The Arctic Rider

Hi everyone, Thanks for checking in, reading my blog, and supporting my Iron Butt challenge. As many of you may know (or guess from my pseudonym) I rode my bike to the Arctic in 2014 to raise money for brain injury charity Cerebra, who have helped my little brother and my family for many years. I knew from quite early on I wanted to help give something back to Cerebra but it just took me a little while to figure out how to do it. This time around, it didn't take long after our family got support from Tiny Lives, when my daughter Islay was born prematurely, that I knew I was going to be jumping on my bike to 'give something  back' again. Now not many outside my family and close circle of friends really know Islay's story but I wanted to share just a glimpse of it to give you readers an insight into just why The Tiny Lives Trust means so much to us and why I'm determined to raise some money so they can continue to help other families. My buddy Ant, part of...

Greetings to the latest edition of The Arctic Rider blog, Its just over 3 weeks until I set off to take on the 'Iron Butt' challenge to raise money for The Tiny Lives Trust . No two ways about it, taking on ~900miles in a single day riding is going to be a challenge. I consider myself a somewhat seasoned long distance rider but I must admit I've been out of practice since I returned from the Arctic. I've done a few 250 mile days to the South West of Scotland to see family and the odd ride around Northumberland, so I knew I needed to get a good 'warm up' ride in preparation for the Iron Butt. 6am start from Newcastle So last Sunday, I set my alarm early and got myself on the road by 6am ready to get the miles under my belt. I loaded up the bike with my touring boxes to get a feel for having a fully loaded bike again. The weather forecast was excellent but as I headed up through Northumberland en route to Scotland I was greeted by fog, cold temperatures,...

Hi everyone, Its now only 6 weeks (43 days technically) until my ride gets underway and I'm getting both excited and nervous. I've done some planning of when and where I will need to stop and suddenly the reality of what I'm undertaking has become apparent... its a bloody long way in 24 hours. Below is my draft plan, based on my riding experience and guidance from the experts, of what I think I will be able to achieve. I'm going to be getting up about 4am to pack the bike, get some breakfast in me, and get down to the Lands End Visitor Centre from my hotel ready for paperwork signing and the launch at 5.30am... so before I start I'll already have been up for over an hour. By the time I've usually finished the nursery run and starting work I should be ~150 miles in and at my first stop at Taunton... then by lunch time I'm hoping to have hit the 300 mile mark... which is usually a substantial and fairly long day from my previous rides. By the en...

Hello, Welcome welcome welcome, to the latest edition of The Arctic Rider blog. Its now only 75 days until I attempt to ride the length of the UK in less than 24 hours to raise money for The Tiny Lives Trust... man I'm getting excited. Post-brew at the Tiny Lives office A few weeks ago I popped into the Tiny Lives office, leathers and all, to give the team an update of my plans. In return I was given a very tasty cuppa, a choccy biscuit, and some encouragement from the team. The past week has been a media frenzy for The Arctic Rider and The Stuart family. Islay (with Kirsty and I) recently starred in new film being produced for Tiny Lives to help raised awareness of parents' journeys when having a premature or sick baby who is helped by Ward 35 at the RVI in Newcastle and Tiny Lives. Appearing on BBC Look North last weekend It all started last weekend when the crew from BBC Look North turned our living room into a studio and were interviewing Kirsty an...

Hello there, Welcome to the latest edition of The Arctic Rider blog. It's only 99 days until I set off from Lands End ready to attempt to get to John O'Groats within 24 hours. Some of my regular social media followers will have noticed that I have changed my logo. I was messing around on my laptop one night and ended up coming up with the below design which I kind of liked. It got the wife's stamp of approval so I thought I'd go for it! At the same time I also designed this logo for my Iron Butt ride, incorporating the Iron Butt UK logo. Again this got the OK, this time from the UK Iron Butt association, so it's official. As you can imagine I've been thinking a lot about my ride and chatting to other bikers I know and some of my buddies on Twitter. It's a very different challenge to the one I faced in 2014 riding to the Arctic. Back then it was more of a long term view, with that trip being 3 weeks, and all about long but steady days, making...

Greetings to the latest Arctic Rider blog, In the past few weeks I've made some great progress in my preparation for my Iron Butt challenge. Firstly, I've finally set a date for my ride which is going to be Tuesday 5th of July ... so only 139 days to go... wow that's not long at all until I set off. Secondly, I had a great meeting with film maker Andy Qualtrough who came to meet me in Newcastle. We had a good chat about how to make the film as wide reaching as possible and how we are going to film some of my pre-trip activities such as planning, the bike being serviced, and the annual monkey-meet biker trip at the Ace cafe in London. Its going to be a great watch indeed. I've also had from great news on the corporate sponsor point of view. In the past few days I've managed to secure two new corporate sponsors. I'm delighted to confirm that Puddle Ducks North East are going to be a sponsor of my Iron Butt challenge. Puddle Ducks provi...

Welcome back to he latest edition of The Arctic Rider blog.  It's my first (proper) blog of 2016 so I can officially say it's this year that I'm doing my Iron Butt challenge! Woohoo! While it's not as big an undertaking as my trip to the Arctic Circle in 2014, it's still going to be a mighty challenge but one that I am really looking forward to.  It was Winston Churchill who said "You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks"...And like my Arctic Ride in 2014 I've managed to attract some unexpected negative responses...  Only a few days ago at work I was chatting to a colleague about my Iron Butt ride and another colleague (who I don't know) butts in and queries  "Are you doing it on a peddle bike, like?" To which I truthfully replied "nope, motorcycle in less than 24 hours" "well how's that a challenge? People peddle it in a few days don't they?" ...