I'm posting here, but this is really for everyone with a dream - male, female and everyone in between.
Coffee first, then the world (what a great title!) is Jenny Graham's account of her record breaking round the world (unsupported) cycle.
Don't be put off by the subject matter.
Yes, a good chunk of it is a series of daily accounts of astronomical miles/Kms ridden, physical toll, the mental pendulum and uncomfortable sleeping locations.
However, buried in there is a blueprint, a map, that anyone with a notion of having an adventure can follow.
It's all there. The interest, the seizing of opportunities, the serendipity that flows from that, the attempts, the "failures" (felt as such at the time, but hugely beneficial in the longer term), the goodwill and generosity of people - not always beneficial!
There are numerous examples of how she deals with the solo nature of her travel. Podcasts, audiobooks, music lists offered up by friends - she'd listen to the songs and think of the person - all ways of keeping her connections alive and real.
That people who break world records sometimes push up a hill, struggle to fix punctures, get lost and miss their mum is chicken soup for the soul for any budding bike adventurer.
People setting off around the world can have a meltdown with their mapping software and GPS units.
And for solo adventurers we're never alone. There are always other voices, other parts of us along for the ride. The skill is in mastering which of them we listen to.
Such a journey is a million miles away from my preferences but it's a gripping, educational, motivational and uplifting read.
What it most certainly is not is a travel book. Don't expect to read any great detail of what Russia's like. Or Australia's diverse fauna. Expect to read a lot about bears in Canada, but perhaps not what you'd want to read. There are no TripAdvisor type reviews of famous tourist spots. The Great Wall of China? That's a pick up point for the airport to fly to Australia.
What it is, is an extremely honest account of an extreme adventure. There's very little gloss on the lips and a while lot of grit under the nails. It's real. Dirty real. Painful real. Shocking real.
There's honesty in there that made this reader gasp. Streaks of selfishness, meanness that I think most other writers would omit or polish to deflect but in reality, are the jigsaw pieces that let us see the "real" picture.
I savoured this book slowly, often outside in temperatures well above 30C but when the weather turned cold and wet I continued (if not for as long). It's one of those books, I think, that benefits greatly from being read outdoors, preferably on a bike ride.
Whether your idea is to do similar or head off on a first ever bike adventure there's a whole load of information, really useful information, in there. Feck all of a technical nature, but lots of a reassuring nature. Round the World record holders can struggle to find a comfy saddle!
There's a blueprint for developing the mental strength to undertake such a journey in there. There's no shortage of plans to physically prepare for a bike adventure but there's a dearth of information on how to prepare mentally. This book goes a long way to filling in some of that gap, not in any kind of explicit way, but in a gradual, organic and holistic way. On a round the world trip or a weekend rambling it's the head that gets us through or decides how much (or how little) we enjoy it.
Unusually for a lot of these types of accounts, she talks of her post ride life. That's done with the same honesty as the account of the ride itself. It's not all happy clappy.
For anyone put off by the notion of such a challenging, gruelling ride having any connection to their own I'd point to an incident near the end when, with a booming clock ticking all around her, a finish line in metaphorical sight, her phone drops from her handlebars and is lost on the side of the road for an hour. When she finally locates it, smashed and with the battery separated but beside it, her first instinct is to recognise her good luck in locating phone and battery (not chastising herself for carelessness or the time lost). That's a lesson we can all absorb.
There's very much an unstated lesson in there too about not putting things off. As far as I can make out the route she took (and about the only viable one for anyone wanting to break the World Record) is off limits now.
Given that it is such an accessible book, written without lots of jargon and acronyms I developed the idea that it might just be a book that may be useful for those that are left behind when someone contemplates going off on a bike adventure. It doesn't explicitly address why someone might do such a thing but (despite some of the graphic detail) it paints a picture of goals achieved, satisfaction earned, challenges conquered.
It explains, without ever setting out to, what a solo journey can be like, especially a goal oriented one like this one. It puts into words what, I think, many of us struggle to explain. and how interactions with others can affect us. Just one example, messages received can have a huge effect in terms of content, timing and tone.
Like a village raising a child, a long solo journey isn't actually solo - there's a whole village involved.
Coffee first, then the world by Jenny Graham. A great read.
