How not to cycle round the world

Coming soon to BiP - performed and then written by Dan 'Not again' Gregory.

In July 2010, an unremarkable man will leave England with a bike, a half-baked idea, and an uncharacteristically short haircut. His mission - to cycle from Ipswich UK to Ipswich Australia, something that he's always never dreamed about doing for his entire life. With no experience, insufficient preparation and a super-human ability to make a terrible hash of everything, he will foolishly set off to tackle this insurmountable challenge.

He will almost certainly fail.

Dan will leave with his former bandmate and good friend Tom Askew for a couple of weeks cycling round Holland/Belgium, before being unceremoniously left on his own to head towards Istanbul. Tom has the utmost confidence in Dan's ability to utterly break down at this point, and will be greasing his lower legs to prevent Dan from pathetically clinging onto his ankles as he boards the Eurostar home. Tom has also suggested a number of blog entries that you may well see in the future, such as 'How I raised the bar (and then ran straight under it)' and 'Riding a bike - you can forget.'

Dan hopes to raise money for a charity, but he hasn't decided which one as a lot of them seem just as good as the others but for different reasons. It may well be for the Make-a-Wish Foundation, or it may be for Medecins Sans Frontieres. Now that he's mentioned both of them, it might now have to be both out of politeness. But the main thing to remember is - whoever wins, he loses.

In summary, over the coming months this blog will chronicle Dan's day-to-day trials and how he's unable to overcome them. Read of colourful local cultures that he never experienced, exotic locations he failed to notice and dangers that inevitably got the better of him. A life-affirming and heartwarming read, Dan Gregory's experiences will convince you that yes - you really could have done so much better than he did.

Critical reception:*

"I've never laughed so hard at someone else's expense in my life." - Time Out

"Truly emotional stuff. At one point I felt that I was really there with him; hungry, terrified, and crying in a tent." - Sara Flimsy, London Review of Blogs

"What a tool." - Nuts Magazine


*These quotes are made up. Time Out have never heard of me. There is no such person as Sara Flimsy. And I bought Nuts Magazine once in order to find a recipe for Pecan and Macadamia Pie, and feel that they should probably change the title to something a little less misleading.