One thing our response to Covid has made clear is that as a society, we value life above all else. I think this is wrong. In our pursuit of “saving” (prolonging  is a better word) lives we have forgotten what is most important: living. A year on from a slew of restrictions limiting our lives it is time to reflect on what is most valuable about our existence. It is not how much time we have, but how we choose to spend each passing day. Experiences in my own life have led me to feel this more acutely than most people.

The wind took the role of the front row in a scrum, doing its best to muscle me into the path of overtaking lorries. I leant into it, my head teetering over the edge of the asphalt. White foam, whipped up by the wind into airborne meringue, flew across the road like diving doves. In this gale I had another 140 miles to ride, and I hoped – as the forecast predicted – it would soon be a tailwind, as I turned south to Lankaran, a town in Azerbaijan’s South.

I recently crossed the Caspian Sea into Kazakhstan on my way to Bukhara, Uzbekistan and the end of Leg 3 of the expedition. It has been a truly amazing time in Eastern Europe, Turkey, and the Caucasus, even if a bit longer in Baku than I had expected! So much thanks is due, as ever, to the kindness and participation of many people and new friends I happened to meet along the way. I am really grateful for my warm reception and for the wonderful hospitality of so many people!

I write this in a small café in the small town of Shetpe, sheltering from the heat of the day. It is 5pm and still blazingly hot outside, and although I knew that this next section would be tough, it is quite another thing to experience the baking heat for hours on end, to feel my skin crusted with salt and my mouth dry within a minute of sipping water.

I like to do a little research before entering a new country. I mean little. Thus it was that as I read Wikipedia’s article on Azerbaijan I discovered a key factoid: the Azeris export the majority of their wine. I thought “That makes sense. It’s a Muslim country so they wouldn’t drink wine”. Such are the limitations of Wikipedia, not to say of myself.

I arrived back from my run feeling satisfied – I had studied Russian, practiced the sax, cracked in a short workout and got in a long run and it was only 10:30am. Pat on the back moment. I picked up my phone, undisturbed since last night and flicked off airplane mode.

To my surprise I saw a string of missed calls. Twenty of them. I read Nijat’s messages. They were brief. “Luke. Great news. Tomorrow at 8:00am be at the port”, “!!!!!!” These were sent at 11:57pm. I scrolled down. “Pls don’t be late” – sent at 00:18am. And the final message, sent at 10:18am this morning, as I was finishing my crunches, “Ferry has left ☹”.

My arm ached. It’s an odd thing to happen to a cyclist, but Azerbaijan was not like any country I’d cycled through so far. On my first morning in Azerbaijan, as we cycled through the town of Qazax in the west, Pippa and I found ourselves constantly waving as what felt like the entire town waved and salaamed at us. We almost didn’t make it out of Qazax, such were the number of offers for tea and chatting.

This article was first published by The Huffington Post and is reproduced here with kind permission.

In March 2020, I was cycling up a windy valley in Bavaria. Cold, alone, tired, and needing a break, I pulled over behind a stack of wood outside a farmhouse. I heard a window open, and a woman call out: “What are you doing outside? The police will stop you! Don’t you know about the virus?”

The white line marking the edge of the highway weaved in front of me. Rain lashed down, soaking through my pink and blue jacket, which, whilst water-resistant, was fast becoming overwhelmed. I was cold, drunk and deliriously happy – why? Because I was in Georgia, a country I was never supposed to be in, on a cycle ride I should never have started.

Süha looked across at me, the brightness of his eyes lighting up his face, despite his mouth being hidden behind a blue mask. Imagining his smile came easily. “I first came here in 1979 to work in the tourism office and I fell in love with the place.”

On the 20th January, an important article appeared on the BBC website. It concerned a man trying to change perceptions, unite people behind a cause, and give hope to the world.  

I’m of course talking about Joe Biden’s inauguration as president. 

But the BBC also released a film about a man cycling across the world,

Polina had the brightest smile and the cutest button nose face. I wanted to see this girl smile again and again – for what a wonderful sight it was. I’m sure you would have felt the same.

Aside from asking your name, “what do you think of our country?” is perhaps the most common question a traveller faces.

My experience in Moldova has been no different.

In her office Natalia – whilst plying me with coffee and cakes, the green kettle chugging periodically in the background – told me about the work she leads. Domestic violence – both physical and verbal – is relatively common in the region, partly a hangover from soviet times when it was assumed the man led the household.

As I locked up the tandem to a bench outside the Poetry café (powered Julius Meinl coffee roasters, proclaimed the sign) a man on an electric scooter pulled over and greeted me in rapid Russian. “Good luck on your trip” he said, “all of Moldova supports you from our hearts”.