The Arctic Rider

Welcome to The Arctic Rider blog, I’m pleased to say that yesterday I set off my house bound for Arctic Iceland, my latest charity motorbike challenge. Firstly, apologies I wasn’t able to blog last night . I got to the ferry later than planned and the WiFi wasn’t  working onboard so I’ve had to defer to tonight. Day 1 I set off from my house just after lunchtime on Saturday afternoon. Unlike my last 2 Arctic Rides, there was no fanfare or big send off. I decided to keep it low key due to the short preparation time I had for the Iceland trip and to make sure I focused on getting packed and not forgetting anyway (I still managed to forget tea bags and a few first aid kit items, but heyho). My destination on Saturday evening was the port of Harwich in Essex to catch the 2100 ferry to Rotterdam, some 325 miles... not bad for an afternoon. Before I left however I did have to say bye to my wife and kids. It’s always hard leaving your family but I found this goodbye particular...

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...

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...