Intro: How did I end up writing on a crazy guy website?
What am I supposed to write here?
“Hello”, I guess? Yea, that is a good start. Let’s go with that.
“My name is Kevin”… Man this is riveting stuff.
So, how did I end up writing on some Crazy Guy cycling website? Some history and background is in order.
After returning home from my last Backpacking / Digital Nomading type travels, I had the idea of doing some “Van Life” project. Fast forward 1 year, and this project fell through. This was very disappointing. At this point, I went back to the drawing board and tried to think about what is next for me. Ok, it wasn’t literally a drawing board… But it was a spreadsheet called “Life Decisions”.
I fired into this spreadsheet any ideas that came to my head. The ideas started tame with items like “Move back to the city I went to Uni in”, “Move to a new city/country + continue Digital Nomading”, “Try to save for a mortgage” and the like. The more ideas I wrote down the more ridiculous the ideas got. “Move to some exotic Island to continue my Scuba diving training and become a dive master”, “Move to Cuba and learn to dance Salsa”. I would then wake up from the day dreams and close the browser. Days + weeks would pass, I would get distracted with life stuff and then remember this list and fire more shite into it. “Do a year long safari guide training program in Africa”. At some point I saw some YouTube video of a guy motorbiking the length of Vietnam. I don’t have a motorbike license but this list was fantasyland so onto the list it went. This opened the idea of cycling the length of Vietnam. And that opened the idea of cycling to Vietnam. Was such a thing even possible? What about other cycle routes? I then stumbled across the idea of a “Round the world cycle trip” and the Pan American Highway and the world of bike touring and bike packing opened up (I still don’t know the difference between these..)
“Mad cycle adventure” was the last idea I added to the list. It resonated with me. Or at least whatever ill informed preconceived romantic notions I had about this idea resonated with me… Good enough.
At this point it is important to say that I have never bikepacked before. Or wild camped. I am very out of shape. My cycle experience is mostly commuting ~2 km a day into work for a summer but that was a couple of years ago. I have never even changed a tire or fixed a puncture. But none of that matters. Now at least I have a direction. I am going on a big mad 1+ year bike adventure.
So have come up with a 3 step plan.
- Buy a bike
- Leave my job
- Start cycling
Step 1 was easy.
Step 2 is in progress and is/was difficult. Not because they made it difficult but because I have been working with the same great company for nearly 7 years, I mostly like my work and my colleagues. But it turns out all of the “difficulty” was in my head. That is usually the way I think.
Step 3 is just a small to-do item, right?
This intro is fairly rambling on at this point and already way longer than I had planned. My trip should start in mid September. Before then I have so much stuff to do, gear, logistics, finish up with work, goodbyes etc.