Tag: Opinion
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What Constitutes Cycling Around the World?
The first record of someone pedalling around the world is Englishman Thomas Stevens’ 13,000 mile journey by Penny Farthing in 1884 carrying little more than a spare shirt, a change of socks and a pistol. Much has changed since then – in particular there is less need for firearm – but the essence remains much…
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Great Expeditions Don’t Make Great People
Just because someone has achieved great expedition feats it does not automatically make them a great person. It is quite common to describe someone who has completed a great expedition as “an amazing person” or similar. I would dispute that assumption. Such achievements should be rightly recognised and hailed for what they are: feats of…
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Wild Swimming Is Not A Sport
‘My friend does that’, shouted down the lady from the side of her boat as my now wife and I swam past in the river below. ‘It’s that “Wild Swimming” thing, isn’t it?’. I smiled and said Yes but something about what she said irked me. She was friendly enough and she was right about…
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If An Expedition Happens In The Forest And No One Blogs About It…
Although it is popular to deride expeditions for excessive use of social media, I actually find it a great shame when expeditions don’t provide any means of following their progress. It annoys me as much as the next person, if not more, to see website after flashy website declaring that this will be the…
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Don’t Cycle Lands End To John O’Groats
There are endless possibilities for original adventurous undertakings across the UK and around the world. Don’t just cycle Lands End to John O’Groats by default. Let me start by saying that I have no problem with “LEJOG”, as it’s known. I would love to make the trip – be it by bicycle, on foot or…
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Prove Yourself With An Expedition!
Expeditions are not and should not be a proving ground for egos. Ego can be a useful tool on expeditions and there can be little doubt in the role that it must have played in some of the world’s greatest conquests. There are times when that self-confidence and assuredness will be essential, just as there…
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Most Expeditions Are Primarily Selfish
Most expeditions are primarily selfish. That is no bad thing. It just means that, like many things in life, they tend to be done because someone wants to do them. Watching a DVD, going for a run, taking a holiday or eating a slice of cake would probably all get the same label. That is not…
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I Don’t Want to be a Professional Adventurer
The aim of The Next Challenge is to encourage people to live more adventurously and facilitate them in doing so. One way in which I strive to achieve this is by writing about my own experiences in the hope that they’ll variously excite, motivate and yes, even inspire others to take action. As such, it…
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Expeditions Are No Better Than Offices
It is so easy to set up a website, call yourself an adventurer and then proceed to tell everyone that they are wasting their lives sat in offices when they could be out on expeditions all the time instead. Such a crude point is patronising in the extreme and an over simplified idealism at best.…
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If You Aim to Motivate then Stop Exaggerating
Aside from supporting charities, the most common purpose given for undertaking expeditions, like travelling to a pole or climbing a big mountain, are to inspire and motivate other people. These are good and valid aims in most instances. I myself am forever inspired by the endeavours I read about and they provide constant motivation for…
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Vote tomorrow, but not for yourself
Tomorrow our country goes to the polls to decide who will lead the country and I’m taking a moment out of my day’s cycling and my website’s expedition updates to write about something I’ve been thinking about these past few days. I hope that whatever your views, you will be voting tomorrow. To not do…
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The X-pedition Factor (or “In offence at celebrity expeditions”)
What is the toughest expedition in the world? And, more to the point, who cares? Most dangerous this, hardest that, most daring ever such and such. There are times when a bit of hyperbolic showmanship is necessary and more appropriate than false modesty and, for the most part, I don’t have a problem with how…