Rebecca Gross has been sending updates from the road all year and After cycling from Austria to Australia across something like 30 countries this is the final one!

In this update Rebecca talks us through cycling theTassie Traverse, a relatively new bikepacking route running from Hobart up to Launceston through the Highlands and along the east coast. She covers a detour to Maria Island (wombats everywhere, no cars, highly recommended), a night in a tent that was decidedly not waterproof, a private waterfall at sunset after the worst day of the whole traverse, and a Huntsman spider making a last-minute appearance on her handlebars on the final day into Melbourne.

She also reflects on what it feels like to come home after a year on the road and why the whole thing already feels like it happened to someone else.

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In 2018, at 24 years of age, Luke Grenfell-Shaw was given a stage 4 cancer diagnosis and told he had months to live. Within weeks, he also lost his brother John in a freak accident. Most people would have pulled the covers up. Luke signed up for a half marathon, hopped on a stationary bike in the hospital ward, and started planning to cycle from Bristol to Beijing.

On 1 January 2020, Luke set off on a tandem bike. Over the next few years he rode 32,000 kilometres through 30 countries, with more than 800 different people taking a turn on the back seat. Some were strangers he met on the road. Some were friends and family. One was a puppy named Tarzan. The ride became the award-winning documentary A Life in Tandem, which you should watch immediately after listening to this episode.

In this episode we talk about:

- What it feels like to be diagnosed with stage 4 cancer at 24

- Why Luke chose a tandem over a solo bike and what that decision changed

- The science behind exercise during chemotherapy and what the research now says

- Dev, the Indian man who turned up in jeans, hadn't ridden in three years, and became Luke's longest-serving stoker

- The brake failure at 50mph on a Kyrgyzstan mountain pass that ended in a medical clinic

- Tarzan the puppy of Uzbekistan (fate: unknown but probably fine)

- The post-adventure blues, identity after big goals, and what it means to turn 32 when you once didn't expect to see it

- Luke's definition of a 'canliver' and why he prefers it to 'cancer survivor'

- What it means to be a professional trail runner representing Great Britain, and what comes next

Luke Grenfell-Shaw is a professional trail runner representing Great Britain, adventurer, filmmaker, and speaker. His documentary A Life in Tandem is available to stream now.

Links:

- A Life in Tandem documentary

- Luke's website and Instagram

- Best Foot Forward short film (Luke and Dan in Sichuan):

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Daragh Cronin is 40 days into his solo cycling expedition from Ireland to Everest Base Camp, and I sent him four questions via Instagram to find out how it's actually going.

He talks about the send-off from Cork that genuinely blew his mind, how it compared to the low-key departure for his West Africa ride, and why the first two weeks on the bike were so much harder than he expected. He gets into the reality of solo wildcamping for the first time, hitting big milestones across Europe, and a very special stop in Germany to see the man he cycled more than half of Africa with.Daragh's route to Everest Base Camp is also currently under a cloud with the war that's broken out in Iran putting his planned route through Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Oman into doubt. He doesn't have answers yet. Istanbul is where it gets real.

You can also watch the new Daragh YouTube video on our Seek Travel Ride channel.

Here's the link to Daragh's Africa episode .

Follow Daragh via his instagram @roaminwithCronin for his latest updates.

Donate to his fundraiser.

Support the show

Buy me a coffee!

I’m an affiliate for a few brands I genuinely use and recommend including:

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Follow us on Social Media!

• Instagram - @SeekTravelRide
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Seek Travel Ride Newsletter

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