The day I changed my life and cycled home from the Arctic | Episode 1

Episode one as I prepare for a trip of a lifetime. In this vlog I fly to Finland and prepare to cycle 3500km back to the UK.

I’m doing this trip whilst raising money for charities that mean a lot to me, the link is below if you can read up on the story and donate.

https://www.givewheel.com/fundraising/9472/from-the-arctic-to-the-uk-a-story-on-two-wheels/

New episodes every 3/4 days ( depending on my wifi whilst cycling )

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Catch you soon x

My name is Adam and this is day one of cycling from the Arctic Circle back to the UK. [Music] [Music] Today is packing day. Um, tomorrow I fly to Finland. I don’t really know how I don’t really know how to feel about this to be honest. Um, I I haven’t packed anything. I haven’t cleaned my bike. I haven’t taken anything down. I haven’t checked that it fits in the box. I haven’t checked it. I’ve got everything. [Music] [Music] My name is Adam and this is almost everything that I’m taking as I cycle from the Arctic Circle at the top of Finland over to the UK. Let me run you through it. Firstly, the bike. Two arrow bars here which I’m going to mount my cameras to. Pedals of course, stuff for the tent, sleeping bag, blow up mattress, clothes, a towel, a drone, a 70 to 180, and a 28 to 75, a rain coat, a thick coat, SD card box, two portable chargers, my DJI action cam, the Garmin, a mini tripod, bike tire repair kit, first aid kit, spare inner tube, a bag of just random stuff, chain lube. That’s pretty much what I’ve got in front of me. I need to I need to pack this now. Down. [Music] Heat. [Music] Sometimes the reason we get so scared to commit to an idea is because we get attached to the hope. Whilst we plan and we fantasize and we dream, everything is in our control. For as long as it remains an idea, we cannot be hurt by the outcome. For me, this is wildly out of my comfort zone, something I’ve dreamt about for so long. And in many cases, I haven’t thought about the things that can go wrong. Until today, as I say my goodbyes and I take my box to the airport, this feels real, but not the normal excited butterflies that I usually get when I travel. This feels scary real. For someone who likes to overanalyze everything, I have no idea how this is going to go. And I’m not sure I like that. But as I land in Helsinki, I remind myself to trust the process and enjoy the adventure that I’m about to embark. So, I’ve made it to Finland, but there is some bad news already. I’ve not even started and I’m a day behind schedule. I have a videographer for the first 12 days or 13 days. Uh, someone in my community called Pit, and I was going to be meeting him today, the same sort of time, get in the van, and we’re going to be driving up to Lapland tonight, but his flight is cancelled. Um, so he’s going to be joining tomorrow, which pushes us out a day, which meant I had to I guess I’ve got the night to myself here. Um, a little bit of an inconvenience cuz I kind of wanted to get the bike set up. I wanted to get going and I also didn’t want to drive this uh this vehicle. I’ll give you a tour uh at some point soon, but this is this is what we’re in at the moment. Um I didn’t really want to drive it by myself, but anyway, I did. I’ve just driven it to the supermarket. And before I do in my shop uh my food shop, I thought I’d get a few snacks cuz listen, why not? [Music] This is my first time reversing this thing. It’s [ __ ] massive. [Music] I’ve always been told to slow down when I do things, to be more organized, to listen more. And I think this is something that I don’t like about myself. I’m very much one of these undiagnosed and self-dagnosed ADHD people who struggles with organization and planning. And this trip is going to test that. I always have a million things going on in my mind. I put things in the wrong places. cuz I forget important tasks. And now that I’ll be living from just a bag, a tent, and a bike that I barely know my way around, this is going to be interesting. Day zero, breakfast. Um, so last night I couldn’t get the gas to work in the camper van. Um, and so I had to have fruit and yogurt for dinner. Um, and I’m having it again for breakfast, which is a bit annoying. But I think one thing about this trip that I’m going to have to learn to accept is that things go wrong. I get quite annoyed with myself and annoyed when I can’t figure things out and when things like push me behind schedule because I always time block everything by the hour. And so when things get pushed outside of that, I I don’t really I don’t really like it. But this trip, I’m really going to have to just accept whatever happens happens. And I can’t get too angry or upset if things don’t work or if things don’t go right or if I have a bad day. But it is absolutely beautiful here. So, let’s break down the plan very quickly for you. I’m currently in Helsinki and I’m waiting for my videographer Pit and we’re going to drive up to Lapland inside the Arctic Circle, which is my starting point for this trip. Hopefully, we should get there around midnight tonight, maybe in the morning. And then we’re going to spend a day in Lapland in the Arctic Circle. And then on Saturday, I will get started and I will make my way back down here before getting a ferry over to Sweden. At that point, Pip will leave and I will be on my own staying in a tent and doing everything just off my back. So, the next 12 days really are is a nice way for me to ease into the trip. But that would be if he was here. He’s supposed to be here, but his flight got cancelled. So, I’m a day behind schedule already. But again, it is what it is. I might have to add an extra 10 km per day to make up for the day that I’ve lost. What’s up? Yes. Yes. What are you saying, brother? How you doing? Whoa, you’re tall, man. You’re taller than I thought. First time driving the motor home. That’s awesome. We have been driving for 3 hours, something like that. It feels like we’ve been driving a long way, but I checked the map and we’ve barely we’ve barely scratched the surface of what I’m about to cycle. There’s a big country. Yeah. Um but we’ve stopped for a bit of food before we get back on the road. Um and of course we stopped by a lake as there’s more lake than land in this place. You know, a romantic dinner for two outside of service station bin. Yeah. Pasta with tomato sauce. Let’s do it. Let’s go. Cooking with pit. Episode one. Yeah. It’s like a spin-off. I’m actually not a videographer. I’m personally cook. [Music] [Music] Okay, the time is half 8. We are somewhere. We’ve got about I think 4 hours until we get to our stopping tonight. Our stopping point tonight. Good morning. Um, we slept actually. Show show the van where we slept. We slept like just next to like some motorway thingy. All right. But on the other side of this little hill, we’re hoping is like a really nice lake. We got like we got probably four and a half 5 hours sleep last night. If you’d asked me 6 months ago, would I see myself meeting a stranger off the internet who’s in my community, driving 12 hours to Santa’s village in the Arctic Circle, and having breakfast in a little car park along the way? I’d have said no. Now that I’m actually doing that, does it feel normal? Actually, yes, it does feel normal to be sat in a car park having breakfast before I cycle home back to the UK. So, we are currently 1 hour away from Robin Yi, uh, which is the starting point for the trip. First problem already. Uh we just pulled up to try and get some sort of B-roll shots uh to use for the trailer. I realized my bike doesn’t shift gears. So, we’re now going to a bike shop to sort of see if they can fix the problem. My biggest worry here is they say come back Tuesday and we’ll have it done or like we’ll have it done by Monday or Tuesday. That’s not something I’ve got the time to do. I can’t lose another 3 days. Broken. It’s broken. Yeah. Look, we have to go to a bike shop. If two of them say if both of them say it’s [ __ ] then what’s our option? We if I go home, I’m throwing away everything. Okay, so the thing is I took it to the bike shop and he didn’t really know what the problem was. You know, like a few people are saying to me like, “What’s the problem with the bike?” And I’m like, “I don’t really know. Obviously, it doesn’t change gears. It doesn’t move at the back, which means it could be snapped, but he didn’t actually confirm that, did he? Cuz he he said he almost sort of said he doesn’t know why it’s broken. He was a little confused. He was confused. And he didn’t he he kind of gave the impression that it needs to be taken apart to look at it. So, I’m going to try two other bike shops. Bike shop number two doesn’t exist. Uh got here on maps, Google Maps. Phone number, no one’s answering. I don’t know what’s going on, but uh doesn’t exist. So, we’re on to our last option. Bike shop number three. Another one doesn’t exist. Um, all right. Um, the gears I have this bike and the gears do not shift. Okay. I wonder if you could Yeah, they they click but they do not shift. And I wondered if you could take a look at it. It’s just detached there. Easy. I’m just going to try it. Hold on. I’ll fix it. I think Oh, now I’m not so sure again. Why isn’t it moving? Damn. What? cuz it’s not attached where it’s supposed to be attached, but it should be moving. I would have to open the the whole thing and then see where it’s stuck. And this is um a really this is not possible, right? I’m really not the master of this kind of gears either. So like there’s one in Ulu that um has a a canyon maybe a mullet bike service. I don’t know if you know this one in um Ulu. Maybe I could like drive there. I don’t know if um thank you anyway for your help. We’ve just driven 3 hours. The bike shop closes in 20 minutes. We’re going to go and get this baby fixed right now. I can cycle fine. It’s in gear three or whatever, but I can’t change it to gears. Let’s get this fixed. I’m feeling positive, man. I’m feeling positive. Let’s [ __ ] do this, man. Uh, I called up about the bike. Yeah, that was a swing to you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool, man. Um, yeah. It doesn’t change gears. It doesn’t doesn’t shift. Um, just been going to loads of places and no one seems to know what’s going on. When I was younger, I used to watch YouTubers skateboard across Morocco. And one of them once said, “An adventure isn’t an adventure if everything goes to plan. Sometimes it’s the things that go wrong that make the story so good. If everything had gone to plan, what fun is that, right? And finally, we’re getting going with the journey home. Let’s do it.