Lois Pryce 🇬🇧 on Iran ADV Travel and The Dutch Minion 🇳🇱

Iran can feel like a headline, a warning label, a place you’re supposed to have an opinion about without ever meeting the people who live there. We wanted something better than that, so we sat down with world-renowned author and rider Lois Pryce to talk about what actually happens when you show up on a motorcycle with curiosity, humility, and a willingness to be changed.

Lois takes us from her BBC music department days and the moment she realized she needed out, through the early internet era of clunky travel blogging that accidentally launched a writing career. From there we go deep into Revolutionary Ride and the idea that motorcycle travel isn’t “taking on” a country, it’s being in it. We talk about fear versus imagination, how Western news framing sticks in your brain, and why the reality on the ground in places like Iran can be radically more human, more funny, and more generous than you expect. We also get practical about responsibility: how to tell travel stories with nuance, how to stay aware without becoming naive, and why posting the wrong thing online can turn into real risk.

Then we switch gears to the ADV Cannonball Rally world with Deanna, better known as Dutch Minion And Her Bike, who’s building waypoints and routes for the 2027 European rally. She explains how the Netherlands becomes a rider’s playground on dike roads and reclaimed land, how to design waypoint puzzles that force smart navigation, and what it takes to ride big miles year after year. If you’re into adventure riding, GPS navigation, route planning, and the culture that makes riders help riders, you’ll feel right at home.

If you enjoyed the mix of adventure, hard truths, and laugh-out-loud detours, subscribe, share this with a riding buddy, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome, Beers, And Banter

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the ABV Cannonball Podcast. We discussed all things on two wheels, the adventure by Cannonball, and other motorcycle-related nonsense.

SPEAKER_14 0:24

Season five, episode four. Welcome to Adventure Cannonball Podcast. I am your host, Taylor Lawson, and today I am joined by whom we anticipate to be the newest Cannonball record holder, better known to you as the Waypoint Warden, Aaron Puffall. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_12 0:42

What's up, bud? Thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_14 0:45

Yeah, man. We finally got some uh hot weather over here in Sweden.

SPEAKER_12 0:49

Yeah, you just had the midsummer celebration, didn't you?

SPEAKER_14 0:52

Yeah, nobody was murdered that I'm aware of. Okay.

SPEAKER_12 0:58

Bit of a non sequitur, but nice sequitur.

SPEAKER_13 1:02

There's a movie that came out. It was a midsummer, it was like a murder movie. Did you see that?

SPEAKER_12 1:06

Oh no, sorry.

SPEAKER_13 1:07

I'm not a horror movie myself either, but I'm not a horror fan.

SPEAKER_12 1:10

But starting off the motorcycle podcast, highbrow interview with murder, but it's all good.

SPEAKER_14 1:16

You know, sometimes you just gotta go work take show.

SPEAKER_12 1:18

Maybe you could tell us what's coming up in the murderous episode.

SPEAKER_14 1:22

Fantastic. All right, coming up this episode, we've got Lois Price interview in Windsor, England, author, world traveler, and presenter. Interview which du with Dutch Minion and her bike, who set the checkpoints in the Netherlands for 2027 European Adventure Cannonball Rally. Aaron's rideouts, ADV Cannonball News, some music from our listener, Paul. Hey Aaron. Yes, sir. Where are you sitting and what are you drinking?

SPEAKER_12 1:53

I'm in the studio. By the way, I just put up some new soundproofing in the studio. So hopefully there's less room echo because I know everyone wants to hear my dulcid tones and not room echo. But I am having a new beer. It is a super flux IPA. And here we go. Nice.

SPEAKER_14 2:13

Go with your capacitors. Here we go. What uh what am I drinking? Oh, I'm drinking. I like this one. This is the um I love this name. Apocalyptic thunder juice. Nice. New England IPA. So creative. Let it rip, let's hear it. Oh, that was juicy.

SPEAKER_12 2:34

Nice one.

SPEAKER_14 2:35

Oh, I'm gonna have to clean that one up.

SPEAKER_12 2:39

I'm glad we're not on video because if listeners can see what I just saw.

SPEAKER_14 2:46

All right. So um, listeners, grab yourself a beer or a drink or whatever you choose to grab.

SPEAKER_12 2:56

Again, off the rails. Taylor, we said two things. We're gonna keep this on the rails this episode, and two, we're gonna keep a high brow because we have important interviews this episode.

SPEAKER_14 3:07

Somehow I've derailed us with a ready, but thank you very much for taking my role and bringing us back on track.

Air Conditioning Drama And Advice

SPEAKER_12 3:13

Speaking of derailments, we spoke last week as you know, we I just have this little shoe box of an apartment, and and I was like so excited, and I berated you for not having air conditioning. And they installed the air conditioning, and the first night the air conditioning failed.

SPEAKER_14 3:30

Is this a bit like when like a Karen comes out and starts yelling at you and then falls?

SPEAKER_12 3:35

Absolutely. That's 100% what's happened. I think it's just an installation error because we just have, you know, the apartment only has two rooms, right? It's literally the size of a shoebox. And there's two air handlers but one compressor outside. I went and looked, a compressor is designed for two air handlers. But when let's say air handler A is calling for cooling, I think that the refrigerant is going to the other one because it kind of froze up. I could hear it kind of super cooling, I guess. The vendor called me back and they're either gonna pop by it today or for sure it's I'll be here tomorrow morning. So hopefully nothing got permanently damaged, and hopefully it's just the installation area, which I think it is. I hope it's not like the electronics is sending cooling to the wrong unit because the circuit board is fried or something like that. So hopefully it's nothing, nothing big.

SPEAKER_14 4:26

You're not supposed to set them below 16. That's what we heard. So if you if you set them, no, if you set them, if you set them too low, yeah, then um then they freeze up. That's the uh at least that's what they're doing when they're using them to keep houses like summer houses from freezing in the in the uh in the winter, is so like, oh, I'll just put that on and keep it at, you know, keep it at five. And they're like, no, no, no, you can't set it below 16, otherwise, exactly as you described, happens.

SPEAKER_12 4:49

So no, I had it on cooling and I um I had it set on like 71 degrees Fahrenheit. So it wasn't even like working too hard. And then I actually went and turned off the one in the other room, and then I figured out what was happening. So it was sending it was sending refrigerant to an air handler that didn't have a fan running over it. So it was it was freezing. So, anyways, I'm I'm 99% sure that's what's happening, and I'm sure the contract will love to hear my theories on the matter.

SPEAKER_14 5:18

I'm thinking maybe you should just leave those at the podcast.

SPEAKER_13 5:22

Absolutely. Let the professionals do their jobs, yeah. Stand back and let them let the adults in the room work.

SPEAKER_12 5:29

This is what I think you did wrong.

SPEAKER_14 5:33

Yeah, exactly. All right. Um, I'm glad to hear that you are uh you got that under control anyway.

SPEAKER_12 5:41

Yeah, absolutely. And then more ranting. I just

Autobahn Lane Rules And Ego

SPEAKER_12 5:44

before we came on the air, I watched this video and I sent it to you. It's this this like tech bro author that turned adventurer or so-called adventurer. And he posted on Facebook this video. I'm like, why would you do this? Right. So he was riding in Germany on his rented GS 1300. So this really expensive rental bike, and the police pull him over. And he goes, and sir, why weren't you riding in the center lane? He goes, I don't know. I was just riding in the center lane. He goes, First of all, you're riding too slow. And why were you sitting in the center lane? And he goes, like, and the guy goes, I didn't know. I'm like, oh my god, this is such the cliche guy from America, hogging the center lane, not going fast enough. How embarrassing is that? And you know, doesn't understand that you need to sit in the right lane, and the other lanes are only for passing. It was the most emasculating thing I've seen on the internet all day.

SPEAKER_14 6:42

And considering the fact that you spent what, 12 hours on the internet, I mean, that says a lot.

SPEAKER_12 6:47

Listen, that's another that's a subject for another podcast. But let's keep it highbrow.

SPEAKER_14 6:51

Keep it highbrow here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 6:53

So, you know, I don't know. I guess the only reason I'm mentioning it is like our rally in this podcast, you know, although we're all for being safe, it's kind of the antidote to that, right? To all that is like be a badass, be educated, be safe, but be a badass, right? Like, don't go and post embarrassing things on the internet. I'm like, you know, let's man up a little bit, right? Like, not in this like hypermasculine, you know, toxic masculinity way, but you know, you know, like, you know, know how to ride a motorcycle and like know the rules of the road and get out of other people's way when you're going slower than everyone else. I don't know. I just found it really, I found it really disturbing why he posted that.

SPEAKER_14 7:33

When I rode back from seeing you when I drove from the UK that day, and um I was when I was in Germany on the Audubon, it's like I'm just thinking to myself, how could you be in the left lane and not be concerned about the cars coming up at, I don't know, like one time a car came by at such speed, and I was in the far right hand lane. There's an entire lane between us, and there was very little traffic, and I was far right, and this guy came by at I don't know, it's electric, there's an electric Porsche, and he came by at, I don't know, probably 250 kilometers an hour. And I just went and I the you couldn't hear it coming, and it was crazy. But like that's dangerous to be in the left land. You guys must not even be looking in the mirrors to see what's happening behind him, and that's where that's where the danger is on the Autobahn is behind you, not ahead of you.

SPEAKER_12 8:23

Absolutely. And I mentioned this in the last podcast or or whenever. The minute you get on the Autobahn, and like, you know, granted, we're talking shit here a lot, right? But you're not doing hours and hours on the highway on the Autobahn at 200 kilometers an hour on a motorcycle. Listen, unless you're a young buck, you know, but my head's gonna be shaking. I want to listen to some music, like it's too much, right? It's fine for a little square to throttle once in a while. Yeah, but I am hyper aware of that. Like, I do not want to be creamed the hood of a Tycon doing 250, right? It's like Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_13 9:00

That's true, so true.

Social Feeds And Gumball Dreams

SPEAKER_12 9:02

Anyway, speaking of uh speaking of social media, I was delighted to be watching Tommy Davies' social media feed and Ed Bullion's social media feed. He just dropped a video on Vin Wiki. It was fantastic to see our next interview. Really loving being in the Gumball 3000 and being invited by, you know, the king of Cannonball, which is Ed, and in his Bugatti Veyron, you know, one of the only two hypercars in the whole Gumball 3000. It was just so delightful to see him doing that. We just interviewed in Wales, and he just led with, I've always wanted to be in the Gumball 3000. I've always looked up to these guys. And then we haven't even aired the interview yet, which we will next week. And by the way, it's fantastic. It's called uh really good. It's really good. It's called uh Operation Haulage, and just to see all that come to fruition was so damn delightful. I was just, I could just feel the excitement, like a 16-year-old putting up a poster of uh Diablo on his wall. You know what I mean? It was like that kind of childish excitement.

SPEAKER_14 10:14

So the timing is that so you interviewed him, he's like, I could it'd be fantastic to go do that. And then in the time that you interviewed him and that you edited his his your interview with him, which is what two an hour and 45 minutes long, if I unless more gets cut out of that, it's really good. He got invited to this to do this this uh Gumball 3000.

SPEAKER_12 10:32

It was more than that. The genesis of his auto enthusiasm, his motorsports enthusiasm was based on these heroes like Alex and Ed and the Gumball 3000. And then during the time, like you said, between editing and all this, he's doing it with not just the Gumball 3000, but in a Bugatti Veyron with Ed. It's like nice, you know, you couldn't have scripted something so poetic. And so just I just felt so happy for the kid, you know what I mean? Just awesome story.

SPEAKER_14 11:06

Britain's most notorious speeder. Great interview. Yeah, stay tuned for that one.

SPEAKER_12 11:11

It's an amazing, amazing interview. Yeah, just really, really great. And then I cut the interview right at something important, and uh that'll be a story for future Aaron and Taylor.

SPEAKER_14 11:23

All right, fair enough. So,

Secret Cannonball Attempt Update

SPEAKER_14 11:26

talk to me a little bit about the cannonball attempt. I did, I did hint at that in my opening.

SPEAKER_12 11:33

Yeah, so like all cannonball attempts are kept secret, right? Yeah, but keep it down, keep it down. We were supposed to be doing it right now, and uh Carrie is gonna be helping with that, but you're not gonna believe it, like always with motorcycle shipping. The gosh darn motorcycle didn't get delivered to Carrie's. It's like sitting in a freaking depot in Florida and it didn't get delivered, so we had to scrub it. And then my wife is going to Florida in July. Anyways, the timing just didn't work out, so we've postponed it to August 1st, essentially. So hopefully, no one does what I'm planning on doing. I know I promised everyone uh the big announcement. We're gonna have a lot of podcasting, social media about the attempt, and I'm really excited about it. And I've even got future attempts in my mind if this works, but it's gonna be uh really special and you know, pretty cool.

SPEAKER_14 12:28

Very cool. Why don't you just get your wife to ride that bike up?

SPEAKER_12 12:32

Yeah, absolutely. But uh, but I did get my I ordered my VinWiki stickers, which just got delivered, uh sorry, shipped this morning. So I'll do some major sucking up to uh Ed and the VinWiki channel when I start the attempt from the Red Ball garage. I'll be starting the attempt with putting my VinWiki stickers on the uh on the tank of the motorcycle.

SPEAKER_14 12:54

Nice. Well done. You gotta take a picture of that and send it to them on their feeds.

SPEAKER_12 12:59

I want to tag them like no one's business. Like a cut like a like a Kardashian.

SPEAKER_14 13:04

I'm gonna be tagging that kind of a uh was it uh was it Dulcian Bananas? You know, who is it? Um uh Prada or somebody they they said, we will pay you to not wear our brand.

SPEAKER_12 13:19

I said, we'll we'll pay you to not wear it, please. There was uh a big motorsports crossover, speaking of the Kardashian. So I don't know how this happened, but Lewis Hamilton is dating a Kardashian, Kim Kardashian herself. So she was walking around the paddock, and this legend of F1 holds a mic up to her face and asks her for a comment. And she doesn't even like say no comment, she like ignores him as if he doesn't exist. It was it was a big problem, it was a coup, right? And so much so that you know Hamilton had to apologize. And but the whole motorsports community got bent out of shape. But at the end of the day, she doesn't know F1, she doesn't know this guy, she doesn't know how to do things on the on the paddock. As a matter of fact, she took the towel, the dry-off towel to the winner of the of that race to dry off her face. She just doesn't know, right? And you know, why would she? It's like it's like it's like when you're in the room with billionaires, you know, they don't have to play by the rules. It's the same thing with a Kardashian, they live in a bubble, right? So I, you know, I I didn't think it was that important, but of course they found something to complain about.

SPEAKER_14 14:33

Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Well, if you look hard enough, or don't look hard enough at all, it's just gonna be there for you.

SPEAKER_12 14:40

Yeah, and then let's bring it around to us being poor.

Ugly Blazer Awards Banquet Plan

SPEAKER_12 14:44

And you have a reminder for rally goers.

SPEAKER_14 14:47

Rallygoers, do not forget to go thrift shopping for an ugly blazer for the awards banquet because this year there will be a contest.

SPEAKER_12 14:58

There is? Okay, this is news to me. Is this another thing I have to do and buy an award for or something like that? Thank you.

SPEAKER_14 15:04

I don't know, but I don't know. But that's a great idea. Thanks for volunteering.

SPEAKER_12 15:07

Thank you. The award will be a beer because I'm not doing anything else.

SPEAKER_14 15:12

Okay, great. No, I just think we should at least get a picture with everybody with their ugly blazers. Good call. I love it. I love it. All right. There. Is that good? Is that is that too much for you? You're gonna be able to handle that one.

SPEAKER_12 15:25

As long as you remember, because you're the man running the awards banquet, because no one wants to see hear me stammer, give that awards. It will take four hours.

SPEAKER_14 15:33

I remember last year is sort of the hallmark of our awards banquet was I said, uh, I said, I'm gonna make this short.

SPEAKER_13 15:38

And somebody from the back yelled out, we have the attention span on toddlers.

SPEAKER_12 15:43

Just like your podcasts, it's gonna be real short.

SPEAKER_13 15:45

It's gonna be short, exactly.

SPEAKER_14 15:48

Anyway, um, thrift shop for ugly blazer, please do.

SPEAKER_12 15:51

Yeah, how about we tee up some interviews?

Dutch Minion Waypoint Challenge Setup

SPEAKER_12 15:53

Maybe tell us about the we have two big interviews, and uh let's start with uh Dutch Minion.

SPEAKER_14 15:59

Yeah, Dutch Minion. So um I did I mentioned this before and I couldn't get the name of it right. So on the way back from riding bikes with you around the UK, I stopped the uh I left over and then um went through France and through uh Belgium and into the Netherlands, and I managed to make it to the northeastern part of the Netherlands, fairly close to Germany. And Dutch minion Diana was having a waypoint challenge. And so I have the documents, all the documents here. So I'll just read some of the uh the bits I thought were interesting here. So welcome to the Waypoint Challenge for the Dutch Minion and her bike and adventure shield, a full day of adventure that will challenge your motorcycle and navigation skills in a diverse landscape of Drenthe, D-R-E-N-T-H-E, pronounced in Dutch in a way that I certainly will never be able to pronounce how to spell it. During the Waypoint Challenge, everything revolves around finding the waypoints marked. It is up to you to make smart choices regarding the route between these waypoints, but absolutely do not forget to enjoy the ride. There are two classifications, on-road and all off-road. You indicate in advance which classification applies to you. So you do choose which one you're going to go into. That's cool. So there's a lot of rules around how it goes. One rule that's hard and fast is as a participant, you must check back to the campsite. And that's where um this Bramershoop, that's where I stayed with them on that Friday night. And then uh Saturday morning got up and then made the ferry in Travamunde, Germany to head back to Sweden and arrive in uh Sunday morning. So you may be at the uh camping in Bramershoop no later than 1800. If you arrive later, you will unfortunately face disqualification. So I think that's that's pretty that's pretty good. Um and it's those who pick up the most. So the most there's a bunch of pieces of paper in here, lots and lots of information. She was kind enough to do this in Spanish, in in English, and in Dutch. So the the waypoints are here as well. Uh a whole sheet of waypoints. And then the one thing that I found that I thought was the most valuable piece of paper was instructions on how the bar works. So sorry. It's it's an old potato storage underneath the barn, sort of uh, you know, three steps down in the cellar.

SPEAKER_04 18:23

Sure.

SPEAKER_14 18:23

And you you have a um the farmer who owns this whole facility, still uh an active farm, he basically says, just make it so it doesn't cost me anything. So there's a jar at the end, you put money in when you go, but that the and it's a stock bar. They stock in the bar all night. They're coming in in and out. They're just hanging out in the bar, both sides of the bar, uh moving around, chatting and drinking, and then you put a strike down for whatever you you drank, and then you just put money in the bar, either that in the in the box at the end. Yeah, I thought it would great. It reminded me of the Caribbean. And um, interesting thing about the Caribbean, I told the story when I was there that night is that I think I told us, I told this on the podcast, you get people who I think I mentioned this, you get people who go and into the Caribbean and they and they have an open bar, and you just get a strike for a drink and you pay a certain price. And then people would pour a whole thing full of rum and then a splash of coke, and they think that they've they've made out, but indeed, they've actually the the bar owner made out because the coke is the expensive bit. But we talked about that.

SPEAKER_12 19:27

So

Why We Keep Podcasting

SPEAKER_12 19:28

uh before we do the lowest price uh introduction, it just struck me, right? Like we have no sponsors, this huge thing is a disaster. I'm like, we really need to dial this back, right? We spent a fortune on these interviews and gathering all this content. So I hope people appreciate that. But really, the point of it was exactly as you just illustrated was you were at this campsite and you had this great experience. And I think that's why you know we still do it. And I'm not sure how much longer I can do it because it's very expensive.

SPEAKER_14 20:01

Somebody asked me the other day, they said at this midsummer event, they were like, Are you still doing the podcast? And I said, Hey, thanks for listening. And then and they said, Well, what is it? What do you get out of this? And I said, What I get is an excuse to meet interesting people and have really interesting conversations. And then we get to share that with the world. So for me, that's the value that it brings. And you're right. Um, and I guess a big thank you to you for sponsoring this event. Aaron Pupall, thanks for being the sponsor.

SPEAKER_12 20:33

If you think about it, if we took the $20,000, $30,000 a year it costs to do this podcast, I'm like, we could have a pretty great guy's weekend in iPizza, right? I'm just saying, you know what I mean? It could be out of control for $30,000 for a weekend.

SPEAKER_14 20:48

And with that, listeners, just to let you know this is our last episode.

SPEAKER_12 20:52

We have other plans.

SPEAKER_14 20:54

What are we doing, right? All right. Let me uh let me, you know, we did our very best to keep this highbrow, and so far we have we have not done a very good job. I will short, by the way. We're keeping this short. Short. Hey, okay. Lois

Meet Lois Pryce And Her Iran Ride

SPEAKER_14 21:09

Price. Lois Price is a world-renowned author, BBC presenter, world over motor traveler, plays in a bluegrass band. I've seen her play bluegrass. I was like, she plays the banjo like it's on fire. It's amazing. She delivered an inspirational TED Talk as well. And her books are Lois on the Loose, which was her 20,000-mile ride from Alaska to Argentina. That's been translated into multiple languages. I can't even count them. Second book was Red Tape and White Knuckles, her motorcycle journey from London to Cape Town through Africa. And the last one is Revolutionary Ride, which is her solo ride through Iran, which was in 2013, again 2014, and the book was published in 2017. And that is the book that our interview primarily revolves around. And with that, let's roll. All the interviews.

SPEAKER_08 22:01

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BBC Job To Road Calling

SPEAKER_14 23:08

Your books have this wonderful mix of curiosity, humor, openness. Before we dive into the journeys themselves, I'd like to start speaking about the spark behind them. You've called the combination of boring BBC job and a fresh motorcycle license a dangerous combination, a story you've told many times. But looking back from 2026, was it a fresh motorcycle license or remaining in an uninspiring cubicle-based job that you saw as the most dangerous aspect?

SPEAKER_05 23:43

You can't stick that out for too long.

SPEAKER_13 23:46

Okay, that was a saw.

SPEAKER_12 23:48

It was an easy one. Maybe you can tell us what the cubicle job was. Because it's actually quite interesting, even though you were stuck in a cubicle.

SPEAKER_06 23:55

Yeah, you're right. And it uh maybe I'm being a bit down on that cubicle job. Um, because it was an interesting job. It was at the BBC and it was in their music department. So technically that was like their record label. So BBC, obviously, a big broadcaster, make a lot of programmes, and so all the soundtracks from those programs back in the day, this is like, you know, late 90s, early 2000s, would have been put out on CD, before that, out on vinyl. So I was um there during the kind of CD era, and we would be putting out um all kinds of albums from BBC programmes. So some of those would be, you know, really cool, interesting stuff from the Radio One archives, like the John Peel sessions, you know, there's a lot of um uh you know, never heard before um recordings from super famous bands, and we'd like trawling through the archives and all that kind of thing. That was great fun. That's that was kind of the stuff I was interested in. I'd come from a kind of indie music, uh, indie record label background.

SPEAKER_07 24:49

But it also involved things like songs of praise, you know, like the kind of singing choirs on the choirs on the Sunday morning hymn collections, and then it also involved programmes for kids, so like kind of kids' music.

SPEAKER_06 25:04

So those are the projects I was less enthusiastic about being an old rock and roller, really. And it culminated it with us making a having a gold record. So that's like selling however many. I don't know what that would have been back then, but quite a lot to set to get a gold record. And um that was for a single, a song called Bob the Builder by Bob the Builder. Uh, Can You Fix It? Yes, we can. It's a children's character called Bob the Builder who went around mending things, I guess. And there was an inane song that that went with it. And so we put that record out and it went, you know, stratospheric. And so there we were in the in the office, all uh celebrating with this gold record on the wall and champagne flying, and I just thinking, Christ almighty, this surely is not what my life has become.

SPEAKER_07 25:51

You know, I was like in my late twenties, and I thought, no.

SPEAKER_14 25:55

I guess I'm dating myself if I say I know that song. Do you?

SPEAKER_06 25:58

You didn't realise it spread beyond the UK. Oh, okay. Well, there you go. Yeah. So I'm sorry about that. I was wondering.

SPEAKER_13 26:05

You're responsible for that, yeah. Yes, and you should be.

SPEAKER_07 26:10

So that was the clinching moment.

Bob The Builder And Breaking Point

SPEAKER_14 26:14

Across three books, you read them through places Britain and America have sent guns and money to meddle in their affairs, such as Cold War Latin America, post-colonial Africa, and Iran, just to name a few. Then you showed up with a motorcycle and a pen. Was that pattern deliberate, or only was it obvious to you in retrospect?

SPEAKER_06 26:35

It was obvious in retrospect, I think. And and I think actually that's one of the kind of nicest sort of byproducts really of my journeys, is that when I left, so I left the BBC job. I'd just learnt to ride a motorcycle. I'd never really been outside of London on the bike. And so and I decided to ride from Alaska to Argentina. So that was my first trip. I got myself, I I was riding old British motorbikes at the time, and uh I got rid of the uh BSA and bought a Yamaha XT225 Yamaha Cero, so a little trail bike, and decided to ride that from Alaska to Argentina. So the writing thing came about as a byproduct, like I say, because I'd always enjoyed writing. I mean, I'm an avid reader, haven't stopped reading since I was yeah, since I could read. So I've never been without a book since I was probably about three years old. So, and part of my job involved writing and writing um liner notes for records, press releases, that kind of thing. So I, you know, I always enjoy enjoyed it, found it relatively easy, and but it never occurred to me that I could do that for a living, you know. So it sort of seemed to me that authors were sort of these, I don't know, like special people that that that didn't even cross my mind that I could be one. But that was 2002-ish and 2002-23. So kind of early days still of the internet, I suppose, or certainly early days of of blogging or that that side of the internet. And there certainly was no social media or anything. But my brother is a software engineer and he wanted to learn to write HTML. So he said to me, Um, I'll set you up a website, and it's very clunky and sort of you know what those websites look like back in those days. And I would, and on my journey, I started sending emails back. Yeah, you probably remember this, like in those days, people would write emails to their friends and family telling them all the exciting things that you're up to. And that's what I did. So I would write these um stories of my adventures, just literally for my brother to put on this new website he'd created for my mum and my friends to read. And then photographs, I would take that. I had a 35-mil camera and um I was you know, Nick on, and I was would get them developed and literally put them in the post. He would scan them and then put them on the website. Really like unimaginable now. So it was all very, very kind of old school early internet vibe. But I started picking up emails from my website that were saying things like, oh, I really enjoy your stories. If you're ever in, you know, koala lumps for come and visit or hey, uh, come to Melbourne or whatever. But it's like, wow, this is pretty weird. You know, getting all these random emails from mostly motorcyclists that were reading my stories that my brother had put on this this website. That was not linked to to anywhere, really. I mean, I think Horizons Unlimited was a big deal for everyone back then, everyone travelling. The the um kind of forum was was very lively for motorcycle travellers. So I think um I posted on there or or someone had posted my website there, so maybe that's how it started. Anyway, I got an email from my brother after about two weeks saying, I just checked your stats and you're getting about 2,000 hits a day. And I thought, you know, so this was like totally bizarre because it was only about five people I thought they would ever be looking at it, yeah. So I was like, oh my god, that's amazing. So okay. And I carried on and I and I just loved the writing, and I loved the purpose of having this story to write at the end of each week, whatever it might be. And it really, you know, gave me a kind of secondary level of enjoyment. Obviously, you know, we all love riding and all the stuff that comes with that, meeting great people and seeing beautiful scenery and everything. But it really was this uh writing up of the journey, and all the time on in the saddle, I'd be sort of thinking about how I'd write stuff and doing it all in my head. And then when I got to California, so you know, probably a couple of months after leaving Anchorage, Alaska, I stayed with a friend who was an author. Um, she had a literary agent in New York. She wasn't a travel writer or motorcyclist or anything, but she'd been reading my story, and she said, Oh, I think my literary agent might be interested in turning this into a book. And I was like, Well, okay, sounds good. Um, so sure enough, she read them. She said, Yeah, I really like this. Carry on, do the rest of the journey. When you get home, we'll put a book proposal together. And it was really was that one of those amazing things that happens like that, completely out of the blue.

SPEAKER_14 30:48

And was that your first book?

SPEAKER_06 30:50

That was that turned into Lois on the Loose, which is my first book, and then got published all around the world. Yeah, so it was a amazing, like I say, a side effect almost. It's like you do one thing, you take the leap, you leave the job, you don't know what's going to happen, and then a whole new amazing thing happens beyond the trip.

Blogging Before Social Media

SPEAKER_06 31:06

And I think that's one of the kind of crucial things that I took away from these journeys.

SPEAKER_14 31:11

In these journeys that you've talked about, in your in in the research that we've done, it says you've made a career of pushing back on what you've called doom merchants. And in your TEDx talk, you said that by traveling by motorcycle is about being in the world, not taking it on. And there's no reason to be fearful. Sitting here in May 2026, with the Iran War still unresolved, does that still resonate?

SPEAKER_06 31:37

I I do still believe that because I know from having kind of ridden through these countries, you know, I was in Colombia when that was at really the height of a lot of um, you know, really bad stuff going on there in 2003, and then going through El Salvador and and then through Congo and Angola, it just had a civil war, and you know, and then going to Iran. Obviously, Iran is a very different situation now than it was, but even when I was there, things were, you know, things were always tricky in Iran, right? So the reality on the ground is always, always completely different to what you read in you know the headlines, or or certainly now what you see on social media. And I think it's really uh important to keep doing it to remind yourself because even I start thinking, oh, that looks a bit you know, that looks a bit scary now. And I think, God know, you m you know that actually when you get out there, people are still living their lives and they're still you know, friendly and happy to see people. And if really in Iran, that was the the the biggest kind of um impact on me was just this uh delight from people to see somebody coming to their country and just kind of freely roaming around and just uh you know, checking it out and they were just thrilled to to to be able to give a positive impression.

SPEAKER_12 32:52

I had uh lived in Dubai in the Middle East for a couple of years. You went back to Iran twice in your 2017 book, and you know, what was the impetus of going back a second time?

SPEAKER_06 33:05

Yeah, that's an interesting question because the obviously when you go somewhere the first time, there's always this incredible, you know, sort of i onslaught of the to the senses and it's all very exciting. But I was I I left my bike there. I could only get a short a visa for like a month at a time or something. So I left my bike there in the autumn and then um went back the following spring. And yeah, I mean it was it was great because you you do see it in a slightly different way, you're obviously prepared for certain things, but then you get you get in deeper, and you you tend to go uh you know away from maybe the more kind of obvious places you might have visited visited on the first trip, and you've got more of an insight into it as as well, you know, because by that time I've been writing a lot about it, I've been reading a lot more, I'd got to know a lot of Iranians, so I had much deeper insight into kind of the the background. There's something to be said for that naivety of the first time, and I think that's a certain way of seeing a country and of telling a story. But then with the Iran book, I kind of went in deep, and then I went back a third time in 2016, yeah, but not with the bike then. That that that was a yeah, just to kind of like do a bit more research just before I finished my book.

SPEAKER_12 34:13

So I also find that when you go somewhere the first time, it is all new and you're taking it in. And no matter how old I get, I I find I still have to leave, decompress, and then go, oh, that what was happening. Oh, you ding dong, that's what what they were trying to tell you, or that what that's what was happening in front of your eyes, and you didn't see it. I'm not implying that happened to you, but uh, it is sometimes good to go back with a fresh set of eyes and reflect on those experiences of the first go-round.

SPEAKER_06 34:38

I totally agree with you. And Iran is just I mean, you never would really get to know it or understand it. It's so complex and fascinating and contradictory, and just yeah, I mean, it's just endlessly interesting to me. So yeah, I would probably uh saw it with naive eyes the first time and then definitely have got a greater understanding of it since then, and certainly by going back. And I would love to go back. Don't know if it's ever possible, but time will tell.

SPEAKER_14 35:05

Yeah. Now that

Iran Versus The Headlines

SPEAKER_14 35:07

we're on the uh on the political aspect. On the politics of perception. So your writing challenges the Western assumptions about Iran and the forbidden air quotes places. Do you think travel writing today has a responsibility to counter political narratives, or is it an unfair burden that's placed on writers who simply want to tell human stories?

SPEAKER_06 35:29

Yeah, that's a really good question, because it's something that I think about a lot with my writing and the books that I read. For me, one of the certainly with Iran, um, one of the motivations really was to come back and tell a story that contradicted the the popular image of of Iran. And I saw so many things and experienced so much that that um contradicted that, that it was really important for me to put that into the book. So the first two books I wrote were much more me, me, me. You know, they were like, they're good time, like skate the day job, have an adventure, you know, and that I do I think that was valid. And if that's all that someone wants to do with their with their uh book or their journey, I totally uh applaud that. It's like, yeah, you know, go out and have a good time. That and then the second book that I did was through uh Africa, uh London to Cape Town, then that was much more gruelling and kind of I suppose a little bit more gritty uh in a sense, but it was still about me and the adventure and the challenge. But when I went to Iran, I I've probably grown up a little bit, um, but also I realized I can't just keep writing the same book, you know. Oh, you you know, this is really scary, or this border crossing's really tricky, or um there's some crazy guy doing something, and you know, and I, you know, you know, just all it's escapades and and and scrapes. It's all great fun and it makes for a great story and great read. But Iran, I knew I couldn't do that. Basically, I realised Iran is more interesting than me. So I had to write about Iran and the Iranians, uh, not about me. And I felt a duty as well, because everywhere I went, they would, people would say to me, We're not terrorists, we're not terrorists, you know. Please tell people, you know, they're really aware of how they're viewed by the rest of the world and unfairly, because they're you know, the majority of them are not terrorists, obviously, and they're great, fun-spirited, brave, cosmopolitan, uh, you know, uh brilliant people. And so I kind of felt an obligation to put that in print. Uh, that was a real strong feeling as I flew back on the on the plane. I was like, God, I have to kind of get this down because you know, sure, there's been a lot of there have been books of people saying that, or you know, there's a certain maybe a strata of society that's sort of aware of Iran and its cultural history and all the rest of it. But mostly that isn't the case. But I've got a unique position in that my books are kind of read by, let's call it, regular people. You know, they're accessible, they're they're easy to read, they're fun, and uh I, you know, I'm not an intellectual, I'm not an academic who's right, maybe, you know, writing to a small kind of a small minority audience. Um I you know, these the my books are kind of accessible to everybody. And I thought, well, I can you know hopefully get a message across, but in a kind of you know, good fun way, basically, really.

SPEAKER_14 38:25

It's really

Travel Writing With A Duty

SPEAKER_14 38:26

it makes me as you were saying that, it reminded me of kind of how it started when you came out and found the note on your bike. Tell me, tell us that story.

SPEAKER_06 38:32

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's a kind of crazy story, but it really makes sense once you go to Iran and get to know what Iranians are like in their immense hospitality. I I was parked up near the Iranian Embassy, it's like 2011, I think, and uh on my bike in London, and the Iranian embassy was closed at the time because there was a big spat going on, and so that was all in the news, it was all the headlines, usual thing, the burning the flag, so they've expelled the uh staff from the embassies, tit for tat, you know, expelling everybody, close the embassies, let's have a war, you know, just like here we go again. But it was quite a big one. Um and at that time, I uh my bike was parked up nearby just because I was doing something in that area. And I came back and there was this note saying, Um, you know, I like your bike, you know, because it was a bike that I'd ridden across Africa, so it looked like a proper overland bike, all like monkey, sheep, skin seat and you know, stickers all over it and oil dribbling down onto the pavement. Um yeah. And he said, Uh, have you ever been to Iran? Um, it's a you know, it's a beautiful country. I can't remember the exact wording now, but you know, we're not terrorists. It was this line in the X in capital letters. And I thought, well, that's pretty wacky, okay. But no, I haven't been to Iran, and and to be honest, does sound a bit scary and not something that I would really maybe want to do. Um so I still had that feeling, because this is what I mean, I despite all my travels, and uh, you know, being considering myself a kind of open-minded person, that sort of drip feed of negativity and um it just this kind of image that we have of Iran in the Middle East, the wider Middle East, but particularly Iran in Britain, you know, our relationship is is pretty fiery and goes back a long way. So um that just sort of seeps into biosmosis over the years, and and I guess it made me realise, oh, if I'm scared of the idea of going to Iran, then I should probably go. If I was afraid of going to Iran, that really is just uh ignorance. And so in that case I should go and find out about it, which I did.

SPEAKER_12 40:27

I think most writers wouldn't have the courage to say that we are a little fearful of this, but you know, we have to go anyways. So we all put on this, you know, bravado nonsense, but it's okay to be you know afraid of something a little bit and still execute on the uh on the trip, is I think true bravery.

SPEAKER_06 40:45

Well, that's yeah, thank you. I mean that I I think, well, you know, that book, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, it's a good it's a good expression. It's a we it's a really good bit of advice because um if you're not afraid of something, then you probably haven't got much imagination. And but fear isn't a reason to not do something. It's that you have to acknowledge it and then think about it and then see if you want to tackle it. I mean, there's some things I'm afraid of that I may I might not do, I don't know, jumping out of a plane or something, but but curiosity I think trumps the fear.

A Note On The Bike

SPEAKER_14 41:21

So let's look at on on on your introduction there, let's go to uh curiosity and misconceptions as an overall topic here. One of the threads running through your writing is a way curiosity can cut through fear and misunderstanding, as you just said, and Ted Simon said curiosity must outweigh the fear. On Western perceptions, how has travelling in places like Iran changed the way you think about the stories we tell the West about other cultures?

SPEAKER_06 41:50

Traveling in Iran really transformed my entire being, and that is not an exaggeration. I felt like it changed on a kind of cellular level from travelling around Iran. And I was distressed, affronted, appalled, I don't know many things at at when I realised that how much of that imagery had sort of soaked into my brain and become normalized as being just a normal Western person living in Britain and just the idea yeah, these kind of negative images of Iran that are just all around us and we take for granted. And I felt like a uh like I said before about my um about writing the book, I felt I had a kind of duty to do my uh one little bit that I could to put that right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_14 42:37

Was there any moment during your journey or journeys when you realised that those assumptions, your own assumptions, were sort of gently being torn away?

SPEAKER_07 42:47

Oh, I mean yeah, I mean like the minute I crossed the border. Right then.

SPEAKER_06 42:52

With my other trips, I that that had been a more gradual thing. You you know, you do the trips and you and you meet people along the way and you realise that things aren't quite what you you think they are, and and that you've been led to believe this, that, and the other. And and so you start reading the news in a different way. You start uh I think being more critical of Western news reporting and and wondering like what what's uh what agenda is behind this and that kind of thing. So I think rather than just accepting everything you read to be true, I mean, this is I'm talking kind of back in the analogue days when it was newspapers and a tele, you know. But now, I mean, obviously you can't believe anything you read, say or see or anything. But so we're in a really different kind of um uh situation of misinformation now. But you know, but back sort of pre digital or early digital days, it was still uh um I think you know, we all grew up thinking that if you read something in a newspaper, it was true. And we we're certainly not told at school, well not the school I went to anyway, to um question that and to question the the uh the the stories. We're told in say history lessons. So, for example, um we didn't learn any we learn about the war and how we won it, you know. That's the the whole load of stuff to unpick there. But just going back to Iran, nobody teaches in Iran, teaches uh us in schools here, for example, that uh MI6 and the CIA overthrew uh the democratically elected government in Iran in 1953, and that's kind of why we're in the chaos that we're in today. You just think, oh, Iran's full of crazy Islamists, mad nuclear scientists and and mullers, but there's just many, many layers, and we're Britain and America are in deep with all of it. And it's only when you go out there and I and start talking to people and reading about stuff that you start realizing that actually we're getting this very much a kind of angle on it all. And and of course, that serves our society to keep that angle going.

SPEAKER_12 44:53

Yeah, it's a real shame that governments never learned that past this prologue. And, you know, it's never really worked out, guys. Why do we keep doing this? You know? Let's try something else. Yeah. Like me. Maybe uh soft power is a little more effective than hard power.

SPEAKER_14 45:08

Let's

Curiosity, Fear, And News Bias

SPEAKER_14 45:09

uh let's shift to the influence, legacy, and Freya Stark.

SPEAKER_05 45:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_14 45:15

I'm gonna get a bit of history on here so our listeners have an idea of some the background here. Freya Stark, a groundbreaking adventure and prolific writer, over two dozen books, went first into the mountains of Iran in 1930, looking for the ruined castles of the medieval assassins. She learned Persian, amongst three or four other languages, very impressive, still struggling with Swedish. She immersed herself with locals in a way that British establishments at one time found distasteful. She lived to be a hundred years old, and she said that when she traveled, she traveled single-mindedly for fun. She is the explicit ghost of the opening of your book, Revolutionary Ride. You mentioned writers like Freya as companions in spirit rather than templates. Stark revealed through many of the same regions that you later she traveled through many of the same regions that you later explored, and your work often feels like a conversation is more in line with her thinking. When you retraced parts of Stark's routes in Iran, did you feel her as a guide, a challenge, or simply as a voice in the background?

SPEAKER_06 46:22

Yeah, obviously I'm a big fan, and I like her sort of outside of the establishment slant. Like you say, she was super, super smart, super brave, but she was never accept accepted by kind of exploration societies and all that in British society. At that time that was, you know, like upper class. I mean, she was upper class, but but it was male, and it was this it was a very kind of closed uh vibe going on, and she didn't fit the the image of you know what a explorer should be, I suppose. And her books didn't fit the image, they weren't considered, I suppose, like scientific enough or academic enough or serious enough, like you say, she she travelled for fun. And I love that she mixes this really kind of um deep interest, you know, well, it's beyond interest, you know. Like you say, she learned all these languages, she really knew her history, uh, but she would always get out there and and get her hands dirty and enjoy herself at the same time. So I think it's that melding of the fun and the seriousness together that I really admire about her. So I was very aware of her, especially in the Alborz Mountains in North Iran, because I particularly, I mean, I was following, literally following some of the tracks that she would have been on. I think she travelled on foot and with a donkey at that um at that point. And I went to this uh this castle, which was sadly not very impressive, which slightly spoiled in England for castle.

SPEAKER_07 47:44

So we think everything looks like Windsor Castle, which I should literally see every day.

SPEAKER_06 47:50

But um, so yeah, there's a kind of pile of rubble which belonged to this uh this um sect that that she was fascinated by. And um so I was following her, literally following her in her tracks then, and I stopped at the hotel and was really touched to see that the hotel yeah had this kind of glass cabinet in the in the um in the hotel dining room with her paperback book in it. Uh and and he sort of opened the unlocked the cabinet. You know, it's a £10 book that you can buy in any bookshop, probably in London, but he uh had it all locked away and sort of presented it and showed it as this you know really important thing. And I was like, that's a it's really nice that she's sort of her book is is right there in around like that. So yeah, I mean she's always in my mind, and she has some great quotes about female travellers and what it, you know. I think there's one where she says it it never surprises anyone if you're stupid or something.

SPEAKER_07 48:39

If you if you're a woman, you can get away with being stupid, that's actually really helpful. Yeah, so she's pretty canny and super tough.

SPEAKER_14 48:49

Two things that you need to be.

SPEAKER_06 48:50

Exactly.

SPEAKER_14 48:51

Stark wrote at a time when Middle East was framed very differently in the Western imagination. Do you feel that your work continues or perhaps gently corrects the conversations she began?

SPEAKER_06 49:04

I think she was pretty sympathetic to um the people she met uh on her travels, but you know, we're all products of our time. And so she did have that slightly imperious bearing uh towards people are sort of, you know, demanding that people carry all her staff or whatever, you know, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_07 49:22

You know, get me a donkey and pile all of my belongings on it.

SPEAKER_06 49:26

So so I think there was a the an element of that, and I think she probably had to be like that as well, because people wouldn't have taken her seriously, so you have to, she had to probably be quite bossy. And it's always interesting looking back to these travels because I'm a big fan also of uh Theresa Wallach and Florence Blenkeron, who wrote they were the first people to ride overland to London to Cape Town, and they I did a s similar-ish journey to them, but they had a uh sidecar outfit in 1934, I think. Um, and again, they were, you know, very no one thought they would make it, they were, you know, laughed at really, and they did this incredible journey across the Sahara Desert and all the way down to Southern Africa. But reading their stories, you know, again, they were very, they were ingenious, they were very, very determined, very tough. But in another way, it was easier in those days because you had the empire on your side, you know, like wherever you went, not Iran, because Iran was never a colony of Britain, but it had a lot of control over aspects of it. But in Africa, you know, owned half of Africa, really. So so you kind of be waved through by these border guards who realize that you were sort of you know from from the empire, and and that made life easier. It certainly made border crossings and visas and all that kind of stuff easier. But obviously the the kind of logistics of travel back then and the would have been treated as a woman would have been very different and probably harder. I mean, it's hard to say really, because people would people are always surprised to see you as a woman, especially alone. I think if you're travelling with a guy, it's different. But yeah, people are still surprised by that. But sometimes, as I think Freya Stark found out, that wasn't always a bad thing.

SPEAKER_14 51:06

Yeah, it seems like within there, the other side of that is that you can use that as an advantage, either for them to think, oh, I'm just oh, I just did see me here. I don't know about border crossings, I'm just here. When you know exactly what's happening, you can play that card.

SPEAKER_07 51:19

Yeah, exactly, which is a kind of a bit of a sly thing to do. And I don't think I've ever done, well, maybe I have, I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 51:26

But certainly people, I mean, sometimes people feel sorry for you. You know, this is the reality. Well, there's like a guy on them, and I don't know if like men's motorcycling around people feel sorry for them. I don't know, but but people kind of want to look after you. So you get taken in and given food and um and also you're never viewed as a threat. And I think this is probably the biggest bonus of travelling as a woman alone, like which I I think a man probably doesn't ever experience, is that because you're a woman and you're you're by yourself, you you are you're just not a threat. So families will invite you in, other women will invite you in, which are often spaces that men don't get invited into. So you tend to be able to see a lot of of the world that you may not that a man might not be able to.

SPEAKER_14 52:11

There's

Freya Stark And Women Travellers

SPEAKER_14 52:12

a statistic that it takes human beings in general seven seconds longer to assess a woman as a threat than a man. Aaron Ross Powell Oh, that's interesting. Aaron Powell That's why women are great assassins.

SPEAKER_07 52:21

Yeah, exactly. Seven seconds you seven seconds you can go to the target. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_14 52:28

I was gonna ask you about the other uh other influences, but you got into the to these in the sidecar, which is fantastic. You're you're sort of leading the whole thing through. Oh, I thought that's great. Um This is an interesting this is uh a question from one of our listeners. Knew we were gonna have this interview with you, so here we go. Iranian women are forbidden to ride motorcycles, yet you were able to ride because you were foreign, still are. Did any of the Iranian women you met ever ask to take your bite for their forbidden spin?

SPEAKER_06 52:56

That's a great question. Yes, so it's a funny one, the Iranian women motorcycling, because they they're not allowed to ride in public. This is a d this is a distinction, supposedly you know, immodest or whatever. Um but I did meet uh an Iranian female motocross racer. Well, yeah. And there was actually quite a thriving female motocross scene in Iran. So this is all the stuff that you never hear. This is what what I mean about you know, trying to kind of redress the balance of this imagery. Um so, yeah, quite a lot of female motocrossers, but they all ride on private land.

SPEAKER_14 53:31

That's the out of the public part.

SPEAKER_06 53:32

Exactly, yeah. So it's all about not being seen to be immodest. Is a this is the greatest crime that a woman can commit. There's a yeah, there's a very famous uh in Iran anyway, famous motorcyclist as well, who's a a road racer, although she moved to America, I think, to road race. But she she uh it's called Ben Ar Benar Shafiri, I think. And she learned to ride by dressing up as a man and riding at night. And then when when the police would work out that it was a woman, they would go after her, and then she was like, just give it some rebs.

SPEAKER_07 54:07

So she was really learning to race hardcore.

SPEAKER_06 54:11

Um, but yeah, so so there are female motorcyclists, but they have to sort of do it on the on the sly. But nobody did ask to actually jump on my bike and have a go, but I did give somebody um a pillion ride. Right, a girl, a pillion ride, yeah.

SPEAKER_12 54:23

Fantastic. When I uh worked for the royal family in Dubai, it was the same thing. The cars would all show up, everyone was dressed modestly, obviously, and they'd come on the yacht and these women would come out like supermodels. I'm like, you're the same person I saw, you know, two, three minutes ago. Were you ever invited to any of these closed door parties where people flipped a switch and they became a whole nother person?

SPEAKER_06 54:50

Oh, oh, all the time, because Iranians love to party. So, oh my god, I mean, you know, I I uh couldn't keep up. I was like doing vodka shots at 4am and dancing around, you know, and I was like, Oh my god, I don't even do this in London. Not at my age. Uh yeah, so I think there's something about the uh restrictions that that make them kind of go for it. So they live with su such restricted lives, I mean, to the extent of what they wear, what their hair can look like, um you know, the books that they can read, the films that are shown, you know, their ho their hobbies and activities. You know, we we uh can just go out and start a band and put and play a gig. You know, they can't do that, can't play music in public. Women aren't allowed to sing in public. So as soon as you start kind of crushing all these uh natural human urges, of course it just goes underground and it kind of becomes even fiercer. So there's a lot of uh there's a big rave scene where people take um like buses with like blacked-out windows out to the desert and then put on raves and stuff like that. There's a lot of heavy metal that all happens down, you know, in people's houses. So everything goes on behind closed doors. And everybody, almost everyone I stayed with, you know, had a bottle of whiskey or vodka kind of you know hidden behind the Quran in the corner or whatever. So there's a whole, you know, there's a whole world going on behind this kind of image that we see of Iran.

SPEAKER_12 56:13

Yeah, and you think all these wannabe-be tyrants would realize that the minute you say you can't do something, we're all going to do it twice as hard.

SPEAKER_07 56:20

We all know that from just being children, you know, since you're told you can't do something by your mum and dad, you want to do it more.

SPEAKER_12 56:25

That's right, don't touch it and then you touch it directly.

SPEAKER_06 56:28

But the but it's massively hypocritical because the Revolutionary Guard who are the kind of you know, they run the country really, so they're this sort of military or militia well, military um group that just have so much control in Iran, they report directly to the Ayatollah, and they run, you know, kind of construction projects and universities and hospitals and airports, and they also run the smuggling of booze and illegal satellite dishes and prostitution and you know, and they're all in it up to their necks. So you know, it it's it's a racket.

SPEAKER_12 57:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 57:07

And it's not it's not ideological.

SPEAKER_12 57:10

No. The best was the royal prince that I work for, he was second in line to the throne. And the day I arrived uh to take over this yacht, it was New Year's Eve, and I got taken over to the party palace.

SPEAKER_04 57:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_12 57:26

I'm like, you're so full of it, right? So, you know, here you are, you drive past the helicopter and all this stuff, and then you you pull up, and there's a nightclub in the palace. And I wanted to go, you know, in the backyard, and there's this guy with the little you know, Mac 10 machine gun. He's like, You can't go outside. I'm like, I I want to go outside because it was near the uh Burj Al-Arab. He says, No, no, because they can see you, right? Like you're so full of it, right? So the people who do the restrictions and they're the the people with the thumb on the population, they're the one having the most fun, or in this case, smuggling in the booze and the women and stuff.

SPEAKER_06 57:58

Oh yeah, those guys are partying hard and having all the all the naughty fun. So yeah. I had a lot of good times in Iran, and this is one of the strange things I think that when I think of Iran, I my the first word that comes to my head is fun, which is not I think what most people think about. I mean, again, different times now. I don't think it's be quite as much fun now, but I the spirit is so strong in the Iranians that uh they'll be enjoying themselves somehow.

Motorcycles, Parties, And Hidden Iran

SPEAKER_14 58:23

Nice to hear that. That's a really great segue into a general topic of encounters and human moments. Maybe we'll just carry on from that. Uh your books are full of vivid, generous encounters with people you meet along the way. Which moments of kindness, kindness or connections have stayed with you the longest?

SPEAKER_06 58:42

When I entered Iran for the first time, um, and I was, you know, I was nervous, uh, and it had been really hard to get a visa, and I was being kind of questioned, and I got stopped and fingerprinted and put on the Interpol list and all sorts of things. So I was very anxious about it all. And I was in this big i i um queue for immigration and um and and all the people had seen my motorbike and I knew that you know that I I was standing out a mile, obviously, and I was very n nervous because I'd been told I couldn't bring my motorbike into the country, and I'd had to this is a bit complicated, but I'd had to sneak it in on the train from Turkey. Uh, I wrote about all this in my book. So I had I was on this train going crossing in it from Turkey into Iran. It stopped to do all the um procedures with immigration. Um they I got roughed up and held up the train for hours. And then I I was going through this big queue, and I thought, oh my god, they're gonna know that I've got my bike, and I, you know, I'm not meant to have the bike, and it's I'm gonna get, you know, arrested or something, which is real, you know. You know, people are arrested quite a lot in Iran. Then this these old ladies were standing around me, and you know, and I still had this kind of image of Iran, these kind of like angry Islamists, you know, and all these women in these black shador, you know, the big clot with all their face covered up and everything. And they're all looking at me and sort of whispering, and I was thinking, oh my god, you know, they're informing on me. And because there's a whole uh police force that goes around informing on people, um, the morality police, and it's like if you're wearing the wrong clothes, or you know, and they'll pull you off the street and take you to the police station. So I was really aware of that possibility, and I knew women worked for them as well, you know, we're kind of devout Islamist women where I thought, oh my god, this is it, they're gonna, and then and and then this woman poked me and and she started um set doing like motorbike noises, like you know, doing the webbing with her hands, and I was like pretending I didn't know what she was talking about, like, oh my god, they're gonna get me now. And uh, and then this other woman chimed in and she translated and she said, Um, this woman is saying to you, um go, go, go, go for it, you know, motor motorcycle good and all this, and then and then she said this phrase, which she translated, which meant, go and wake up your luck. And I I can't remember it in Persian, I'd love to be able to say it, but um, but it was just such a different response than what I was expecting, and it was like, oh, that's when I knew that this was a very very different country than what I was thinking it was.

SPEAKER_14 1:01:08

The opposite of the morality.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:09

Yeah, yeah, just that like that welcome and the excitement in Horizon, just like the the just the solidarity. It was just amazing.

SPEAKER_14 1:01:17

Nice. How do you approach conversations with people whose lives are shaped by very different circumstances than your own?

SPEAKER_06 1:01:25

Yeah, that is a it's a tricky one. I mean, I try to travel in a really um down home way in i in the sense of what I wear and the bikes I ride. So I'm very aware of not you know, kind of riding into town, flashing like all this, you know, what looks like wealth to them. Certainly, you know, I was really aware of that going through um sub-Saharan Africa. So I ride small secondhand bikes that are pretty tatty. I wear just normal clothes. So I don't wear um full face helmet so I can see people, so I can immediately smile and make eye contact. That's really the beginning of it all. And once you can do that, then you're usually onto a a pretty good thing. And also I think um you get really um your instinct becomes really honed. So it is uh like a muscle. Like I I I noticed this over the months that I was travelling, that I could just sense if something was a bit off. Uh and it got I got really good at noticing that, whereas in the beginning I would have probably not been so sort of tuned in. Um so I really like began to trust my instincts if I should kind of hang out and talk to someone or not.

SPEAKER_14 1:02:37

When we interviewed Elspeth Beard, she talked about the same level of instinct, and she said, I could go after after doing this, she was on the road for a couple of years, and she said, I could go down the road and I could look at a dog in the road and know which way it was going to go, whether it would stop, go back, turn left. She said, I would know. She said her instincts were so tuned.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:57

That's interesting. Yeah, uh she's a good friend of mine, she's great. Um yeah, it it it does happen. I mean, I think it's like anything, uh consistency, like practicing uh an instant or something. If you do something every day, you get really you get really good at it. And I would just know instantly a town, a a ple uh a cafe, a a person, you know, a policeman at a checkpoint. Am I going to be able to, you know, wang on my way out of this one or should I just hightail it out?

Kindness, Instinct, And Staying Safe

SPEAKER_06 1:03:23

So so yeah, it's it's quite interesting that um I think it is just kind of repetition in a way that makes it makes it get really um get honed.

SPEAKER_14 1:03:32

Topic of storytelling and responsibility. You've touched on it before. Your writing feels both adventurous and deeply respectful of the stories you're telling. But you're also aware uh of the weight that they carry on narrative responsibility. How do you balance telling compelling stories while with representing a place and its people with nuance?

SPEAKER_06 1:03:52

Yeah, I mean this is tricky, and I think i i you know, in recent years this is this is I think more sensitive, you know, when uh I was travelling twenty plus years ago and maybe I was just a bit younger and brusher and didn't worry so much about such things, but but I think you you just uh approach everything on the on the human level, with you as a human being to another human being, with the understanding that you are essentially not you you know, not the same, but uh you have the same needs and desires in life, I think. There's some basic kind of needs and desires that we all have. And if you understand that about everybody, even the horrible border guard or the you know the scary policeman or the you know guy that's begging at traffic lights or whatever, if you can remember that about everybody, then that's just a good starting point for approaching life and and just going out into the world. If you couple that with your kind of instinct for you know, you don't you don't want to be naive about it and just think everybody's lovely because that isn't the the case. So that's where the instinct kind of kicks in and you realise, okay, this one is maybe you know a little bit tricky. But I think it is just um a case of sort of valuing everybody's humanity as a starting point.

SPEAKER_14 1:05:11

Very nice. So in t 2013, you made your first trip. You left your bike with the intention to come back in 2014, which you did. So when you return home after 2014 with the notebooks full of impressions, how did you begin to turn that into a narrative?

SPEAKER_06 1:05:28

Yeah, oh well, the book, yeah. I mean the the book is way harder than the trip, you know that's it.

SPEAKER_13 1:05:34

Erin knows that. Yeah, it really is.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:36

I mean, I love writing, so I love the challenge, but it yeah, it it's um I'm uh a kind of organized writer, so I can't just launch into some great description to hope it's going to work out 100,000 words later. So I had to think about what was the point I wanted to make. Like, what do I want this book to be about? Um, and like I said before, that was different to Other two books. I realised it had to be about Iran. And it had to be about, in a sense, the the British and Iranian relationship as well. Because I was kind of going there as like a microcosm of that. Like a you know, in a very rawish sense, me as a British person wandering around Iran talking to people. And then I wanted to use that to go to the kind of wider perspective on how Britain and Iran have related to each other over the last, I don't know, 100 years or so, which had been you know pretty spicy. So um, and so I kind of wanted to tell that tale because I realised that actually that was quite significant. Uh, that if I'd been say Australian or or Swedish or American, you know, I mean they don't let the Americans in, but you know, every but as a British man, I had a very particular relationship with Iran that maybe another country wouldn't have. Of course, America has another an an equally um spicy relationship, but um but it it it cast a certain light on my travels, being British, in a way that if I was Belgian, it wouldn't have been, you know. So um, but if you were Belgian and you travelled around the Congo, then you would have that. It's a kind of that that the colonial, I suppose, um, imperial relationship. And I realised that that had um informed a lot of my opinions about Iran, and I wanted to kind of unpick them and see also how Iranians felt about Britain. So that was a kind of backdrop of it, and obviously told through my actual travels and seeing how those kind of could be woven in together. So that was the plan, and I knew that I wanted to. I mean, it sounds a bit too grandiose to say tell the truth about Iran because it's like, well, what's the truth? You know, there's there's lots of truth, but I wanted to shine a light on Iran and show a different side to Iran to a British readership. That that's what that was my my motivation, I suppose, that was my goal. And to make people realise that it isn't what you think, there's a lot more going on. So that was kind of like the the bigger picture of the book. The weaving of those kind of like two narratives was was how I was going to approach it. And then I obviously have got it with a travel book, you've always got quite a simple story from A to B. I think I set off and I and then my journey finished. So that makes it kind of easier. And so I I um wrote out a sort of chapter breakdown of like planned out over maybe twenty-five-thirty chapters of of what would go in each one and made sure that I was kind of hitting all of the sort of points I wanted to make along the way and and connecting them with my j with my journey.

SPEAKER_12 1:08:28

The Americans

Crafting A Book Without Preaching

SPEAKER_12 1:08:29

are not the only people that have been banned from Iran. The Canadians have had have had you know their shot at this. Uh we've had Jeremy Krueger on and he illustrated that. And I just the light just kind of went off here. Is that in your book you point out the history in a black and white factual way. This is all because of what we have done, and the motivations were purely greed, and some other stuff mixed in there. Was that part of uh your mission of writing the book? Was by the way, here's a great motorcycle story and maybe something for women, and by the way, I might teach you something along the way.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:04

Yeah, it it was, but in a hopefully uh uh not too kind of bashing you over the head kind of way, because I don't like being bashed over the head by books. I don't want to have a polemical sort of message, uh, well, I'm just trying to enjoy a good motorcycle adventure, you know. So I'm very aware of like not going too far in that direction. But like I said, with my other two books, I hadn't really done much of that at all. And Iran was very different. I kind of couldn't, I couldn't avoid it, you know, had to, I had to put it down there. It was too much a part of my experience, really. Um you can't I couldn't separate the two, but I always wanted to make sure that that was um kind of slipped in throughout the book and not not in these kind of big you must think this and you know blah blah blah. You know, I never want it to be uh lectury.

SPEAKER_12 1:09:51

No, but it has to be told as part of the story. You can't ignore the premise.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:55

Exactly, yeah. So I had to include it, and I've had some really great responses. I mean, the best thing is that I get lots of lovely emails from Iranians, and that's the main thing. It's like, you know, because writing about another country, you've got a big responsibility, and um not many British people get to write about Iran, so I kind of like realised I had to do do this well, and so I've been very relieved that all the Iranians have written to me and saying that they love my book. But I've also had emails from, you know, just normal people who have written to me and said, This book made me see Iran and Iranians in a completely different light, made me see that whole country anew. And then one guy wrote on Twitter, This book made me a better person.

SPEAKER_14 1:10:34

All right.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:34

So then I've like, okay, I can die happy now.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:37

I've done something good, you know, I've done something useful with my with my writing. So I was really pleased about that. And I, yeah, I mean, to me that is um a goal.

SPEAKER_12 1:10:47

Yeah, and you do a good balance of it, and I just want to tell listeners, if you're thinking of reading the book, please do. It's not preachy. I'm just I just put down a book halfway through uh I won't say what it is, but there he's traveling so through Central America, and okay, there's these lessons, and you know, some of them, oh, I didn't know that. But every town is a lesson about how we mucked it up, right? I'm like, there you you really struck a um a good balance of I need to tell you about this to get to where I'm going, but I'm not gonna bash you over the head with it.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:17

Well, thank you. Yeah, because I hate preachiness and I hate being preached at and I I will never preach. But it it was part of the story. And so when you're writing a book, I mean because I teach writing as well, you know, you have to ask yourself about every sentence, every paragraph, every anecdote, every character. How does this serve the story? And it that's and and if it doesn't, if it's just you it's you putting your opinion across, then it's got to go. So it has to serve the story. But of course, in Iran, everything is political, everything you know, their whole lives are caught up in it. So you just have a conversation with somebody, uh, and and it will tell a bigger picture about a you know, bigger story about something else. Everywhere I went, people wanted to talk to me about hair because hair is political in Iran. Like, how do you feel about having to wear a headscarf? So that's a whole story that you know, then that's just me, you know, definitely trying to get my helmet off and put a headscarf on wit without getting arrested in between, you know. So it's like it it it's all it's all connected together. So it's so but I'm I'm glad that you said that uh yeah, I managed to kind of get that woven in without it feeling like these big kind of chunks of exposition along the way, which is like you know, the real right of crime.

SPEAKER_14 1:12:25

Yeah, it's like in Sweden, it's like aya baya. It's like it's like uh pointing your finger. Well, you Right.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:31

Okay, yeah, yeah. Finger winding.

SPEAKER_14 1:12:33

You should know this.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:34

Yeah, no, I won't do that.

SPEAKER_14 1:12:36

Uh your

Politics Woven Into Adventure

SPEAKER_14 1:12:37

books feel more like a meditation on how to move through the world, not just travelogues, as you mentioned. So one of the things I think is really interesting, which is quite contrary to how most people travel now. And uh Aaron, I want you to talk about the trip that you mentioned in the Pacific Northwest and um about people having planned everything. But let's go to a second. Here's the question, then I want to come over to Aaron. Um, on traveling without an agenda. So, how do you think we gain, what do you think we gain when we let the travel unfold rather than control it and plan it to the last moment?

SPEAKER_06 1:13:11

So for me, the uncertainty of overland travel is is part of the the pleasure. I love the idea of waking up in the morning and not know where you're gonna stay the night. And I think most of our lives are not like that. Uh we have to, you know, get up and go to work and have responsibilities and be somewhere and do this and da da da. So to just get a little m bit of your life where you can just let the world happen to you and and just see what turns up, that's just a real treat. It's a rare treat. So I think it's it teaches you a lot as well to be able to go with the flow. And I think that is one lesson that I've come back with. You know, I find myself in a stressful situation or whatever, a tricky situation of some kind or another, and I think, well, you know, I did wife through a minefield in Angola or I did, you know, run away from the revolutionary garden or whatever it might be. So it so it kind of kind of stays with you. Um, and also it's the surprising things that happen that I love. So if you're able to just take up an invitation to, I don't know, go to a party or visit someone's mum for a cup of tea in Guatemala or something, you know, or you just see a track that leads up a mountain and you wonder, oh, I wonder where that goes, and you can go and find out, or think, oh, I'll just ride down to the beach and sleep there tonight. You know that that for me is the absolute essence of this kind of travel. Just sitting on the bike is isn't really the appeal for me. That's just a means to get to all of these weird things that happen along the way.

SPEAKER_14 1:14:40

Then the next experience with your uh in your TED X talk, you talked about the it was total freedom when you finally just said, you know what, I'm not gonna worry about showering every single day and finding a place. I'm just gonna keep my clothes in this bag and I'm just gonna ride and I'm just going to enjoy whatever happens next. So that's really where I was expecting you to go with this.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:58

Well, yeah, I mean I suppose that is it what I'm what I'm saying, is that liberation. And it and I'm not saying that I'm like that all the time because, you know, most of the time I'm just living a normal life at home. And when I set off on a journey, it takes me a while to get there. I remember um when that happened in Africa, you know, the first two weeks I was like being really uptight and trying to organise everything. And I had all my stuff packed just so and I had to get here and I had to get there, da da da, you know, and I wanted everything to be just right. And it was that that takes away from the pleasure of it. So once I kind of let that go, that was freeing. That was the most freeing thing of all. And it was all in my head. So, and then yeah, once you give up washing, then you're really free.

SPEAKER_12 1:15:39

Other people around you may not agree, but I'm on a 5,000-mile 30-day trip, and I'll have you know that I've brought one pair of pants that are not my riding pants, and it's largely been successful because you're all still in the studio with me. So this is this is going well.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:54

You can't smell anything. That's awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 1:15:56

Well, she's so polite. I'm on the other edge of the couch forever, sis.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:00

Yeah, you need a lot less stuff than you realize. You know, I I mean, I always took too much stuff and always end up getting rid of it. And if you look at the photos from my three, you know, the three big trips I did, the Americas, Africa, and then Iran, the bags get smaller every time, you know.

SPEAKER_12 1:16:14

And I think the psychological baggage that that surrounds us, I think Ted Simon, because we we we mentioned it, he says, we all build these prisons around us. And even though I'm on a 5,000 mile trip, it's scheduled down to the hour sometimes. And it's a real shame. You know, it but this is the prison that I've built around me. We have a uh a studio schedule to adhere to. And the engineer here had to suffer the the wrath of that. I'm like, I'm coming at two, make sure you're there at two, right? Like it's it's terrible, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:16:44

Well, you see, you're on a different thing because you're on a you're essentially uh you know doing a professional job. So it's a different mindset. And it's a bit like when you make a film. I don't know if you talked to Austin about this, but what you know, once you decide you're going to film your trip, then you're on a film shoot. And that is a whole different thing. You're stopping, you're putting the camera on the floor, you're driving back, you're riding past it, you're stopping, you're going back to get the camera. You know, that's one of the joys of writing is that it all just turns away in your head all day, and you can just write it up uh in your notebook at the end of the uh the end of the day at night. And it doesn't interfere with with that just flexibility of being able to just see which way the wind takes you. In fact, that's what you want for writing. Because you know, who wants to be the book that says, Yeah, I programmed my GPS to go to this hotel and and yeah, I arrived.

SPEAKER_14 1:17:29

I got there. It was amazing. Yeah, yeah. I missed a turn, but I got there. I missed a turn for 40 feet when you turn around, right?

SPEAKER_12 1:17:37

Because the lady yelled at me.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:41

So I don't I've never used a GPS, I don't even know.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:44

But um, you know, and and in in a way I was kind of lucky to travel before Google Maps and Sat Nav and all that, really. So I I always just take paper maps. And then if I get lost, I ask people, and then that's where the fun stuff happens, because then they're like, Yeah, I'll show you.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:59

And then who knows what happens after that.

SPEAKER_14 1:18:01

Yeah, it's true. That reminded me of a comment um your friend, uh Alice Fitbeard said, and she said, I just use a GPS for she said sometimes I just get on the bike and I just ride, and then if I need to find my way home, I've I I turn the GPS on then to figure out how to get back. But I've just gone, I've ridden to where it felt good.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:18

Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, that's a great approach. It sounds like you're not so far away. I mean, I've always had an end point, I suppose. So it's like I'm starting in Alaska and I'm gonna end at Tied del Fuego. But what happens in between? That's you know, 20,000 miles of anything can happen. I have a rough idea. There's some places I want to go along the way I want to go to Baja or whatever. But apart from that, I'm open to anything. And the thing about once you've got that mindset, then interesting things happen to you because you're kind of open to them happening. So I think it's a it's like a a circle in that way.

Getting Lost As The Point

SPEAKER_14 1:18:52

Let's jump over to you for a moment, Aaron, because you did a you did a hike and you kept meeting people along the way, and they would say, What's your what is it? What's your your pleasure item or what is this what the planning of it?

SPEAKER_12 1:19:05

Yeah. This is uh the travesty of of the modern world we live in. And what is your luxury item? There it is. There it is. So it turns out that everyone was doing this hike. It's called the West Coast Trail. It's similar to in motorcycling, everyone wants to go to Del Fuego. But unfortunately, we all consume the same guides and whatnot. But in this particular case, it talked about you need this, this, and this, and then you're only allowed one thing, your luxury item. And every single person I talked to, like, well, I'm going to this camp tonight, and it's 11.7 miles to go. And my travel, my luxury item is salt. And I'm like, I'm like, mine's Jack Daniels, I guess. I'm not sure, but it it ruined the trip in a way. I was up for this experience, just like you're talking about, waking up and seeing what happens. But everyone around me was agenda-driven and knew what to expect when they got there, which was the real shame.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:00

That's the that's the sad bit, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, the knowing what to expect. I mean, I suppose it it it taps into a sort of human need for belonging and and connection, doesn't it? And being part of a group. And I think often pe people, or certainly solo um motorcycle travellers, aren't that kind of person. They're more like, you know, the rugged individualist type that doesn't want to belong to something. Um, which is it can be a lonely place to inhabit as well. So either, you know, I think like we're always sort of fighting these two urges to be part of, feel part of something bigger than us, and also to do our own thing. I I mean, I know I am. Those are two opposing forces in my life all the time.

SPEAKER_14 1:20:40

But in a world that's changing so quickly, what do you think remains essential about travel?

SPEAKER_06 1:20:46

I do think it's about connecting with people that are completely different from yourself. That that that for me is the essence of travel. Like I I can't imagine sort of wanting to travel um where there are no humans. You know, and I can see the appeal. I don't say people want to strike out of the mountains or to be in the desert alone. Uh uh that's fine for for me uh for a little bit, but I love to be amongst human beings and to see how everyone lives and sort of find that that connection. Um but another great uh inspiration of mine is um the Ahmedvar brothers who were these um Iranian explorers. They were two brothers who rode around the world on British matchless bikes in 19 they went on for ten years from 1954 to 64, and they're amazing. Um and they became famous in Iran, obviously this is pre-revolutionary Iran, and they made they filmed it all and they made TV programmes and and became sort of national heroes. Um I don't know if you know David Attenborough, he's our kind of yeah, okay, just died, but um no, he didn't no he didn't, sorry, he just had his hundredth birthday. Um but he uh uh the Omadvar brothers were like the Iranian version of David Attenborough and much beloved, and then when the revolution happened in 79, they their show was cancelled. But still they did this incredible journey, wrote this book. Anyway, they reason I mentioned them is that they painted on their um mudguards, their front mud guards, um a message that they took around the world which was in Farsi, you know, in Persian script and also in English, all different, all relative, and that was their kind of approach to the world. And they were just really open and curious and and fun. And I'm I I had the pleasure of meeting uh uh one of them who still lives in Iran. Um but that for me is it it's it's that same appeal, is like connecting with people even when they f seem like they like we have nothing in common.

SPEAKER_12 1:22:35

It's funny, this is decidedly a motorcycle show, right? And we came here on motorcycles, but it gives me the most pleasure when we can speak for two hours and never talk about which tires did you put on your motorcycle. And you've really hit the nail on the head there. It has nothing to do with the motorcycle, it's important, that's cool, and you know, it may put a smile on my face when I'm going around a corner. But really, the point is that you know the people or whatever your motivation is.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:00

Well, that's interesting because I do have occasional people like, oh, it's not enough about bikes in your book, you know. But but the motorcycle is the means to do all of this, but and I should say it is the best means because if you're in a car, you're all closed off and no one comes up and talks to you. If you're in public transport, same thing, you're you're trapped by you know the the schedules and the timetable, so you don't have that flexibility. Um, and then if you're on a bicycle, it's just like too much hard work. Um, and so and and also I think there's a camaraderie about motorcycle um yeah, motorcyclists that doesn't exist so much with other forms of transport somehow. And I I I don't know uh if that's true, maybe bicyclists will tell me different, or canoeists or Land Rover drivers or something. You know, obviously we all have our our groups, and but there's something about motorcyclists that you can connect with the motorcyclist anywhere in the world. So I think it is really the perfect vehicle.

SPEAKER_12 1:23:52

I just had someone explain to me just the other day, it's because we are so vulnerable. We if we're stuck under the side of the road, we know how tough that is. And as another motorcycle, like, that sucks. I'm gonna stop. Even if even if it's just uh, you know, have a shoulder to cry on, you know what I mean? Like, okay, I'll hang out with you till the truck arrives, or maybe I have a tool because I've been there. Uh, it was just explained to me because we are so vulnerable. And um and I think even the pedestrians recognize the fact that we are vulnerable even to the elements and whatnot. So people our own people take pity on on us as well as the pedestrians, I think.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:28

Yeah, yeah. I think that's a really good point. It is the vulnerability of it, yeah. And that's what makes it so great.

Old-Fashioned Adventure In 2026

SPEAKER_14 1:24:34

So there's a few things we'd like to wrap up with here, which would be some closing points. So you once wrote, Africa might be the last place on earth where I could still have a real proper old-fashioned adventure. Iran proved that wrong. Does the whole category of old-fashioned adventure still hold in 2026? And where can you go experience that?

SPEAKER_06 1:24:57

I think about this probably almost every day.

SPEAKER_14 1:24:59

I love that.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:01

Because I still do I mean, I don't think I'll do any massive long-distance journeys like I've done before, but I still have that itch and I still still think I want to get out somewhere and be out in the wild and you know, be in a weird place. Sometimes I think if I live near Heathrow, I'll just walk down to Heathrow and get on a flight to Beirut or something to see what happens. You know, I just have that uh urge to strike out, you know. And then I think, well, where the hell can you go? Where, like you say, you know, wild and free and away from everything. And and and that is what has changed it really, even just since my last journeys, is the onslaught of social media and the way that we can now see every part of the world through Google Maps, through satellite, um, through YouTube videos, you know, it's just like, oh, it I think it it has slightly killed the the magic and and the mystery. Because I don't know if a young person would would uh have that same desire because they can sort of find out about it all beforehand. And you'd have to be a very strong person to sort of not watch the YouTube videos and not look at satellite and uh you know I I so I think you you kind of have to choose it more, but it's too it's too easy. That's it. But then I I sound like one of those old people, it was better in my day, you know. People are always saying that. And Elspeth was my generation before me, and Ted Simon were the generation before, and we all say it was better, you know. So I I I'm just being one of those people, and maybe it is still exciting to turn up in a foreign country and roam around. But I think if you've you know you've got your phone and you can't get lost, I think that's the crucial thing because the getting lost is when the fun stuff happens. As like as Ted says, you know, the interruptions of the journey, it's the same idea, isn't it?

SPEAKER_14 1:26:38

Yeah, exactly. I said I made y you made a comment about uh someone new these days. There's two things. One is that when Aaron and I did um the Himalayas on the Indian side last year, there was uh so many videos, like so many videos of people who having done that trip. So I just checked a couple of them, like, yeah, that looks interesting. No, that's probably a bit too aggressive for my ability. Don't want to spend a day, you know, sliding around in in mud. Um so we looked at it and picked the timing and then I stopped watching just so that I wouldn't spoil it. I was like, I want I want to see this with fresh eyes. Oh right, I remember that was episode two of Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:14

And sometimes you want to slide around in mud and have to deal with it, and then you're like, oh so it's like that is part of the appeal is not knowing what's gonna happen. Because it could put someone off as well, that's the other thing.

SPEAKER_14 1:27:26

That's true, that's very true. All right. If a 27-year-old woman emailed you tomorrow and wrote, quote unquote, I want to do what you did, I want to ride a motorcycle solo into Iran, knowing everything you know today about both countries and the era that we're in, what would you actually tell her? Feel free to cast diplomacy aside in your reply.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:52

Well, this is interesting because I think about this every day as well, because obviously I'm following the news from a while as much as you can, get news out of it at the moment. Um and I often wonder and I did have this exact question. Um a woman contacted me, she's British Pakistani and she's riding to Pakistan and she wanted to go through Iran, but she had a Pakistani um passport but a British bike. And uh and our gaggle of women riders got together and decided what advice we should give her, me and Tiffany and a few others. Um and it's tricky because uh at the moment, I I do think there is a genuine risk to going to Iran, and I would be, you know, I would not say that lightly, because normally I'm like, yeah, go, it'll be fine, you'll be alright, yeah, it's great. Which is probably true, but the risk is higher than ever. And I'm thinking because of the couple that are in Iran at the moment, you know, obviously I'm sure you know about them, Craig and Lindsay Foreman, who rode through Iran in January last year and then ended up in 10 years in Evan prison. So when I went, there there's always that risk with Iran. Um I went at a time where uh uh the relations were a little bit warmer, Obama was president and the nuclear deal was kind of going through and and people were very excited about it. And and that filters down to the police and the Revolutionary Guard and who they're gonna arrest, basically, you know. Um so there's always been a big risk for dual national Iranians and and um and I think that's still going on. But then when they start targeting, you know, tourists, uh then it's quite serious. I wouldn't ever condemn somebody for for going, that's what I I think. And I I've seen a lot of like really nasty negative stuff towards a couple that are in in Iran now in prison. You know, what are they doing going to Iran? Who wants to go to Iran? You know, that kind of thing. It's like I think it's a dangerous game when we start criticizing people for having to go and taking a punt and being curious, and they were you know, they were naive, and that isn't a crime. So but I think I would probably say if it was a British person, a British woman on a British bike, um, well, they wouldn't get in anyway, they wouldn't be allowed in, but but I would say to be quite wary at the moment.

SPEAKER_12 1:30:12

I actually highly recommend traveling in war zones. It's it's a fantastic experience. You meet lifelong friends because you're, you know, you have to just survive, and everyone throws your doors open, especially when you know airway sirens go off.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 1:30:27

It's it's it's fast friends territory. It's it's really great.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:30

I can imagine that that high intensity creates that bond. Yeah, yeah. No, I I I know what you mean, and sometimes, you know, I think it's easy to think, oh well, the war's going on, and you can't go there and it's really, really dangerous. But often, you know, it's going on in a very localized area. And if you're the other end of the country, you won't even know. You know, we could have there could be a war going on in London and we're 20 miles away and we wouldn't have a clue.

SPEAKER_12 1:30:51

So this is the case in Ukraine or now. You have the zero line. And at night, there's an issue with you know the drones coming in. But the the travel doors are open.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:00

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_12 1:31:02

And I and I highly encourage it. I I was there when the war first started. There are people I know who have gone back and they say it's it's great, and the people, the the local people want you there, as a matter of fact. Yes, tell our story, you know, bring tourism back here, um, tell people that you know this is what's really happening, and and people are more receptive to foreigners during a time of crisis.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:22

I I do agree with you, and I I've seen that as well. And in a way, that sort of um is is similar to how um people responded to me when I went to Iranian. They couldn't believe I was there, you know, a woman from Britain on a British motorbike, you know, riding around and they were just delighted and couldn't stop, you know, giving me food and drink and and telling me messages to take back to you know to the outside world almost. So I think from that point of view, I I agree. I think it's just it's more the risk of um of being locked up is quite real at the moment in Iran. So, you know, we it's like higher than ever. So I think I'd I would be a little a little wary.

SPEAKER_12 1:31:59

Yeah, I would just say my advice is in a place like Iran, be sensitive to what's happening and don't ask questions as a journalist or don't bring in your Western sensibilities. Go in as an ignorant tourist, right? So the story doesn't make it back to the brother of the IRGC that this person's asking questions and telling us about Christianity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is not this is not the time, you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that that's the case with the couple that were arrested. They were asking some pretty stupid questions and posting about it on Facebook. It was just like, no.

SPEAKER_12 1:32:32

Oh, posting? Excuse me, posting?

SPEAKER_06 1:32:35

So this is it, like you have to really know your yeah, you have to know what you're getting into. And like you say, be super sensitive, super low-key. Um, but you know, sometimes it's even hard to sort of to know what is exceptional and what isn't. You know, I remember taking a photo of some nice looking murals painted on a wall in Shiraz in southern Iran, and this nice man came up to me and said, probably best not to take photos of them. You know, it turned out it was a military, you know, um place or I don't know what it was, but but that's the thing, it's as well, because you can't read the language, you know, you can't read the signs. You know, if it's it's like nuclear nuclear enrichment plants. So so it is easy to fall in fall foul as well. But yeah, you've got to do your research and and just be yeah, constantly aware and sensitive of of the situation. And yeah, I mean it's you know, it's hard to get on to um the internet in Iran anyway, but yeah, you do not want to be, you know, posting about where you are or what your plans are or anything like that at all. So no, I mean I'm always encouraging people to go to Iran, but I'm just not sure about right now.

SPEAKER_14 1:33:47

On

Boats, Barges, And Next Dreams

SPEAKER_14 1:33:48

what's next? Is there a place, a question, or a story that's calling you at the moment?

SPEAKER_06 1:33:54

I've I'm always like I said before, I'm always thinking about um you know where I could go and and have a another grand adventure of some kind. I've I'd love to go to Japan. I've never been to Japan, so that appeals to me. Um I love boats, so I'm always interested in watery adventures. I built a canoe a while back and um I'd love to do a a kayak journey or canoe journey somewhere. Um I've just written another book, but it's a it's fiction, so that's sort of hopefully will be happening in the next sort of year or so. So um nothing absolutely concrete, but I'm always open to suggestions.

SPEAKER_14 1:34:31

Fair enough. Um you did mention boats before we before we turn the mics on. Uh Aaron and I both have a background in boats. I'd love to know. Are you are you up for sharing any information about the your current living arrangements?

SPEAKER_06 1:34:44

Um yeah, so um we've got a Dutch barge, a sa a Dutch sailing barge which was built in 1901, a riveted iron uh hull, and it's just beautiful, um gaff-rigged, and it's um 51 feet long, so about 16 metres long, um, and about 3.7 metres wide, so that's about 13 feet wide. So it's a nice sized barge, um, and we bought it in Amsterdam near Amsterdam in in Holland in the Netherlands, and that was in 2004, and we sailed it over across well, we Austin and I um we we took it from Amsterdam to Ostend in Belgium or along the canals and rivers, just using a roadmap scene where the blue lines were on the on the European roadmap. Um that was another case of like, let's just buy a boat and see what try and get it home, you know, see what happens. And we ended up at Ostend, um, which is on the North Sea, um, and then we sailed it with a friend who's a skipper for vintage Dutch bars who knows what to do with all that. Um we sailed it over the North Sea from Ostend and up into London, which is a 20-hour crossing, and was um amazing experience. Like force, fortify water waves coming over and the propeller being just like you know, the boat the boat was just um tipping around so much, the propeller was sucking in air, and and and and then all because it spent its like a hundred year life on the Icelmere, which is like a lake in in um in in the Netherlands, you know, hadn't sort of seen much frothy action. And so all of the gunk in the diesel tanks was getting churned up. You'll I'm sure you'll appreciate this as um skippers yourself. So so we were um in the middle of the North Sea in the shipping, the shipping lane, uh, and and all the uh filters were getting gunked up, and we were having to change the filters in the middle of the night, and the boat's sloshing around, the waves are coming over, we've got all the windows boarded up. And I'd I'd been warned about this, and I'd brought five filters and we went through all of them, and then the skipper had recommended bring a clean barrel of diesel uh in case this happens. And you know, we thought I'd be over the top, but we did obey him. Austin said, Oh, it'll be fine. He's much more gung-ho than me. I was like, No, it won't be fine. We've got to do what he said anyway. I'm glad that I did. Because there we were in the middle of the night, you know, head torches on, re-plumbing the whole fuel system into this barrel of clean diesel, and that's how otherwise we'd have been basically stuck in the middle of the North Sea in the middle of the shipping lane at three o'clock in the morning. So I'm glad we did that. And that um, yeah, we've sailed across and uh came up the Thames, and here we are.

SPEAKER_12 1:37:16

I think if you can make a giant Venn diagram. Yes, there's often these these bubbles are Yeah, bikes and boats, definitely. Yeah, adventure and building canoes. I've built kayaks and I've built I think four boats or something, and I'm never doing it again, to be clear. Um yeah, I've I've I've passed that faith. But there most definitely is a uh Venn diagram for Do you think banjo is the one that Venn diagram as well? Absolutely. I'm gonna go to the Amazon and have a few pints and I'm gonna order myself a banjo.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:44

You look like a banjo plate, and like in the in a very positive sense.

SPEAKER_12 1:37:49

I could probably make some moonshine as well. You actually have some moonshine on your bike. I do actually, yeah. We were at the uh we were at the biker's rest in in Denmark, and uh and they were so impressed by my American license plate. They go, you must have some of our moonshine, and I gladly accept it, of course.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:06

Excellent. There you go. Good cross-cultural uh connections.

SPEAKER_12 1:38:10

That's what we're here to do. We're like we're like the UN, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:15

I love it.

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SPEAKER_14 1:38:17

Lois Price? Thank you so much for spending your afternoon with us. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:21

Thank you for having me. It's been great fun.

SPEAKER_09 1:38:24

Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention? I've just been handed an urgent and horrifying news story. And I need all of you to stop what you're doing and listen. Cannonball!

SPEAKER_08 1:38:40

Hey, Cannonballers, thanks for subscribing to our podcast. We appreciate it. If you're not a cheap Canadian and want to buy us a coffee, head on over to buymeacoffee.com. Or better yet, buy us a case of sweet ass craft IPA. We'll list it on patreon.com. Links are in the show notes. Now, back to the riveting podcast in progress.

Deanna Maps The Netherlands Route

SPEAKER_14 1:39:04

Deanna, welcome to the pod.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:06

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_14 1:39:09

We met up this morning and we went for a ride. I have to say, you're a fantastic rider. You're just crushing those turrets. Aaron and I were talking and we're like, oh my god, she's got, does she have knobbies on that thing? She's just laying that. And the bike is an Africa Twin 1000. And what do you have on there for wheels for rubber?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:25

Uh I do have row ties on it right now. It's the Continental Trello Tex.

SPEAKER_14 1:39:30

All right, fantastic. Well, you're you're crushing those corners. But let me go back to more of the introduction here. So your handle, I guess on Instagram, as I've seen it, is uh the Dutch Minion and her bike. Is that correct? All right, at least I got one of them right right off the bat. And how did you come to be in the podcast, or how did you come to know Aaron? And how did you become to uh to do part of what you've done here, which is the planning and the waypoint setting for the 2027 Adventure Cannonball rally?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:58

I came to the uh cannonball or in contact with Aaron through actually following Robert of and uh of Sweden, Robert Baldingen. I watched this movie, and then after some time, following, of course, the ADV Cannonball on Instagram, I saw some news about the European version. And I simply offered some help.

SPEAKER_14 1:40:19

All right. Well, it certainly is appreciated because Aaron's like, you know, the Netherlands is flat. It's really flat. I don't know what's interesting there, but but I've got this offer from a local, and um, I've gotta say that first of all, he was super impressed that you you put so much time into riding this and doing these routes. And then today, what did we do? Where'd you take us?

SPEAKER_01 1:40:41

We first started right next to Big River, then we went to an area called the Beastboss. And the Beastboss is basically the nursery for birds and um fish in the Netherlands, which is really nice, but there's a really, really lovely leather route for it.

SPEAKER_14 1:40:58

And is that route part of the ADV 2027 cannibal route through the Netherlands? Yes, it is. So let me explain this a little bit. So this is an area that is reclaimed land. This is it it was swamp or it was something, it was wet. And now there's a canal system, there's a there's a road system around the canals and canal system that controls the irrigation. The land is now farmland and it's being used for the sanctuary as well. And this this route that you took us on, it was like driving around there's this like turn after turn after turn on these little skinny one-lane roads with bike lanes on either side, clearly marked because we're in the Netherlands. And we were just, I don't know, we were doing but never probably shouldn't say the speed, but we were doing really, really comfortable speeds and the um and the turns and the whole area was just super cool because you could see huge distances because you're on this raised, what do you call the canal roads? Or what is it called?

SPEAKER_01 1:42:00

Those are dikes. And um, when we were driving, did you actually see the massive amount of swans as well?

SPEAKER_14 1:42:07

Yeah, when uh we uh when you you pointed and you stood up, and then Aaron was in front of me, and then uh we looked over at the same time on the comms, we're going, Swan Lake.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:17

Yeah, it's kind of like a swan lake. Yeah.

SPEAKER_14 1:42:20

The uh the entire area around here. So from Aaron's first impression, and I've spent much I've spent a lot of time in the Netherlands, but I've never ridden here. And in coming here, we're like, it's flat, you know, it's gonna be, oh, we don't know. But after having like, as we're talking, we're like, I'm so impressed, it's so beautiful here, it's amazing. Like all these crunchy roads we ride down, it's like a big estate we're riding in with these massive old oak trees on either side. It is stunning, absolutely stunning. So um, the route you've planned was really, really impressive.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:51

I'm really glad you guys like it. I know most people think of the Netherlands just being a flat country. It kind of is. It really is. But it's uh the the way that we reclaim the land, basically, all those little dikes are still here, and they've put small roads on them, which is a lot of fun to ride. Uh and uh if you go from the north all the way to the south, it just keeps changing. The buildings keep changing, even the way we speak in Dutch, it changes if you listen to the uh dialects and things like that. It just keeps on changing, like every hundred kilometers, it's different, and it just brings so much more to the Netherlands than just like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and a lot of wheat or hookers.

SPEAKER_14 1:43:33

You know, that hadn't crossed my mind, at least not then, but I'm glad you brought that to the forefront.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:41

It's uh it's good fun to be here.

SPEAKER_14 1:43:44

Yeah, this um so let me ask you, in terms of the route, so did you plan the entire route all the way through the Netherlands?

SPEAKER_01 1:43:50

Yes, I did, including all the waypoints.

SPEAKER_14 1:43:53

So you've got some pretty interesting waypoints in there. So can you tell us about some of them?

SPEAKER_01 1:43:57

One is in the middle of a river, and it's it uh try to figure out how to get it.

SPEAKER_14 1:44:02

Right. So in the middle of a river, and you have to figure out how to get it. And um, all right, so that's one. We won't give it, we won't give the answer away just yet. Yeah, and there's another one, actually, I can't, I can't share that one. Aaron was gonna tell me about another one that we did, we shared, we talked about it, that uh Robert Baldinger did two days ago when we were in Denmark. And it was one of these ones where you've really got to pay attention and you've got to watch I won't give any more away. But it was one of those where you're like, oh, you've got to really gotta you've got to do some thinking and some planning. So it's not just like get on the bike, crush some, crush some miles, hit some white points, and you know your phone's picking up the points. It's um you really have to do some planning in that. So it sounds like you've got a few of those surprises in there as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:42

I do. Like um at the coast near the storm search barrier, there's one you really have to get off the route and try to find it. And you can reach it with the bike, but you really have to keep pay attention on how you get it.

SPEAKER_14 1:44:56

Okay, another one, a bit of a cliffhanger here. Fantastic. So let me let me shift gears a little bit. So in the in talking with you, you've talked about you've mentioned three bikes. You got a DRZ, you've got the Africa twin, the 1100 that you're on, you bought a Tenere 700, and you're part of the what is this what trophy?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:14

The Tenere Trefle trophy. I was part of the crew for three editions already. Uh the fourth is coming up, uh, but sadly I won't be joining this one because I'll be traveling through Sweden.

SPEAKER_14 1:45:26

Well, maybe we'll have to see you in in in Sweden for that same period. Uh let me ask you, how did you get into uh motorcycles? How did this become your thing?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:35

I grew up with them. My parents both were uh motorcycle drivers. My father was more of the touring guy, he enjoyed just going nice and easy, just enjoy the scenery and things like that. And my mom was the racer. She would really blanket. So if I wanted to go like really relaxed, I would get on the back of the bike of my my father, just hang a big back and just look around and things like that. If I wanted to go fast, I would just uh jump on the back of my mom and just say, blanket mom, blanket, and you absolutely would. That one would go like 250, 60, sometimes 270.

SPEAKER_14 1:46:14

With her young daughter on the back.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:16

Nice.

SPEAKER_14 1:46:17

Do you have brothers and sisters?

SPEAKER_01 1:46:19

I've got one brother.

SPEAKER_14 1:46:20

Does he ride?

SPEAKER_01 1:46:21

Nope.

SPEAKER_14 1:46:22

Why not?

SPEAKER_01 1:46:23

He already crisped like 11 cars. It wouldn't be smart to get him on a bike.

SPEAKER_14 1:46:30

All right. Well, based on how you are riding and handling those turns, they essay that you sound and you probably ride a bit more like your mother.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:37

Yes, I do. I do like between 20, 25k kilometers every year.

SPEAKER_14 1:46:42

That's a lot of riding. So what do you spend most of your time on, or do you just split your time amongst your bikes? And is it just the three bikes that we've talked about?

SPEAKER_01 1:46:50

Yes, it's just the three three bikes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been greeting enough. I think most of the time it's on the Africa 20. Uh it's just my number one. And at the ERC and the T7, I mainly use for training and off-roading.

SPEAKER_14 1:47:03

Uh

Her Bikes, Tours, And Camping Tips

SPEAKER_14 1:47:04

so tell us a little bit about the trip to Sweden this summer.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:08

I'll be uh going to Sweden together with my uh my husband. The only thing we booked is the ferry from Friedrichshaven to Gothenburg, and after that we're just gonna explore, have some fun. My husband is going on the T7. He's gonna use that one because he likes it better for off-roading. He doesn't want to have his fancy bike off-road.

SPEAKER_14 1:47:27

What is his bike?

SPEAKER_01 1:47:28

He's got an 1100 Africa twin with the ECT system.

SPEAKER_14 1:47:32

Yeah, probably better for the T7. And the T7 is like is like built for the gravel roads in Sweden.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:39

Yeah, there's a big difference between the Africa twin and the T7. I always say like the Africa twin is a touring bike with offered capabilities. The T7 is all the way around. It's over a bike with touring capabilities, and that's how you should ride it.

SPEAKER_14 1:47:53

Yeah, I think Sweden has, I think this is uh if you look at Robert's one of the first videos I ever saw from Robert, which was uh ADV like a Swede. And in there he talked about like an IKEA book. He's he's so funny, so creative. Um, and he uh in there, I think it was said there's 250,000 kilometers of gravel roads in Sweden.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:15

Yeah, going to be great fun. Uh even with my big Africa toin, I don't care. It it will get some nubbies then, and uh we'll have some fun with it.

SPEAKER_14 1:48:23

So how long will you be in Sweden?

SPEAKER_01 1:48:25

Well about two and a half weeks.

SPEAKER_14 1:48:27

Any other uh highlights beyond gravel roads that you're gonna hit when you're there? I want to see moose. You know, you can see moose. Like I live just outside of Stockholm and I was on the way to the boat club uh maybe two weeks ago, and I'll show you the pictures. But when we're driving over and I and I said to my wife, I said, There's moose right there. And she's like, Where? I'm like in the like three car lengths up in the road. They're so well hidden. No wonder people hit them in their vehicles. I was like, it's right there. She's like, oh my God, it's right there. But we were doing like, you know, 20 kilometers an hour coming out of the boat club, this, you know, this end of this road. But they're everywhere, especially in northern Sweden.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:03

I was in Sweden and Norway last year for about two weeks. I didn't spot even one. That's why I want to have a CMOs. I want to have a have a look at it.

SPEAKER_14 1:49:14

I think it's a bit like the northern lights. You've got to get the timing right, you know, figure out when they're when they're active in the morning and then and then at dusk is usually when it's a good time. And dusk is, as you well know, from northern Sweden. Um, it happens really late in the evening.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:27

Yeah, we'll be there around midsummer night.

SPEAKER_14 1:49:30

All right, you'll get the longest day of the year. I um I have a friend uh named Jerker who uh who's from Sweden has now moved back to the States, and I I remember sending him a screenshot and I was like, look at that, longest day of the year. And he's like, that's right, Taylor, it's just downhill from here until December 20th, 21st.

SPEAKER_13 1:49:49

I was like, Thanks for reminding me.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:50

I had a midsummer night like last year on the on the top of the Tralstegen. It was such a weird feeling, but also so lovely just being in the middle of night. And just seeing the sun up there. Yeah, it was cool.

SPEAKER_14 1:50:03

Have you seen the Northern Lights?

SPEAKER_01 1:50:05

Sadly not yet. But I have seen it actually here in the Netherlands.

SPEAKER_14 1:50:09

Yeah, that was like there were reports of that in the past year or two, weren't there?

SPEAKER_01 1:50:13

Yes, they were, and they were absolutely gorgeous.

SPEAKER_14 1:50:16

So when we talked earlier, you said that there was a few other things that you were involved in. And um I think it might be interesting to share that with our listeners, some other things, because people get into motorcycling for the camaraderie. They get into it for many, many different reasons. And it seems like you've got some other things that you're involved in as well. So talk to us about your uh your Instagram and some other things that you're involved in.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:38

Yeah, I've of course you can find me on socials, on Instagram and Facebook with my name, that Chaminion and her bike. Basically saying, Small woman, big bike. You know, it's uh it's just a bit of a um funny twist on myself. But next to that, I actually organize things. Like I organize next week, I've got a waypoint challenge, which is basically on and off-road. You get a lot of waypoints in a certain part of the Netherlands, and good luck finding them. You have to really figure out how to get them. It's a lot of fun. Next to that, I do uh weekend trips in Luxembourg. So I take people with me from Friday to Sunday, just explore the lovely, lovely country of Luxembourg, which is really diverse as well. And I also organize once a year a midweek in France, which is in the central Massive in Auvergne, and it's a really unique area of the world. It's an area created by like over 500 volcanoes, so it's a really interesting area, and the people there I have a really nice accommodation, so do make sure you have enough space in your package to be able to gain some weight during the week. But it's really good to be there, and the roots are amazing. I've got like tracks of roots of like 20, 40k of only twisties and barely anyone on it.

SPEAKER_14 1:52:08

Are these tarmac or are these are these gravel or off-road or currently it's just tarmac?

SPEAKER_01 1:52:13

Yeah, I do I am preparing some gravel there as well. But uh I'm focusing on tarmic at the moment.

SPEAKER_14 1:52:20

How many tim how many years have you done that or how many of these tours have you done? Is this been something that you've done for a while?

SPEAKER_01 1:52:25

Yeah, I've been doing this now for four years. So it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_14 1:52:29

That's fantastic. So you mentioned accommodation, you said some nice there's some lovely accommodations, so it's not camping from what I'm gathering, it's mainly accommodations that have been organized. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 1:52:38

Only in France. Luxembourg, it depends on what you want. I've got participants who want to go camping. I camp there as well. So, like uh in three, four weeks ago, I was camping in Luxembourg with participants, and we have minus five in the night. But I don't care, I'm thirty in my sleeping bag, so I'm fine with it. It's just when you have to pee, it's annoying. But um, you can choose what you want. So you can also rent an accommodation down the campside. I have all kinds of accommodations, really small to really luxury. But I also which is quite fun, I'll every year I have participants who want to learn to camp from the bike. So I always drag them along. You know what? I'll start preparing you before you leave, and then I'll teach you what to do, what to keep an eye on during the weekends in Luxembourg.

SPEAKER_14 1:53:28

That sounds pretty cool. That sounds like a lot of fun, and um, it gives people an opportunity to be involved in something that they may not know about before. As I said, a lot of people are get involved in this for many reasons, and a lot of times we're finding that people, and and Robert Baldinger has really tapped into this. It's like the best time to start riding motorcycles is especially for men, is like not when you're 21. Maybe we make a reference back to your brother, um, but is like when you're when you're 50, right? Because the the desire to like, you know, the ego and all that, it's still there, but it's certainly tamped down a bit than it was when you were 21-year-old male loaded with testosterone. So it's great. So people come into this uh is a as a way to learn more and to and to pick up another hobby, right? So it sounds like you've really capitalized on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:13

I've got the same, you know. I first was like, oh, I'm going from hotel to hotel, maybe an Airbnb or something like that. And then I was like, but I grew up camping. Why not combine the two of them? And you didn't see much in Europe yet, but it is fastly growing, and it's so much fun to go camping, especially with a motorcycle. You just throw in your tents on the back, your stuff, and just follow your nose. And you can add up any way you want.

SPEAKER_14 1:54:41

Thank you very much for taking time to be on the podcast.

Back In Studio And Rideouts

SPEAKER_14 1:54:44

It's really nice to hear about your story. It's fun to hear about your family growing up with your mom. I'd love to meet your mom. And um, and thanks very much. And and just one more time, if people want to get in touch with you, how can they how can they locate you?

SPEAKER_01 1:54:57

They can locate me on Instagram and Facebook under the name Dutch Mean and Her Bike or via my website, www.duchmeanandherbike.com.

SPEAKER_08 1:55:07

Adventure, endurance, glory. This isn't just a ride. It's the ultimate test of rider and machine. The ADV Cannonball Rally challenges you to ride from coast to coast, navigating checkpoint to checkpoint by GPS and pushing past your limits. Take on every off-road stage, and you'll earn bragging rights and a coveted Rough Rider trophy. Own the Twisty Tarmac and you'll claim the Checkpoint Crusher Award. Every mile counts, every choice matters. Rack up the points, and your name could be etched forever on the winner's cup. This year the routes are harder, the mileage is longer, the glory is greater. The ADV Cannonball Rally is open for registration. Fortune favors the bolt. Sign up today.

SPEAKER_12 1:56:02

And we are back. Another nice one. Good job, Taylor. I think that if we win another award for 2026, that will get it.

SPEAKER_14 1:56:13

Yeah, that was it was really fun. One thing that stuck out for me in that interview was the fact that in the beginning, like the questions weren't rolling really, really well. And the fact that we had, it was the first one that we've done where there was really a professional studio interview and there were there was all three of us in there, right? I mean, that was really, really good. I think that that the synergy of the three of us was well more than just one third more person, more people in there. So I think it was great. That was one of my favorite interviews that we've done.

SPEAKER_12 1:56:40

And I texted you after I finished editing saying, never again are we doing three people in one room because the editing was a nightmare. But the result is like all things, if it's difficult, there's probably a good payout. It's good to hear the feedback that the result was worth the effort.

SPEAKER_14 1:56:56

Yeah, it definitely was. So from here on out, it's gonna be um, you know, three-way interviews every time. Right. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_12 1:57:04

Awesome.

SPEAKER_13 1:57:06

Hey, thanks for that sponsorship.

SPEAKER_12 1:57:08

Yeah. And our sponsor this week is uh Superflux IPAs.

SPEAKER_14 1:57:13

Cheers. Nice. Let's cover some Aaron's ride outs.

SPEAKER_10 1:57:19

Blitz at the road, smash some gears, and ride out to this week's adventure by checkpoint.

SPEAKER_14 1:57:31

So you were in uh Helsinki, Finland, not so long ago.

SPEAKER_12 1:57:35

Yeah, it was my previous trip to Europe, and I had this great experience on a little afternoon trip to a cafe. Cafe Lattis, Latis, I'm not sure how to pronounce it. Latis. Latisse, but it's in the Aaron's rideout map, and it's one of the few actual motorcycle destinations outside of Helsinki, which by the way, Helsinki is amazing. And you know, there's lots of wildly attractive blonde women running around, and they're really into you know, saunas and all these things, but there wasn't much of a biker culture. But then I stumbled onto this cafe a couple hours outside of the city, and everyone came running out, took pictures with me because my motorcycle had a Washington State plate, and they were really welcoming, really warm. It seems to be placed in the heart of biker country. So if you're in Finland, absolutely make this a stop.

SPEAKER_14 1:58:33

This past weekend, I turned on some, you know, sometimes you put the TV on and then something came up, which is rare that we actually watch TV and don't, you know, stream something. But it was the Red Bull soapbox challenge, and they had it in Helsinki, Finland, and they were just they they were crowds were wild. It was fantastic to watch.

SPEAKER_12 1:58:53

If there are two things on my list of bucket list things to do, is a race to Alaska, absolutely have to do that, and two is Red Bull soapbox. I'm like, I could totally win this, right? Like, you know, all these things that you could do without a huge amount of investment and just put some sweat into it and some like proper redneck engineering. I'm like, I feel like I could win the soapbox derby, right?

SPEAKER_14 1:59:20

Yeah, I guess, you know, I'd be curious not so much about the vehicle that we put on the board, but about the the um 30-second pre-start entertainment.

SPEAKER_12 1:59:32

Yeah, I'm not good at that. You know me, right? I'm like, listen, I want to just win this thing, and I want a team of monkeys with me, right? And then push me down the hill. And I'm like, I got this, guys. I got this.

SPEAKER_14 1:59:44

That reminds me. There was a there's so I was in uh I was in New Zealand and I was doing an uh survey or doing a uh international safety management um audit on a uh a 52-meter vessel, and the owner had just gotten married, and you said I want a team of monkeys. It reminded me, so he got married on the beach, I don't know, Fiji, I don't know where he was. Maybe it was maybe it was Fiji, somewhere South Pacific. And what he wanted in his wedding, just to kind of because he's a bit different, he wanted to have the the normal wedding on the beach, everyone looking toward the beach with he and his new bride getting married. And then just as the priest is going through the the bit where you sign off, he had a a little person. He had a little person. I think midge is an improper word, but he has a he had a small person, a dwarf or whatever it is, a little person.

SPEAKER_13 2:00:40

You're gonna get canceled, Taylor. You're gonna get canceled. Anyway, I'm just trying, I'm trying to be politically correct here, but I don't know how to, I don't know the proper word for it. I'm trying to and he had the little person being chased by a person in a gorilla suit down the beach, and that little person was screaming the whole way, and that's how he wanted to get married was have that.

SPEAKER_12 2:00:59

I love it. That's freaking awesome.

SPEAKER_13 2:01:01

So I was thinking for the team of monkeys, we could have no, that's not I just had a a flashback to Wolf of Wall Street.

unknown 2:01:10

Ha ha.

SPEAKER_12 2:01:11

Listen, my life as Wolf of Wall Street, I don't have any flashbacks. It's a bit blurry if I'm honest, right?

SPEAKER_14 2:01:18

Hey, in my yachting career, I actually met and uh the uh the guy who was was it Nadine, that boat that went down in the Wolf of Wall Street. He's actually a he's actually a broker. Uh I think Capra Nicholson. And uh he's a he's a guy that I've stayed in touch with for years. But anyway, he's like, Yeah, that was me. We threw the helicopter over so that the so that it wouldn't flip off the side and puncture the side of the boat. So we threw the helicopter off because it was top heavy. And you know, sometimes you do that. You just throw the helicopter off because you throw the helicopter away so you can salvage the boat. Wow. Listen anyway.

SPEAKER_12 2:01:52

We'll have to tell people some of my stories um that are actually published about rescuing people off burning bows and things like that. But listen, it's gonna be a short episode. So let's go to ADV Cannonball News.

SPEAKER_14 2:02:04

ADV

Rally News And 2027 Signups

SPEAKER_14 2:02:05

Cannonball News. I think you should jump on this one.

SPEAKER_12 2:02:07

Yeah, it dawned on me just literally this morning that I will actually be riding my bike to the star line and riding my motorcycle through the whole European 2027 rally. So I noticed some guys from the US have signed up to do the European rally, and thank you for that. I really, really appreciate it. You know, none of this happens without people signing up. So it dawned on me if those guys are shipping their bikes over to Kathy with Moto Freight, I can ride with you guys to the start line and I can help you with logistics and we can hang. And maybe if we have a few extra days, which is the whole point of all this, it dawned on me that we can pad the liaison to the start with some fun. So I will reach out to all the guys from North America that are doing the European rally, and maybe we have some fun on the front end of the rally.

SPEAKER_14 2:03:04

My question for you, sir, is what number will you be? 666, baby.

SPEAKER_13 2:03:11

All right, sounds good.

SPEAKER_12 2:03:12

It's actually on the livery of the covey. Ah, the covey, why do we have that? Anyways, it's on the livery 666. And then if you look at all the scoreboards, whether I'm in the rally van, it's always 666. You know, just because that's how I roll, right?

SPEAKER_14 2:03:29

Yeah, fair enough. True.

SPEAKER_12 2:03:30

Actually, and another bit of information is anytime there's an event, a cannonball event running, the most current event, if you go to motorcyclegumball.com, it will redirect you to the most current leaderboard. So, whatever events going on, if you're a tracker junkie like I am, just type in motorcyclegumball.com and it will redirect you to whatever current scoreboard or whatever last scoreboard was up.

SPEAKER_14 2:04:00

Um, let me ask you, how far in the planning of the USA 2027, how far along have you gotten that nail down?

SPEAKER_12 2:04:10

Basically, it's done, and I'm really proud of it. It's the best organization I've done. The official hotels, I haven't just called one, I actually expanded you know who I'm calling. I'm letting them bid. So if you sign up for the 2027 USA rally, the savings on hotels alone will pay for the entry fee. That's how aggressively I've negotiated all of the coupon codes or discount codes. One of the big announcements is in the town of Leavenworth, Washington, we have the whole Hilton Hotel. So I don't know how I talked them into this, but in the heart of tourist season, we have the whole damn hotel. We have 75 rooms booked, and there are plenty of other options around. There's a KOA with cabins next door, there's a bunch of other places, there's a ton of Airbnbs there. We're so excited about stopping in Leavenworth. We're so pleased that Hilton gave us the entire hotel. We're just so excited about everything about 2027.

SPEAKER_14 2:05:18

So just to be clear, I whenever someone says Leavenworth or hear about it in a movie, it is a military prison located in on Fort Leavenworth, United States disciplinary barracks, exclusively for military personnel. Just to be clear, that was in Kansas, and that's not this one.

SPEAKER_12 2:05:37

I love it that I'm rambling about something and you're Googling something. I'm like, he's like, where the hell is Leavenworth? He's like, no, no, no, it's not prison. I haven't been sent there yet.

SPEAKER_13 2:05:47

Not yet.

SPEAKER_12 2:05:50

Yeah. Oh my God. But yeah, Leavenworth is this picture postcard town in the mountains, surrounded by amazing paved motorcycle roads, surrounded by the Washington Backcountry Discovery Route. And they've essentially turned this alpine town into little Bavaria. And I go there all the time. I know all the restaurants, all the best brew pubs. I've listed all those there. And like I said, I was just super excited that they took us seriously and uh gave us the whole hotel. So yeah, whoever's going to 2027 USA, you will not be disappointed. It's awesome. Nice. Looking forward to that. Oh show. Maybe you could do 2027 signups since we're excited about that.

SPEAKER_14 2:06:39

Let's do that. 2027 America's USA edition. We've got Thor from Laramie, Wyoming. And that is indeed his real name. So awesome, right? Yeah. Alex Wicker from Montaug, New York on his Yamaha X Max 300 scooter. Welcome back, Alex. Welcome. With the uh scooter cannonball seemingly falling to the wayside. I hope to see more scooters joining us in the ADV cannonball rally.

SPEAKER_12 2:07:10

Yeah, not 50cc scooters. I mean, like the X-Max 300 is a is a machine, and there's a bunch of scooters out there that can do basically highway speeds. Although it would be pretty epic if someone showed up on like a trail 150 and actually ground out the miles. That would be pretty cool too. There's some honor in that. If we could get more scooters to sign up, I think we could have a little contingent of badasses on scooters. That'd be fun. I like it.

SPEAKER_14 2:07:40

Dennis Gas from Sugar Valley to Georgia on his Triumph Tiger 800.

SPEAKER_12 2:07:47

Nice.

SPEAKER_14 2:07:49

Grant Payronel from Frederick, Maryland, not so far from Annapolis, Maryland, my hometown, on his Triumph Tiger 1200 Rally Explorer. And he joins Team Jordan Wiley. Welcome back, Grant.

SPEAKER_12 2:08:03

And I don't even know how these guys found the sign-up. I guess they were poking around the site. So as I was building the site, it was kind of live, because you know it's just the one-man operation essentially. I guess they realized that these events sell out. And so they were heroes and they and they signed up. So thank you guys for doing that. Like I keep saying, none of this happens without you guys signing up. We have Taylor's boat stories here, but I want to save it because we kind of did a boat story. So because this is a short episode, we're 40 minutes into yammering. So let's save some boat stories. And I promise I will tell some of the rescuing stories also, in addition to Taylor's story. But Taylor, maybe you can tell us what's coming up in the next episode.

SPEAKER_14 2:08:48

Before I do that,

Next Guests And Closing Track

SPEAKER_14 2:08:49

I wanted to say that, you know, your boat stories are about saving lives, and my story boat stories about straight up debauchery in most cases. But just to clarify the difference.

SPEAKER_12 2:08:58

No, no. I'll do some of those debauchery stories, but you know, we just have to make sure our significant others really aren't listening.

SPEAKER_14 2:09:07

Upcoming in the next episode in season five, episode five. Tommy Davies, UK cannonballer, recorded live in Wales. Season five, episode six, egg, recorded live in Stockholm, Sweden. Great interview. Hey, by the way, a couple days later, after I talked to her, I was like, Hey, how's it going? What's you know, I just touched in bass with her. She posted something. I wanted to ask her a question about it. And I think she became a um a uh enjuristan, like the marketing manager for enduristan. And I was just asked her about that. And it's something we didn't discuss actually in the interview, which had been uh just a week and a half prior. And she said, I can't really chat right now. I'm getting uh machine gun training. So she was in here, she's in her squad and she's over there. She sent a picture of her in full camis with this saw in front of her in prone position in the woods. It was a pretty good shot. And music this week is a real toe tapper from our friend Paul. Whole lot of road ahead. All right, thanks for that. And with that, I say we roll the outro.

SPEAKER_02 2:10:21

Thankful sunlow, the stone blast. Mama said, slow down and sit. Can't do that. Hold out a road ahead. I don't want you to plan that it's all I keep moving on.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:45

One more stop ahead. Hold on a road ahead.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:31

Station coffee, red on my boots.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:35

All your name on the breeze like this we go through small stand on the big sky. Come on, come on, all that road, road.

SPEAKER_15 2:13:02

Still I'm laughing, still, the head, oh that road, all that road ahead, oh my god, oh that road ahead, oh that road, oh the head of the world.

SPEAKER_11 2:14:04

And satisfies the algorithm gods. All hell the algorithm gods. A special thanks to our Patreon supporters. You're keeping this dick and chip afloat. Thanks for listening to the A T V Cannonball Podcast. Keep your right hand cranked and your feet on the peg.