Latest / Zone2Speak Podcast / James Benson King: The Biking Viking’s Unbelievable Ride

Transcript

James Benson King: The Biking Viking’s Unbelievable Ride · Zone2Speak Podcast

0:00
Music.
0:11
This episode of Zone 2 Speak is supported by Peloton, the ultimate sunscreen for athletes.
0:17
If you know me, you know I never leave the house without sunscreen, and Peloton is my go-to.
0:23
It's lightweight, breathable, and designed for endurance sports,
0:28
perfect for any day out on the saddle.
0:30
And because they are supporting the podcast, you get 20% off your order.
0:36
Just head to the link in the show notes and use the code ZONETOSPEAK at checkout.
0:42
Protect your skin, feel your adventures, and support the pod while you do it.
0:48
Okay, on today's episode, I am joined by James Benson King, wildly known as
0:55
the Biking Viking, an endurance cyclist, motivational speaker,
0:59
and content creator who redefined his boundaries on a bike.
1:03
From a childhood shaped by a hard condition to carving out a career in high-pressure finance at J.P.
1:10
Morgan, James ultimately answered a deeper calling.
1:15
A fateful meeting with a cyclist tour during his bikepacking years sparked his
1:20
dream, and he turned that dream into an extraordinary reality.
1:25
Pedaling from Alaska to Argentina, over 32,000 across the Americas.
1:30
Along the way, he battled snowstorms, survived riding 900 kilometers on one
1:37
leg, and immersed himself into the wildest landscapes,
1:41
growing into a powerful storyteller about resilience, problem-solving, and leadership.
1:47
I had the chance to meet James at the Via Race, where he finished 4,000 kilometers
1:52
in the top 10, and I really enjoy our conversation there.
1:56
So I'm so happy he made the time to come on the podcast and share his story
2:00
with all of us. James, welcome to Zone to Speak.
2:04
Thank you for having me. How are you doing today? Good, good.
2:07
It's good to see you, to reunite, even though from afar.
2:12
No it's definitely i've been dealing with some some post-race blues after via
2:17
it's it's horrible to meet all these amazing people and then you just have to
2:21
leave everybody go back to normal life so it's nice to catch up,
2:25
Yeah, I was thinking about that, you know, because when you do those type of
2:29
events, you are really emerged into your own thoughts and this experience,
2:35
highs and lows, a little bit of solitude and also meeting amazing people.
2:40
And VIA is 4,000 kilometers, so it's longer than usual.
2:45
And so it's a longer experience. So how is it? How are you like dealing with the blues?
2:52
It's it reminded me i mean i haven't felt anything this intense since i was
2:58
sick when i was 16 i went on a rugby tour to south africa and when i was 18
3:02
i did another one to australia with my school so it was like a hundred school
3:06
kids for three weeks you would just be with each other 24 7.
3:11
And at the end of it you just came back and you
3:13
were back with your parents and you'd had this massive
3:17
bonding experience of like playing sports in another
3:20
country amazing experiences and then
3:22
you're just back to like being at home normal life
3:26
and this is very similar to that but the
3:29
the adrenaline highs and the like
3:31
massive lows compared with like the
3:34
community coming together at the start and the end or like
3:37
you know me barging into a refuge and just
3:40
bombarding you guys with my craziness like all
3:44
of that and then back to back to normal life it's
3:47
it's a big adjustment yeah yeah yeah
3:50
so i hope you you come out of that positively which
3:53
i'm sure you will and i know you have other bigger plans that
3:56
i want to talk about it but first since we're talking about
3:59
via you finished on the top 10 an
4:02
incredible result such a tough event what
4:06
did that experience teach you and how did it
4:08
compare to your long solo expeditions i
4:12
think the biggest lesson i learned from via
4:15
is is confidence in myself a lot
4:17
of the events and challenges that
4:21
i do are very solo and and it's me against me and i think my self-confidence
4:27
when i'm doing those challenges is kind of unlimited i trust them back myself
4:31
but i never know how i compare to other riders and i I think this year has been
4:37
my chance to do that more so.
4:40
Which is quite scary sometimes. You're really putting yourself out there.
4:44
And VIA was like the ultimate test for that.
4:47
I'm editing the footage from the race now, and there's a lot of conversations
4:50
I have with Ian along the way kind of reminding me what I thought was achievable.
4:55
I thought I would just be mid-pack.
4:57
And he kind of convinced me to go for it and not leave anything on the table.
5:02
And yeah, I was really, really happy to break the top 10 and end up finishing there. It was awesome.
5:09
Yeah, I remember we were having a little chat, you and I, and Ian,
5:13
and we talked about that, that, you know, he thought maybe top 20,
5:18
and then you made it to top 10. I mean, it's incredible.
5:22
Really incredible. i was i was
5:25
i think the the backup lesson of of that
5:28
that i learned and and i'm kind of exploring more at
5:31
the moment and potentially kind of writing a speech on is the this idea that
5:37
we have all these cliches in our life of like anything is possible if you believe
5:41
it and like reach for the stars and what i'm realizing this year is that although
5:45
they are cliches a lot of them are true And that from this race,
5:50
I learned if you don't aim for it, if you don't set these goals,
5:53
then they aren't achievable because you don't know what you're aiming for and
5:57
you haven't kind of breathed them into existence.
5:59
And it's scary to do that.
6:02
It's scary to say, I'm going to race 4,000 kilometers and I'm aiming to be in
6:06
the top 10 because if you don't reach it, it can seem quite silly.
6:11
But if you don't have that goal, if you don't say, I'm going to do X,
6:14
Y, Z, you're not aiming for anything. and I don't think it can be achieved that way.
6:19
So that's kind of the sub-lesson that I've learned is, yeah,
6:24
to set these crazy goals, which I do anyway.
6:27
Yeah, you do set a lot of crazy goals. But I agree, and this is something you
6:30
can apply any facet of life, like studies, career, love life,
6:39
whatever. Like, if you don't set a goal...
6:42
Life is happening to you. And again, cliche, but it is the truth.
6:47
Yeah, it's terrible. All the cliches are true. Yeah, it's true.
6:54
Now, one of the moments that stood out at VR Race was the baguette story,
7:02
which I think it was, at the time, was a super lowest moment,
7:06
but now it's kind of turning out as a highlight.
7:12
It's definitely, looking back at it, I think I started to soften on the view
7:17
of that day, the minute I got to the refuge.
7:19
So my view had already started to become a bit positive, but in the moment,
7:24
that was by far the lowest.
7:26
Yeah. I mean, that rain was, the rain itself wasn't the problem.
7:31
It was the freezing cold wind. I was soaked to the core and that headwind was
7:36
just, yeah, was draining all through Germany.
7:38
And i think the mentality of you
7:42
know if you go out for a ride and it starts to rain you
7:45
might be two hours away from home and you know once you get home you
7:48
can have a hot chocolate and warm up but the mentality of
7:51
being like it's it's 7 a.m i'm freezing
7:54
cold now the rain doesn't look like it's going to stop
7:57
and a hundred miles away is is where i need
8:00
to get to like the mindset to get
8:03
through that was was tough yeah yeah i
8:06
i can't even imagine because i was indoor waiting
8:09
for you guys at refuge too and i'm
8:12
like oh i cannot even complain about the weather
8:15
because all the writers out there and for
8:19
whoever is listening and don't know at
8:23
this i think it was like actually a lot of days that was already raining
8:26
and your you couldn't you know do the touchscreen
8:29
on your phone and there was nothing to wipe everything was
8:32
soaked so james was using pieces of a baguette to to
8:35
do the navigation on his phone and then do the touch screen.
8:38
Yeah yeah not it was
8:42
i mean that was a bad decision on my part which is i was beating myself up i
8:45
couldn't get the gpx from my phone to the my garmin so i had to navigate off
8:51
my phone and that that itself was an issue without the rain and then the rain
8:54
came along and that really yeah threw a spanner in the works A wet phone, you cannot open.
9:01
And with everything soaked on the bike, there was only one option, and that was baguette.
9:08
Multipurpose.
9:12
A few people did ask if I still ate the baguette afterwards.
9:16
And of course, as an ultra cyclist, you don't throw calories away.
9:19
So yeah, I would squeegee my phone and then eat the baguette. That was the process.
9:24
Nice, nice. Classy.
9:31
Leave shame at the door if you're an ultra cyclist there's no shame on anything
9:36
everything goes when you are an ultra race.
9:41
So let me rewind a little bit from the very beginning.
9:45
I did some research. So this is not something you shared. So correct me if I'm
9:50
wrong. I saw that you grew up with a heart condition.
9:54
How did that shape your mindset around challenge and endurance?
9:58
And at what point did you realize that physical pain and limitation weren't
10:03
just obstacles, but feel for growth? I think that the two were different aspects
10:10
of my life which developed at different times.
10:12
I think my, and this was all subconscious, I've only become aware of it,
10:17
I would say, in the past four or five years where I've looked back and been
10:20
like, oh, maybe that's related to this.
10:22
But I think that mindset of almost stubbornness that subconsciously I probably
10:29
thought this heart condition was limiting in my life and therefore I had this
10:34
drive from somewhere from like a young age.
10:37
My first memory was of this being used
10:40
was when I was 14 and my parents telling me if you want to go to South Africa
10:45
on this rugby tour you need to pay for it because we don't have the money right
10:48
now and they said we're not saying you can't go but you have our permission
10:52
to go but if you want to go you need to find two thousand pounds and so rather than.
10:58
Having that as a no and just giving up and being a 14-year-old,
11:02
I put absolutely everything, all of my energy into finding that money,
11:08
making that money by hook or by crook.
11:10
I ended up going on that rugby tour.
11:13
I still had my heart condition then, so I was still dealing with that.
11:18
That's my first memory of it impacting my kind of drive.
11:22
But in terms of the physical aspect i
11:25
was always involved in sports rugby american football
11:28
but i would say that i only really realized it
11:32
affecting me in the physical sense was when i started cycling and i realized
11:36
that drive directly applied to my resilience in cycling and i started doing
11:42
endurance challenges and that's when the two kind of really came together and
11:47
really exploded into into this whole other thing, which is now,
11:52
yeah, my life's passion, I guess. Awesome. Thanks for sharing that.
11:55
We talked a little bit about via how you built a successful path in investment
12:00
banking, rising to operations VP at JP Morgan, while you secretly prepared your epic cycling journey.
12:10
What internal shift happened that made you swap the corporate world for the,
12:16
unpredictability of long distance adventures?
12:19
I think part of it was the honest answer was I'd done 12 months of counseling
12:25
because something didn't feel right.
12:27
And what it came down to was I was having an internal identity crisis.
12:32
I thought I should be doing something else like deep, deep down within me.
12:37
And every moment that I spent staying in Bournemouth where I was living and
12:41
going to work, I could feel myself not doing the thing I felt like I should be doing.
12:47
And so that was, that was kind of when I decided I need to change this because
12:53
I can keep on pushing in this other direction.
12:56
But if deep down that the core of me knows I should be doing something else,
12:59
I think it's, it's almost irresponsible not to chase that.
13:03
And then the real kicker was, I was really, really close to my granddad.
13:08
I lived with him at the time and he unfortunately passed away.
13:11
And that was the final, like, kick on the ass. Like, yeah, the universe was
13:16
telling you, you're free.
13:18
Do it yeah you don't you don't need to help him anymore
13:21
it was also a reminder of like the fragility of
13:24
life and i was like okay true so much
13:27
to the dismay of my long-term girlfriend at the time i did have
13:30
to did have to tell her i need to chase this this dream she was very understanding
13:35
and unfortunately we're not together anymore so but yeah it was the right decision
13:39
right decision yeah when we had this chat that was you know i also related and
13:44
i hope a lot of people that are going through some of those feelings,
13:47
really listen to their gut.
13:49
I know sometimes it's hard because we have commitments, but I think you can
13:54
adjust things in life because I went through that as well.
13:57
And I'm making a quarter of what I used to make financially,
14:02
but I'm much, much happier, much less stress in my life.
14:08
I didn't make as a radical change as yours, but
14:11
I definitely took a step down and i'm
14:14
finding time and space to do things that i love like the
14:17
podcast and cycle more and creating events so
14:21
yeah hopefully other people will listen to their guts because i
14:24
think a lot of people get sometimes a little stuck because it's
14:28
hard right sometimes to follow that internal voice
14:31
it's really really hard and i think that's
14:35
i kind of deal in absolutes as well
14:37
so i'll swing the whatever the pendulum in
14:40
one corner or another but i think my message to other people is
14:43
that they don't need to do that a lot of people are having
14:46
these internal issues or they want
14:49
to change something and they think it has to be massive and it doesn't have
14:53
to be massive you can make smaller changes along the way so i think for a lot
14:58
of people they think well i can't change this completely so i just won't change
15:01
anything and the message i kind of try and give off is like Even small changes
15:06
can make big, big differences.
15:07
So you don't need to see these massive adventures and think,
15:11
well, that's what I'm going to do.
15:12
You can make smaller changes along the way that can give the same benefits, I think.
15:17
Couldn't agree more. Just making some room for you.
15:21
And especially speaking as a mom, I see so many moms too that it's just like
15:26
there's so much time dedicated to kids and the house and the job,
15:30
trying to juggle everything.
15:31
But if you do squeeze in one hour for you a day, it does start to create some
15:36
shift that your mood and your perception of life and how you lead things are
15:41
so much lighter in your heart.
15:45
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So you left J.P.
15:49
Morgan and you go into this journey from Alaska to Argentina.
15:55
This was no small feat, 32,000 kilometers across diverse terrain,
16:02
wildly diverse terrain.
16:04
You set the rule that you would ride every kilometer by bike,
16:09
never skipping or being driven.
16:12
What was the significance of that
16:15
self-imposed code and how did it
16:17
shape your experience along the way i think for me the
16:20
driver was that i was doing it for charity so i
16:23
wanted to raise money for cardiac risk and the young which
16:27
is a charity that could have helped me i wasn't aware of it when i was a kid
16:31
but it definitely struck a chord when i understood their purpose so they they
16:35
screen children to try and find problems before they become bigger problems
16:39
and fortunately my dad had the same heart condition as me.
16:44
So when I complained of symptoms, I managed to catch them very early.
16:47
And because of that, I found out about the charity through, unfortunately,
16:53
a friend of mine passing away at university.
16:55
And I really wanted to give back.
16:59
I think there's potentially a sense of guilt there that I got through.
17:03
And I don't know, maybe I could have helped Alex.
17:06
But because of that, I wanted to raise money for Cardiac Risk and the Young.
17:10
And for me, that meant cycling every kilometer, like just doing the journey itself.
17:16
And I guess I guess would be just the enjoyment. And so there needed to be some hardship in there.
17:23
And I like to complete things like I like the idea of getting a car along the
17:28
way just doesn't doesn't seem right. And so setting that gave me this overarching
17:33
goal and unique purpose that I had to work towards.
17:38
And I think that drove me along the whole trip.
17:41
I saw a lot of other riders doing a similar trip to me whose goal was just enjoyment.
17:47
They were out there to have fun and kudos to them. They did the journey in their own way.
17:52
But for me, I think the bigger goal was to push myself and this kind of ingrained me in that purpose.
18:01
How did it shape the challenge? There was a few times where it would have been
18:04
a lot easier to just get in a car and drive along the way to Spring to Mind in particular.
18:11
And so it forced me to problem solve.
18:15
It forced me to be resilient. It forced me to see things as opportunities when
18:22
maybe they didn't seem like opportunities at first glance.
18:26
Yeah, I bet. And there was a moment, I believe in Baja, California,
18:30
when your pedal crank failed and you rode nearly 900 kilometers using only your right leg.
18:38
Did you use a Coke can to fix it? did i read this right like can you walk me
18:43
through that and what was going through your mind physically emotionally and
18:47
another question i have on this sorry it's loaded,
18:50
how come you couldn't fix your bike for 900 kilometers.
18:57
So this all spans from me so i like as as crazy as these challenges may sound
19:02
i'm i am not the best at bike maintenance as i said my background is in contact
19:07
sports so i kind of went from the,
19:11
the what you say the the slogan is i went from smashing people
19:14
to smashing heads okay i'm very
19:17
rough i'm very heavy-handed and i noticed
19:20
that my pedal crank was kind of wobbling a little bit but
19:23
i didn't do anything to to tighten it for for a day
19:26
or two and eventually when i did go to tighten it it had essentially ground
19:31
down and every time i went to put it back on it would just fall off so at the
19:35
time i was 40 kilometers away from a big city i was like well i need to cycle
19:40
every kilometer i'll hold on to the pedal and i'll just ride with one leg into this city,
19:45
40 kilometers it was pretty tough but i got in as i problem solved that's a
19:49
story i can put in my my piggy bank of stories to tell later now i can fix this
19:54
problem and i walked around this city for a day into every shop and bicycle
19:59
shops in the mexican desert don't appear to be a big thing,
20:04
especially in this this city didn't even have one but i managed to find some nuts and bolts,
20:10
that i could use to attach to the crank and really kind of tighten it down and so what i did was i i.
20:17
Shifted a piece of like coke can big enough
20:20
to wrap around the crank and then wedge
20:23
it on and tighten everything together i thought
20:27
i was an absolute genius i clicked back into the
20:30
pedal to set off the next morning and i put a tiny
20:33
bit of pressure through and the whole thing slipped off no and
20:36
i was like right there's enough there's
20:40
enough grip in it i put it back on there's enough grip in it for
20:42
me to rest my foot on it because otherwise you just
20:45
you've just got your flailing left foot all day so i
20:49
can i can rest my foot but i have to put all the pedal all
20:52
the pressure through my right foot and so the next
20:55
day i rode a hundred miles to the next city one
20:58
legged i got to the next city was like
21:00
rub my hands together you know i've got the story in the piggy bank i
21:03
did a hundred miles with one leg today now i
21:06
need to find a bike shop and there was
21:09
a bike shop in this city but they did not have any any
21:12
parts for mine we're talking kind of just just town bikes
21:15
they can fix odds and sods they
21:18
didn't have any pedal cranks that would work with with my shimano
21:21
and so at this point i was like i wanted to get down to southern baja for christmas
21:27
i had was trying to meet a friend there and so i just i was like well if i've
21:31
done 100 miles i can i can just keep going and i'll i'll stop by bike shops
21:36
along the way and see if they can help me.
21:38
And otherwise I'll just keep going. And so part of it became,
21:42
I knew that I wanted to be down there for Christmas. I didn't want to stop and
21:46
wait for parts to be shipped to me.
21:48
And that faff, there was kind of nothing. It was the Mexican desert.
21:51
There wasn't much going on in the towns I was passing through.
21:54
And so for me, it's just better to keep moving than it is to stay still sometimes.
22:00
And so I wasn't sure along the way if I'd find the parts.
22:04
I didn't. And yeah, I ended up riding all the way to
22:07
todo santos which was 900 kilometers
22:11
arrived on christmas eve
22:13
and arrived to the beach to meet my friends and they were laughing at
22:16
how big my right leg was compared to my left oh my
22:21
gosh and you didn't have any pain from like the unbalance of
22:24
riding and yeah you did oh yeah i had
22:27
a lot of pain there's a lot of back pain a lot of it was
22:30
soreness because you can't stand up out of the saddle ever so
22:34
yeah this is one thing that
22:36
you just kind of take for granted with with two legs is
22:40
yeah getting out of the saddle is is almost impossible and
22:44
then afterwards when i did have i ended up having the part shipped to me when
22:48
i did put it back on i kind of had to relearn how to ride a bike because for
22:53
two weeks i hadn't really ridden with two legs so it was a whole lesson all
22:57
over again wow wow that's intense and kudos to you because i think,
23:04
anyone else would like i don't know stopped found a way like i don't know i
23:09
don't know how as i guess you're in the middle of nowhere no bike shops bike
23:12
shops that don't have the right parts i don't know if they could order but yeah
23:16
i mean i certainly know i don't know if i would do it with one leg man that's that's a lot,
23:21
Some of it, I think, is just stubbornness. I don't know whether it's resilience
23:25
or I'm just really stubborn.
23:29
Well, on this same journey, you were exposed to volcanoes in Guatemala, snow, Alaska passes.
23:37
But obviously, there were also moments of peer human connection.
23:41
Like language lessons from locals, improprietary invitations to stay.
23:46
Can you share one or two of those spontaneous encounters that stayed with you most vividly?
23:54
I think the most vivid one would be in Mexico as well, mainly because at that
23:59
point, I didn't know the language that well.
24:01
And I was very open to human connection.
24:06
I think when I could speak the language more fluently, I was connecting more easily.
24:10
But I really valued the connections I made in Mexico as I was only just getting used to the language.
24:16
And there was a particular instance up a volcano actually where
24:19
a family i'd hiked up to the top of volcano left
24:23
my bike at this guard hut and when i came back down there
24:26
was a family all crowded around my bike and at
24:29
first like the first moment i was like oh my god is my bike okay like what are
24:33
they doing and as i went over i could see that they were kind of in in shock
24:37
they were just checking out my panniers and we ended up talking having a few
24:41
pictures together and they invited of me to come and stay with them if I was
24:46
passing through their town.
24:47
And it was only when I checked my map a few days later that I realized I was
24:51
going through their town.
24:52
And so I emailed the guy, kind of said, hey, I'm going to be passing through Hernando.
24:56
And he said, you have to meet me this place at 4pm on this day.
25:02
And as a cycle tourer, you're like, that's not how I live life.
25:08
Like I arrived to places when I arrive and like it's freedom.
25:12
And my immediate reaction was to be like, no, I'm not.
25:15
But I softened a bit and I was like, yeah, okay, I'll meet you there.
25:19
And as I arrived and realized that the location he'd sent me was the border
25:24
to Oaxaca, which was his state, and he was super proud of his state.
25:28
And as I sat there, it got to four o'clock, and I'm like, you tell me to be
25:34
here at four and you're not here at four.
25:36
It gets to quarter past four, and I'm like, what is going on?
25:38
And then up over the hill, I see one cyclist,
25:42
and then I see another cyclist, and another, and
25:45
another and about 10 cyclists come up
25:48
and all like get around me and it's Hernando again and
25:51
his family and his son and his friends and they formed like
25:54
a little bike club wow let's we
25:57
can we can go ride now and he's two seconds and he
26:00
makes a call and over the hill comes a police
26:03
car and they'd organized
26:06
a police convoy so they are mountain bikers normally they
26:09
go off and ride on trails and they don't truck the roads so
26:13
he'd called up his buddy to give us a police convoy
26:16
in so not only was it a car behind us
26:19
to stop cars from overtaking when we
26:22
got to the city limits they pulled a police motorbike in front
26:25
so that we had a front and back through the whole
26:28
city we were super protective what a vip treatment
26:32
yeah it was it was awesome i had loads of pictures in the town center and then
26:38
we went and had dinner at their house and it was just like the family was beautiful
26:42
the food was amazing and that was when we sat down and they asked me implored
26:47
me to come and speak at their school the next day and.
26:51
I did. I butchered some Spanish initially. I did two to three minutes of my story in Spanish.
26:57
And then thank God they asked me to just answer questions in English from the
27:02
kids, which provided some incredibly funny questions from them.
27:07
And that was my first kind of instance speaking in front of crowds.
27:11
So that was, I think it was 2000 kids, maybe it was a big school.
27:15
Wow and yeah that i came away
27:18
from from that moment i could tell
27:21
that i'd inspired some of the kids to travel just through their
27:24
own country not even by bike but i'd shown them
27:27
some pictures of my journey through their country and made them
27:30
see their own country in a different way and i
27:33
just loved that feeling of kind of inspiring empowering
27:36
other people and yeah i was riding off
27:38
that for days yeah that was awesome that was
27:41
a catalyst for a lot of your purpose
27:44
now how amazing nothing is a coincidence here
27:47
we go again another cliche there you go
27:50
yeah yeah no if if they hadn't
27:53
been on that volcano on that day like who knows what
27:56
i would be doing now yeah well i'm sure you would have
27:59
found you know people would want to hear your story and would have
28:02
the same feeling but how incredible to start.
28:05
With you know this family and then
28:07
with kids and having this funny moment of trying to
28:10
speak spanish and the kids are speaking in english it
28:13
sounds like a fun setting and you
28:17
know you were able to be on that high for a few days
28:20
i was yeah yeah and some of
28:22
the like some of the kids i mean they were taking advantage
28:25
of me as as a as a as a non-spanish speaker
28:29
one of the kids asked me what my shoe size was and i did i didn't connect that
28:34
there was maybe uh you know a connotation there with teenagers so i'm i'm truthfully
28:38
that's hilarious oh my gosh that moment plays rent free in my head that i answered
28:46
that question seriously.
28:49
But maybe it was for the best that you are naively answering those questions,
28:57
how about your spanish masa why you flexing
29:00
that still oh man i have i need to practice again
29:03
every time i go and speak spanish i lose
29:06
more and more confidence in myself yeah i
29:09
think once i get practicing again it will be better i just yeah do
29:12
not have the time at the moment which is unfortunately very sad i
29:16
loved i loved speaking spanish looking back what
29:19
were the biggest internal shifts you experienced uh
29:22
hard-won lessons in that ability gratitude mindset
29:26
that continue to inform how you
29:29
live and inspire others today i think the biggest
29:32
one for me was which
29:36
impacts me kind of daily and and everything is
29:39
is what i call kind of giving it up to the universe and
29:42
it's i just found this innate trust on that
29:45
trip for reasons like the story i've just told
29:48
you that the universe kind of has a plan and
29:51
you can react when things happen in
29:54
a negative way but they've happened and maybe they've
29:57
happened for a reason and so it just gives you this kind
30:01
of comfort in that whatever happens you've got.
30:03
It and you can keep moving forward and i think
30:06
before a big thing that worried me about coming
30:09
home was you know would i be able to get a job again or would
30:12
something work out and in the end it's just you
30:16
know if i'm working towards my entire goal and i
30:19
don't manage to raise the funds to go and do the trip something else will work
30:23
out and if i have to go back to the corporate world because whatever doesn't
30:26
work out you know it is what it is and so there's this just innate trust in
30:31
the universe's plan which kind of gives you a sense of calm and allows you to
30:36
just kind of enjoy the smaller things without worrying too much.
30:39
That's the overarching one. The other thing that I kind of figured out along
30:44
the way and is a story I kind of like to tell is this thing,
30:47
I call it flipping the switch. And that's that I.
30:52
In from alaska to argentina there was never really a moment where i thought i wouldn't finish.
30:58
And that was purely down to this like once i set
31:02
my sights on something like the flip has been switched
31:05
and and it will happen and it's just this distilled
31:09
confidence that it will get done and
31:11
it's not cockiness and it's it's not humble
31:14
either it's like somewhere in the middle of just almost surgical
31:18
yeah yeah yeah and i
31:21
think that's kind of when i'm going into these races
31:25
or events i get so dialed in
31:28
that that is the only thing that matters the flip
31:31
is switched and so far they've all
31:34
been they've all been successful so that's
31:37
yeah those are kind of the two that i've come away with very important
31:41
messages i think and the
31:44
first one you know it's so easy you're sad
31:47
you know like you what you can't control you just need to let
31:50
go but it's true once you know if you start practicing then
31:53
becomes a habit and it's true set your goals
31:56
and just let go of what you can control and you all we
31:59
always figure things out you know like i guess i don't
32:02
know way i read this but i think the most happier successful however you for
32:08
me i'm defining success as happiness and tranquility and peace it's people that
32:13
are highly adaptable because you just need to adapt to the circumstances if
32:17
you keep on holding on holding on to a result and.
32:22
Or how things should be or something from the past, then those things are controlling you.
32:28
And if you let go, I think, yeah, like you said, it's just what's meant to be will be.
32:33
Exactly. And I think the other thing is sometimes you need to allow yourself to not be that as well.
32:40
So as an example, last night I fell off the bike in via race.
32:45
I think I fractured my rib.
32:47
Last night I was doing squats and I fully broke my rib. Like I braced my core
32:52
and was like screaming in agony.
32:55
Wow. And immediately it wasn't the pain that was annoying me.
33:00
It was the fact that I know that I now can't train in a gym probably for four to six weeks.
33:06
And I know that I can deal with that and find a way around that.
33:09
But the immediate two to four hours after that happened, I was miserable because
33:14
I was like, I can't do what I want to do.
33:15
And sometimes you have to give yourself the
33:18
space to just be a kid and act you can
33:21
sulk yeah sulk for two to four hours yeah and then
33:24
you can wake up the next day and be like right this is what we're going
33:27
to do to move forward and so sometimes it's just
33:29
understanding your reaction understanding what
33:33
you need from other people like my parents were
33:36
trying to help me and I was like I don't need your
33:38
help I just need to sulk for a couple hours
33:41
let me wallow in self-pity and then I can figure
33:44
figure this thing out and i think that's
33:47
it's understanding yourself as well so i'm not
33:50
saying i'm perfect i'm not saying that my immediate reaction when
33:53
something happens is oh the universe has got my back sometimes that
33:57
isn't the reaction but eventually knowing you'll
34:00
get around to that and be able to like give up the control aspects is part of
34:05
it as well yeah very good point yeah you need to name the feelings it's okay
34:09
to feel the feelings just don't stay there forever and also it doesn't mean
34:13
that just because the wind is blowing one way that you can just be like oh,
34:18
This is what the universe wants. No, you still can fight for what you want,
34:22
but just don't get stuck there. Yeah, well said. Well said.
34:25
You clearly mentioned about your next challenge.
34:31
So I know you're plotting an even bigger challenge, becoming the first person
34:37
to cycle across Antarctica by 2026.
34:41
What draws you to that and how
34:44
are you preparing mentally physically and logistically for
34:47
this new frontier the why
34:51
i think is partly answered by circumstance so
34:54
at the the end of my alaska to argentina trip
34:57
i managed to get a really
35:00
good deal to a tour to antarctica so
35:03
it was a treat to myself to go on this cruise
35:06
and it was my final continent i'd then done north america.
35:09
South america and Alaska and I'd visited
35:12
seven out of seven continents but it just so happened
35:15
that I'd only finished my trip two days ago and there
35:18
was a big void in let's say my next goal
35:22
and at the same time I was reading about cycling
35:25
in Antarctica and there's a guy called Omar de Felice an
35:29
Italian endurance cyclist who had attempted to cycle
35:31
across Antarctica and as I was reading about him
35:34
and seeing the continent myself this idea
35:38
of trying it came into my mind initially
35:42
i kind of you know battered it away i was like no that's too
35:44
crazy you don't want to you don't want to do that but eventually
35:48
it stuck and i was like this this is going to be my next
35:52
my next thing as with all my crazy goals like kind of say i'm going to do something
35:57
and then i figure everything else out afterwards so when i said i was going
36:01
to do this i'd never cycled in snow i'd never really been in cold weather camping
36:07
or anything and so i'm figuring all of that stuff out as i go along.
36:11
And so I went to Sweden this year, did two months roughly in cold weather and
36:17
got used to camping out in the cold and cycling through snow and things.
36:21
But I'd say logistically, the biggest challenge is the fundraising aspect.
36:27
And so that's what I'm going through at the moment is it's quite expensive to
36:32
go and do these challenges.
36:34
And so I'm learning this whole new skill of kind of pitching myself
36:38
to brands and pitching what i think my value
36:41
is and what i can i can bring to them and so
36:43
that's the process i'm going through at the moment i've just
36:46
realized i haven't said what the challenge itself actually is so my
36:49
my goal is to become the first
36:52
person to cycle across antarctica and so that would be from the edge of the
36:57
landmass to the south pole and then to the to another edge of landmass so it's
37:02
the shortest crossing it's about
37:04
1 600 kilometers and but it would take about 70 to 80 days probably to
37:11
do depending on the weather depending on
37:14
the weather you can roughly do i mean the fastest
37:17
times are kind of 15 to 20 kilometers a day and that's kind of including skis
37:23
like skis that's roughly what a ski tour does so cycling is harder than that
37:27
and i'm predicting half the time this is And the biggest part of the mental
37:33
aspect of the challenge is that for half of the challenge,
37:36
I won't even be able to ride the bike and I'll be pulling the bulk,
37:40
which is the sled behind me and pushing the bike.
37:43
That's what I'm projecting and that's what I'm working towards.
37:47
Wow. And I'm sorry if it's a stupid question, but I'm thinking it's completely
37:51
deserted, right? Like, what do you do for food and things like that?
37:55
Well, there's nothing. Yeah, it is a white desert.
37:59
So yeah, that's a big part of the mental preparation as well is how I'm dealing with that.
38:03
I mean, you saw me at VIA race, I get all of my energy from other people.
38:08
There's going to be no refuges there for me to recharge at. And so to seriously
38:14
answer your question, all of the food will be carried in my pulk if I decide to go unsupported.
38:21
My hope is that I can raise enough money to pay for food stores along the way
38:27
and have that support, which will make the success rate of the challenge much higher.
38:33
And so I'd probably have five or six food stashes along the way,
38:37
which would mean that the pulk would be dramatically reduced in weight.
38:41
Yeah well i hope you get that is there
38:44
link or how can people contribute
38:47
to this is are you fundraising as well that
38:50
people can contribute to help you achieve this goal it's it's
38:54
something that i'm looking at so at the moment i'm pulling together all of the
38:57
final kind of the project website and things like this and as a side part of
39:03
that i think a few people have reached out and said they'd love to love to help
39:06
and so i'll set up a fundraiser as well yeah awesome we'll add to the episode
39:10
description so everybody can check it out,
39:13
read more about it, and contribute.
39:16
Awesome. Thank you. Well, such a pleasure always spending time with you.
39:21
Thanks for sharing your journey.
39:23
You are a true inspiration. And as you gear up for the icy, wild,
39:29
I'll be watching and rooting every step of the way.
39:33
Awesome. Thank you very much. Pleasure to talk to you. And that's all for today's
39:37
episode. I want to thank the listeners for tuning in.
39:41
Your support means everything. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider
39:45
following, leaving a review, and sharing it with your friends.
39:50
Music.