The riding background behind the marketing work

This work is built on the credibility of someone who has been cold on a mountain pass, pushed a bike through mud at kilometre 180 of a two-hundred-mile race, and navigated by compass in the dark after the GPS died — and then described it honestly enough that other riders trusted what they read. This page is context for why the approach earns trust with cycling audiences, not a personal statement.

Unbound Gravel 200

Two hundred miles across the Flint Hills of Kansas, on remote and relentless gravel, in weather that changes without warning. I finished in 12:21:38, 170th of 1,258 finishers. A mid-field result that demonstrates the ability to pace, suffer and finish. I have finished every cycling race and event I have ever started.

Ironman Maastricht-Limburg

Full distance — 3.8km swim, 180km bike, 42.2km run — in 10 hours 45 minutes, 42nd in my age group, after six months of self-directed training with no coach. I taught myself the freestyle stroke from scratch in that period. The bike leg crossed more than 1,500 metres of climbing, and the run, my first-ever marathon, covered four loops over the Sint Pietersberg at the end of a ten-hour effort.

The Pyrenaica

A thousand kilometres across the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, self-supported and self-navigated, with no checkpoints, no timing and no official finish, combining asphalt, gravel and trail over passes above two thousand metres. Four days, averaging 250 kilometres a day, sleeping briefly, eating constantly and managing equipment failures without support.

This is the single most relevant piece of evidence for the bikepacking and gravel-adventure content that sits at the centre of the cycling tourism work. The Morocco adventure for Pilot Cycles drew directly on that preparation.

Where I have ridden as a participant, not press

Unbound Gravel in Kansas. The Rift in Iceland, across lava fields and highland terrain. Gran Guanche in Tenerife's volcanic interior. The Migration Gravel Race in Tanzania and Kenya, during the wildebeest migration. Grinduro. The Nordic Gravel Series in Scandinavia. The Grenspalenklassieker and PlugPlug closer to home.

Equipment tested in real conditions across those events includes Ridley, Shimano, Continental, Vittoria, Spatzwear, Etxeondo, Rogelli, FastForward, BBB, Lazer and Leatherman.

The credibility that cannot be manufactured

Experienced cycling audiences can detect the quality of having actually done it. It shows up in the accuracy of a route description, the honesty of an equipment assessment, and credibility with people who know what real looks like. That is the foundation under the numbers — 110 million earned views, ninety thousand Komoot clicks for Luxembourg, sixty million impressions for GRAVAA, nine million for Pilot Cycles. Not a media budget. A riding background.