhere you can see even if its not been snowing for a few days! I've spent the last few days in the capital Reykjavik and its truly stunning. The country only has a population of 330,000 people and 110,000 of them live in Reykjavik so there it's plenty of space to look round and enjoy the scenery.  This is the view to ...

Hi everyone. Welcome to my Arctic Ride 2014 blog. In May and June of THIS YEAR I will be riding my motorbike solo, 6,000 miles from my hometown of Whitley Bay in the North of England to Nordkapp, Norway deep inside the Arctic Circle. Wow its been a month since my last blog (that's not like me) but I've been a busy chappy alongside the usual festivities of December. I hope that all my readers/followers have had a great Christmas and New Year and got everything you were hoping for! Also hears to 2014... have a great year. So whats been going on that you have been too busy to blog I hear you say? Well I had a non motorbike related holiday visited some new places around Europe with my wife Kirsty which has occupied most of my time. I did want to a blog while I was away but lack of WiFi mixed with fun things to do halted this. I know I must be more disciplined when I'm away on my trip to the Arctic. Protecting the Empire at Budapest Castle, Hungary I'm always kee...