166. Amy Hudson and Kyle Hudson: Around the World in 123 days

0:00It kind of pains me to admit this as a cyclist, but I rather like cars. And I think I've just been driving around in the nicest car I will ever, ever drive. And that's the Maserati Gricali, which it turns out is what happens if an Italian supercar company designed an SUV for people like me, for cyclists. Now, the Grakali is fast, like 0-60 in 4.1 seconds fast, but it is also, it's just delightful to sit in. It has the legroom of a first-class flight to Singapore. It's arguably more luxurious inside than my own house. And yet, I kind of can't believe I'm saying it because of what it is. It's a genuinely practical car.

0:36I could happily chuck a dirty bike in the back of it, then do the shopping, and then go and pick up the rest of the family. Now, I've been driving the electric Fulgori version, which has the equivalent of a 557 brake horsepower dual electric motor with a 360 mile range, which sounds incredibly impressive, I know, but let's just put that in cycling terms, which we actually understand. That is the same power output as a thousand Tadej Pogacchas, all racing with Ansan Remo at once and then racing back again. Now, as well as the electric version, there are multiple engine options too. Prices start from£59 ,990, which when you think about it is something of a bargain given Pogaccia's Tour de France winning Colnago from last year sold at auction for£143 ,000.

1:23You could have bought two brand new Maserati Gricalis for that. Now you can find out more and also find out where your local Maserati dealer is at maserati.com where else. So that's maserati.com and check out the Maserati Gricali.

1:42hello and welcome back to the cyclist magazine podcast i am actually just going to let will say that because will this is your episode you're flying solo in our upcoming interview i haven't been here for ages i've kind of forgotten how to speak let alone do podcasts i've been off for two weeks where have i been maybe i'll tell you later it's not that exciting although it was a good holiday thanks for asking so will introduce this and ask me how i'm doing and then you can be the one that prattles on for the introduction might leave out the back what if there's first time listeners say welcome back what if someone's never come that they are immediately unwelcome have you been sitting here all this time all these episodes thinking i would just i wouldn't phrase it like that i've just thought that now just thought now what should we say then just welcome yeah welcome to the cyclist welcome and welcome back welcome and welcome if you're a first time listener and welcome back if you've heard us before this is the we could say that Do you want to say that?

2:35Yeah, for all the long-time listeners, first-time callers, which people don't really call. No, and that's lifted straight from Wogan. Yeah, but, you know, honour the great man. God rest his soul. Anyway, tell me what's been going on in cycling, because I've literally checked out of all things to do with bikes for the last two weeks. Well, welcome to the Psychist Magazine podcast, James. How are you? In the cycling world this week, what have we had? Enric Mas, one of Welter, who would have thought three weeks ago that that was going to happen? Well, I did predict, actually, in the Psychist predictions, that Pogaccio wasn't going to win, but I put Oscar on there.

3:06Unfortunately, he had a tough race, but he won the white jersey, so I'll take that as a victory. But yeah, Enric Mas, the first Spanish Grand Tour winner in 12 years, I think. Very much deserved it. He looked very good. Even before Pogaccio was out, he was very clearly the second best. He never looked in danger. Did probably the best time trial of his life to hold on. Second place, Roglic. It was good for Roglic in 2026. yeah previous rug bitch probably should would have won that because he's he's in his 50s now isn't he getting close he's he's about 14 years off which is close as we all know yeah i mean he's obviously he's way better cyclist than i am but fair play because in the world of sport he is an elder statesman but that's also great for spain right because movistar that's a spanish team i've been led to believe and de movistar still just perform exceptionally well as a team but never really win anything like they always used to was that those days over those quintana kind of heady days where they just had like a really unnaturally high point score yeah but it was kind of like even then it was like they weren't performing well as a team it's just like they had a few good riders because there was the famous because they had their little documentary series and the famous quote slash meme from that is when they had their famous triad of val verde quintana and lander and then saying tactically we were perfect when obviously they weren't but this time they genuinely were very good and they were as a team very strong as well.

4:33So it was good, yeah, great for Spain, very much a confidence boost. And I think I saw earlier in the year that the team Movistar were maybe having to look for a new sponsor. There was rumours that the company Movistar was thinking about ending a sponsorship. So that's great for that purpose as well. That's great, yeah, great for keeping them on board maybe. That is mad, isn't it? Because Movistar probably are one of the longest existing sponsors of a team. Yeah, they must be now. Now that Quickstep have not... Quickstep aren't a team anymore, are they? In essence, I mean, as a sponsor. From next year, it's going to be Sudal's safety jogger, which really rolls off the tongue.

5:09What's a safety jogger? I mean, it sounds like trousers, but it's not. But I think it actually is workwear. I'm just going to do my quick Google. So it's not like... It doesn't sort of like prevent jogging. No, but you jog safely. You jog more safely. No risk of injuries. But what job do you jog in except for a jogging job? I'm sure there's lots of jobs we have for jog. No, but they always say don't run with scissors, so I can't think they want anyone running with heavy machinery. But some things you've got to do first. Loads of jobbers have to jog on their job all the time. I suppose so, if you're running behind.

5:42Oh, well, have you looked it up yet? We're stalling. Yeah, safety jog or workwear, high-vis and that. There's some great AI GIFs on their website if you want to check that out in your own time. excellent ai as we all know we've been finally notified is about to kill humanity um anyway on with the show probably we should get there at some point tell us tell us who's our guest if you haven't read the title of today's show you won't know and will is about to reveal it i always think that we get to this point and there's no one that doesn't know who it is at this point no and probably no one that hasn't heard because this is actually been really big news because it is a really fantastic achievement that has just happened oh is that a spoiler yes um today today joining us on the show.

6:24Not really. Spoiler, does it spoil it? I don't think so. If something like that spoils it for you, I think you've got other issues. Yeah. Anyway, unless it's like a big twist like Mousetrap, the theatre show, not the game. Don't tell me what that is because you're not supposed to tell anyone, are you? Exactly, exactly. That would spoil it. Is it the butler? But in this case, no, it wasn't, but I shouldn't tell you that. In this case, it won't spoil it. It would just get you even more pumped to listen to this interview with two people we don't normally do that but have we have you done it before probably both of them and wigo you have yeah so that's a good duo to follow on from um but this time yeah this time we have amy and kyle hudson who know each other a lot better than wigo and both and did at the time maybe they're great maybe they're fast friends they just ripped uh amy and kyle hudson who are married and have just broken the record for the fastest couple cycling around the Well, they did it in 123 days, which they absolutely batted the record by about 60 days, which, yeah, it's very impressive.

7:29And they seem like they're an even stronger couple after it, which wouldn't be the same. I don't think Wiggo and Beefy could get around the world together and come out better off the inside. I'll pay to see that. Give them a grand and see how far they can get. Get that on Channel 4. But yeah, you might know both of them, especially if you live in the East Bividence. They're from Darkbeam. They've probably been all over the local news. But also, you probably know them from the internet and various places. Amy has actually very briefly featured in Cyclic magazine before, but she's also known, better known on the internet as Amy Cycling Adventures on YouTube, Instagram.

7:59You can also follow Kyle on The Snacking Cyclist. Yeah, it's a great chat about, pretty much just about their record, obviously about how it compares for Amy to when she did, which was also very notable. She rode the Tour de France route, including the transfers last year following the race round, which was very impressive, but she sort of compares the experience on both of those, obviously. 123 days is a bit longer than 21 but very different kind of challenge especially doing it two people and but yeah very interesting chat i thought i hope that um you enjoy it please welcome to the show amy and kyle hudson

8:39i mean first off congratulations i mean has it sunk in yet that you've broken the record for the fastest couple around the world not really it's a week today that we finish it's just been a bit of a whirlwind since then to be honest just I keep having dreams in the night of like different places we went through and I'm like oh actually we did we did actually do that but it doesn't feel real and the alarm keeps going off and then we're sort of like I need to get up and then you realize you don't yeah yeah you probably have you been on back on the bike since you've finished yeah we went on well we went on the turbo obviously you've got a broken collarbone so on the turbo it's okay indoor bike only but yeah do you feel like you have to have to sort of readapt like sort of wind down back into a normal regime yeah it's been a so it has been a whirlwind because we've been at mum and dad my mum and dad's because we miss them so much and now we're in wales got a little family caravan so we just kind of escaped from everything so we're kind of out of our normal routine anyway but yeah it does just feel weird getting up in the morning and not having to eat a massive breakfast and be getting on the bike and not having to like eat every hour i've seen to car like i'm enjoying just not having to eat all the time yeah but i do i do miss like you miss it as well because obviously it's just such a simple life being on the bike all day every day and now it's back to the reality of the dog being sick on the floor when you get up in the morning and the noise and chaos of normal life and my family's quite chaotic so being on holiday with them is quite noisy but and know what to do with yourself as well yeah trying to keep ourselves busy yeah yeah twiddling your thumbs start reading books we don't have time to do much Yeah, we're happy.

10:10Cycling box though. Yeah, cycling box. Yeah, that's a good idea. So going back to the beginning, why this challenge? Why is this something that you wanted to do? And then what made you want to do it as a couple? Because obviously, Amy, you did your Tour de France ride before, which was solo. Yeah. Did you have to convince Kyle that, come on, you can do this with me? A little bit. Yeah. So we were riding two years ago. We rode from Venice in Italy back to Derby at home. and we did that as part of like a ride for Pinarello because we're sponsored by them and so we rode from their factory back to their store in London and back home and we really loved it and we were literally on like the second to last day in France really enjoying it just chatting all day had the music on and we were like oh we really didn't want this to end and we thought what can we do next together we knew I had Tour de France in 2025 so we knew that that year was just that we're like well 2026 what can we do we started thinking oh maybe we could just cycle across the whole of Europe or America or try and keep it small yeah and then I just said oh I wonder what I said I wonder what the world record is for cycling around the world we looked it up didn't we and then we thought oh maybe we could do that and you originally said no didn't you oh it was an outright no that's ridiculous we're not doing that so then we got home I left it a few weeks I said to Kyle I said well are we going to go around the world then he was like no I was like well you won't have to be a bricklayer for quite a while if we do that didn't take a lot of persuading yeah so then he said well if you can get the if you can get yeah exactly he said if you can get the sponsorship then i'll do it so then i just like went on my laptop put together all these documents sent them out to the brands and we managed to get the sponsorship and that was it then we were like right we're doing it yeah was it was that difficult to convince the brands that to back you to do this i mean i'm quite lucky that well not lucky but i've obviously worked hard on my socials and i already had sort of brands that support me anyway so i kind of went to them and very very grateful that they believed in us and were willing to support us.

12:04So it does kind of feel very surreal going from, you know, five years ago I was working as a mental health nurse and that's probably one of the reasons we've chose around the world because I had a really, really tough time with that and I've always sort of struggled a bit with my mental health and I had a complete breakdown in lockdown to the point where I had to leave my job. I didn't want to be here anymore. Really just an awful, awful time. I wouldn't wish on anyone. And Kyle bought me a bike in that time period. Didn't ask for one. I hadn't ridden a bike for 10 years. I did in a cycle. Yeah, I was 24 and I hadn't ridden a bike since I was 14.

12:37And he just bought his bike home one day, just a really cheap bike from Halfords. It wasn't anything expensive. And I just completely fell in love with it. It got me out the house and the rest is history, really. Then he bought a bike a year later and we kind of thought the world is kind of like this symbol of I didn't want to be in the world. And now we're riding around it to prove that we are worth being in the world and anyone that feels like they don't want to be here, like just to keep going because it does get better. and you know I still struggle sometimes but not just the bike you know my family counselling all of that but the bike has had a massive massive impact on on me positively and I'd also like to prove that mentally we're more capable of things that you don't think you really are but like to go and do something like that you I would never believe I would have been able to do something like that so then to actually prove to people that if you put your head into it and obviously you have to train but yeah you're capable of doing anything you want so just get your head in it and yeah when we first went out on rides kyle was walking up hills and swearing at me i wasn't particularly happy now i think we've all been there yeah how did that compare for you then doing your solo challenge to doing this with kyle especially mentally having someone there the whole time yeah do you know what i think it's so different like the tour de france was so different to this because it's such a bigger thing i don't think i would have been able to do it without kyle hats off to jenny graham who did it completely solo so self-supported she is amazing like when we were cycling through australia and it was getting dark at 5 p.m at night and there were massive road trains going past us i was so scared and i think if i didn't have kyle there with me it would have been a lot a lot harder so yeah i think i've kind of preferred it with kyle there on those long days where you're in the saddle for 12 13 hours you've got someone to talk to when you're feeling down you could pick me up when you were down i could pick you up sometimes you can bounce off each other a little bit maybe annoy each other sometimes which wasn't always the best but you know that's bound to happen but I think I just felt that level of safety I feel like as a woman like we were talking about this weren't we as Kyle was saying if he did it on his own I wouldn't feel particularly scared I mean there was a lot of situations where you would but as a woman I think it would be a lot more intimidating yeah as a woman on my own going through some places I wouldn't have felt safe having Kyle there I think even with another woman I would have felt a little bit uneasy but with you there I felt you're like my little security man yeah you get the muscles out yeah well lack of until he broke his collarbone yeah yeah after that you were probably trying to protect him going back to me how did you then how do you go about planning something like that so it took at least a year to plan didn't it it was a long time it was me that did the planning but we'll let him off he was on building site um i kind of just it was i don't know really how i started i think i just started looking at the world map thinking where do we want to go obviously you have to look at the guinness world record rules so the rules are you have to do 18 000 miles in one direction there's no rules on what countries you go through you can go sort of up and down but you can't go back on yourself and you have to cross the world at two exact opposite points so ours was wellington in new zealand and ali ahos in spain so as long as you hit that you're okay and so yeah just kind of looked at the map and started plotting a route wanting to go from home and we sort of sussed it out together yeah so where we wanted to go as well yeah and the biggest part of planning was that logistics of flights and getting bike boxes to airports luckily we had lots of lovely people that offered to bring us cardboard boxes to the airports and yeah but you kind of go into it with a plan but you know that plan can completely change which it did which it did on the route so yeah yeah that's what's going to ask that how much did you go away from your plan and like were you panicking when sort of that didn't happen or were you sort of confident that you knew you could keep it together i don't think we panicked did we?

16:13No I mean we knew pretty quickly going into Europe that we was already ahead of schedule so then you couldn't follow the plan we'd set out then you didn't know where the accommodation was going to be which wasn't so much an issue in Europe or Southeast Asia but when you got to Australia that was a much bigger problem with it being a big area and not a lot of accommodation but we didn't really panic we just sort of like made sure that some days you just have to do ultra long days then or a shorter day and then you just have to shuffle it about and I thought that was quite a nice thing about what we were doing because the long format you can just chop and change it a little bit and it made it quite easy to go with the flow a bit more yeah when you broke your collarbone two weeks from the end obviously our last bit in europe was originally quite hilly like we like hills we like to challenge ourselves so we had to completely change the route just to make it that be able to finish basically because you're in so much pain and also be bearable yeah yeah did you have any moments where you didn't think you were going to finish obviously the collarbone probably sticks out but yeah yeah I don't think there's any we never ever had a doubt about finishing we always go into these challenges that we've done ever since I started cycling I do a different challenge every year and I always have the motto of like you have no choice this is what you're doing and you don't let your mindset falter from that I think one of the biggest things in these challenges is your mindset like you can get your body as ready as it can be but if you don't have the right mindset you're not going to do it I did definitely have moments of crying and saying I want to go home and I miss my family but sometimes you know I have to just let that out and then I'm okay.

17:38But definitely the moment where I thought this could be over is when you hit the floor. What happened was the car cut us up and we were so close to getting hit by the car. I had to slam on my brakes and Kyle was directly behind me. Obviously I shouted, but Kyle didn't have time to react. It was within seconds, going quite fast as well. You went straight down on your shoulder. Tried to avoid you, hit the bag and then my shoulder was the first thing to hit the floor because I couldn't take my hands off the bars because it would just happen so quick. And I remember standing up and thinking, actually feeling my collarbone and thinking oh no this isn't good i just remember turning around seeing you on the floor helping you up and you just looked at me with like such fear in your eyes and you were like it's gone you're like my collarbone's gone i heard it crack and honestly at that point i thought right we're going to hospital we're done like we can't carry on but you were like no we're not going to hospital i'm riding i was thinking okay i think the beauty of it is we're both very headstrong so i don't think in any part of the challenge we were both sort of like no we're not going to finish this but I have to admit like even as much as I was telling Amy no we're going to keep going the 30 mile ride after doing it and then the 178 mile day after that when I was in a lot a lot of pain there was always that little bit of a mind of a bit like how can I do two and a half thousand miles with this pain but then I was just always in the hope that each day it'll get a little bit less painful yeah so I'd say that was the only point really where was sort of like a bit touch and go but I think it was just a case of managing it.

19:03Yeah. Are you in that position then when that happens and you're thinking about that that you're sort of driven by the fact that you're doing it together do you think it would have been a different outcome if you had done that when you if you were doing it on your own? Possibly but I think we're both very stubborn but I think there's always an element as a pair that you sort of like I don't want to let her down as well as myself you've ridden this far if I have to stop now then you're letting both of you down rather than just you. But I think, yeah, we're both incredibly stubborn and I think even if I was on my own I think I would have tried my best.

19:38He would have carried on, I know he would. I'm not the sort of person to give in. He doesn't give up. Luckily. But yeah, I think there's always that element of being in a pair and not wanting to let each other down. So yeah, it probably definitely helped. I would definitely say if you are doing something like that do go to the hospital. What we did was not sensible. I don't think I would have been able to cope without Amy there because there was a lot of things I couldn't actually do myself. I couldn't take my jersey off. I couldn't take my shorts off. Couldn't take his socks off, which was great for me every night after 178 miles.

20:05Taking them off each night was lovely. A lot of kudos to Amy for that. Yeah, it just made things harder for the last two weeks. I was having to do everything off the bike, so it just took double the time to get ready in the morning and the evening. And you were more tired. I'd be taking all the bags off, repacking, unpacking them. I was doing the cooking every night anyway, let's be honest. Yeah, yeah. For good reason. Yeah. it just tainted the last bit of the trip didn't it and yeah you were then having to eat a bit more because your body was trying to your body was burning more like trying to recover and it was just yeah i'm so independent as well and i think i was super frustrated because i always had this image in my head and we spoke about it all the way through the trip i always had this image of getting to portugal and being in the places that we know well riding for you by spain and france which we we love being there and almost not feeling like a holiday but almost feeling like like a sense of safe enjoyment, just trying to enjoy what we were used to.

20:55And then I felt like that was taken away from me a little bit, so I wasn't able to ride in proud of myself and enjoy that bit. So I was a bit frustrated for the last... You were just in pain, weren't you? Yeah, so I was trying to enjoy it as much as I could, but it was just like there wasn't that sense of enjoyment as much as I'd hoped. Yeah, I was just riding along feeling really stressed, thinking if he comes off again or if I miss a pothole and he goes over it. It was just hard at the end, but we got through it. Yeah. so part of the reason why it's a challenge you gotta get over the challenges yeah exactly yeah so you obviously knew each other very well beforehand being married and all that does uh does help there was there anything that you actually still learn about each other doing this together i we've seen this i think it's definitely brought us closer together a lot of people said oh you know you are you going to still be married when you come back we definitely had arguments obviously over silly things but i think i've definitely learned like how determined you I knew you were determined but when I saw you riding that with that broken collarbone but not only that just like day after day you you were positive and like he's not a morning person at all we were getting up at 4am every day and he didn't moan about it unless he hadn't had a coffee I've also learned he does not function without coffee so as long as he has a coffee he's good but yeah definitely how determined you are and how headstrong you are definitely you showed me that even more yeah and i think yeah i think i taught myself that i didn't realize how headstrong i was actually now while i was able to be positive but likewise for you as well like you struggle in situations that are very amy struggles like situations are very new or like there's a lot of change yeah and which has always been the way and i was very surprised going away from that schedule that is set out the start how well she adapted to having to change that on a daily basis that made me quite proud because I know how difficult that is for her because whereas I'm a bit more easygoing and I'll sort of just do whatever we'll sleep out here if we have to or Amy's a lot more regimented yeah and you did really well in like dealing with so much change and even when I did my collarbone stuff and like being able to do everything that she did yeah it made me very proud and obviously that was something I learned about her that she can adapt quite well even though I don't like it she doesn't like it but literally three days before we left for the around the world i got diagnosed with autism and adhd i've been on a waiting list for a very long time i've always felt quite different all through school but yeah i kind of think it is i'm still processing it myself to be honest but i think i think it's the reason i can ride far is partly because of that because i can just focus so much on being on my bike but then i'm not i don't find it as easy when things go wrong because in my like set focus thinking i like things to go to plan so it has been really good for me as well to prove that i can do it even it was a little bit harder and like noises and stuff I found it really difficult and you were really good at supporting me through like the really busy noisy places because I find a lot of noise is really difficult for me but yeah we got through that didn't we and I kind of proved myself that yes it's hard but I can still I always I said to me along the way as well like I have to find that about the autism you can look at that as like a negative in some ways of like I struggle with this struggle with that I'm saying there's a lot of things about it it was like a superpower so in some ways she actually dealt with things better than me because she can be super dialed in and very focused on what's ahead as well as some people aren't quite as good at that so there's a lot of traits that are so much better than what I'd be able to do but there's also things where she'd be I'd be better at and I think it was just bouncing off each other yeah and using that as a positive do you think also because you did the tour de France thing before it was felt less of an alien thing when you had these other situations because you'd already been in a similar that sort of thing on your own there was less of that panic it was more still a familiar zone yeah definitely I think being on the bike is definitely where I feel the most comfortable I feel I always say I feel like the most me on the bike because you're just in this like you're in nature you only got to focus on riding and yes it's hard but as long as you put your mind to it you can get through it and I think there's just something about being on the bike like there's that rhythm of the pedals turning around it just like for my mind it just keeps me at that steady rhythm it keeps my mind I think I have a very busy mind I could always have thoughts at 100 miles an hour I always have to be busy like I can't I'm not a sit still person I have to be doing something and the bike gives me that I can be doing something I can be looking around I don't get bored on the bike because I think a lot of people said like don't you get bored like riding all day but for me no I don't yeah I think having the Tour de France like under my belt gave me a little bit of confidence I think if I hadn't done that I definitely would have gone into this thinking how am I going to ride 150 miles a day for that long.

25:30The thing that was harder than Tour de France, obviously all the weight on our bikes, like the bikes weigh 35 kilograms, so go up the hills, definitely felt that. That was hard. And obviously Tour de France was 28 days. This was 123 days. So yeah, it's a big, big difference. And also sourcing, like, obviously the Tour de France I was there to support and sourcing food. Yeah. Like all these little things that you don't have to do when you're down the Tour de France. It's just so different. and even little things like wind. Yeah. Because the bags are so wide and obviously the drag is phenomenal.

26:03The world is so windy, literally. And we had 80 % of the days we had a headwind. I think we went round the wrong way. When you talk about being in nature and cities and obviously the wind, where was your favourite places to ride through? Because obviously you go through Muscat, you go through so many different, varied landscapes and things. What was the standouts for you? So for me, I've got two favourites. So Alaska was just absolutely incredible. Everyone was like, oh, you're going to be freezing. But it was their summer, so it was about 15 degrees Celsius. So it was actually perfect riding temperature.

26:38No rain. And it's just the roads are so quiet. There's the mountains with snow on. It was just amazing. We had really good weather there. It was like blue sky. And yeah, it was just so quiet. It was just amazing, wasn't it? Yeah, the mountains, how big it was, how open it was. You felt so small, didn't you? Yeah, it was very hilly, but it was lovely. and then also I really enjoyed the Nullarbor in Australia so it's basically a desert that goes across Australia but obviously we were there in their winter so it was about 13 degrees it was really cold in the mornings actually like freezing one morning we were shouting we're being silly like shouting for the sun to come up because it was so cold but it was just again nothing there like we saw nothing just one straight road and you'd have a shop or a roadhouse at every 125 miles so every 200k and nothing for 200k so you get up in the morning stock your bags up and you just ride there's no traffic lights no cities no houses nothing and it's just for me that's my favorite kind of riding i know a lot of people like a bit more busy life but i just i'd love like it was simplicity of it wasn't it was just you're riding your bike and you just felt you just felt so safe because a lot of the time in cycling if you're going through a busy city yeah it's amazing to see but you have to concentrate so much there's so many things that can go wrong so many other people in the way and yeah it was just so nice just to completely switch off especially i think because it came straight after like doing the Southeast Asia leg which was complete contrast yeah to any of that so I think that's why it made it so nice because it was so busy but I did really although Asia was absolutely boiling it was 45 degrees some days with 95 % humidity that was so hard but I did like seeing the monkeys that was cool we saw monkeys monkeys on the side of the road like that was just rant so something you never expect to see I'd say like New Zealand was a really special place as well yeah but the downside to that was the drivers are not good at all yeah and i don't think it's intentional i think it's more the fact of an awareness but the drivers are just not very good cyclists and they're probably not used to it and the views were spectacular in such a small place out there it was incredible wasn't it but yeah i'd love to go back to new zealand again like do some walking and things i wouldn't cycle there again the lakes and the mountains it is so beautiful yeah but yeah maybe not cycle because i did feel constantly like i was going to get run over but yeah so what was your least favorite place then was that during that because of the stress or was it somewhere else no it was so bulgaria and serbia like they are beautiful countries and like if there was no stray dogs there i'd 100 go back but the amount of stray dogs just made it so horrible like i could never comprehend how bad that was no like so many people said to us be prepared there will be stray dogs and someone said oh i got chased maybe two or three times while i was there i think in one day we got chased like nine times yeah it was just like it was just relentless like everywhere he was going through you get chased so you can never switch off which ruined the aspect of it a little bit yeah you're constantly riding thinking is a dog gonna come out and they weren't little dogs they were like big like farm sheep dogs just it was scary some of them were strange some of them were farm dogs weren't they mostly stray the ones that chased you though weren't they so you had to like spray your water bottle at them and shout as hard as you could but some of them it scared them but some of them didn't back off and it was just really scary i felt like i was going to get bitten but yeah we got through it but it just wasn't too fun yeah it took the enjoyment away from the rolling a little bit yeah i guess that's when you get to that quiet bit of australia that sort of that helps you're not getting chased definitely needed it i felt like my like nervous system just needed a there's a lot of kangaroos but they just stayed out the way so yeah the kangaroos were cute as well that's looking when you're in like that long straight road how much are you talking to each other especially because you'd probably been riding for quite a while by that bit how much were you riding in silence loads weirdly it is weird we were like talking we'd have like so we'd be on our days would start at 5am and we'd finish about 7pm so we'd have long days but that would include some breaks we'd always stop for a bit of lunch and things like that but i'd say we'd spend like three hours of the day in total silence just like yeah throughout the day in patches like because you everyone needs some silence sometimes but the rest of the day we would be talking and i don't even know what we were talking about and we'd spent 123 days together and majority of it we were still talking which was always a good sign we were talking about shmoo the way or remember yeah we just talked so many random things but just really random things but like a lot of the time we were talking about like plans for the future and things we missed from home and yeah and a lot of the time you'd be thinking about the next day and worrying about that but it's definitely taught us to try and be more in the also like while we were riding like reflecting on where we'd been or like looking at stuff and not just discussing like things around us yeah and i think that's quite natural to do while you're doing the ride so and we also we had a speaker didn't we so yeah music was on quite a lot music podcasts we had that sort of thing on which was nice what sort of thing were you listening to well we had a playlist that we asked all the followers to add songs to which meant some interesting songs cropped up and um we're listening to francis kade's podcast as well weren't we yeah wild ones podcast we listen to randomly fern cotton's podcast everything really anything just any podcast just yeah whatever we take our minds off off the pain we were in at some points it's the podcast kind of feels like there's someone else there chatting to you as you're going along yeah yeah and you have to listen so it does actually take away your concentration a little bit so you sort of forget what you're doing yeah and music just makes such a difference to mood like I could be really struggling and being like oh this day's dragging and then we put some upbeat or positive music on and you'd be singing along and it would just like my mood just yeah you just change your mood and you keep going so yeah music is really good yeah it kind of pains me to admit this as a cyclist but i rather like cars and i think i've just been driving around in the nicest car i will ever ever drive and that's the maserati gregali which it turns out is what happens if an italian supercar company designed an suv for people like me for cyclists now the gregali is fast like 0 to 60 in 4.1 seconds fast but it is also So it's just delightful to sit in.

32:37It has the legroom of a first-class flight to Singapore. It's arguably more luxurious inside than my own house. And yet, I kind of can't believe I'm saying it because of what it is. It's a genuinely practical car. I could happily chuck a dirty bike in the back of it, then do the shopping, and then go and pick up the rest of the family. Now, I've been driving the electric Forgory version, which has the equivalent of a 557-brake-horsepower dual-electric motor with a 360-mile range, which sounds incredibly impressive, I know, but let's just put that in cycling terms, which we actually understand.

33:08That is the same power output as 1 ,000 Tadei Pogacchas all racing Milan San Remo at once and then racing back again. Now, as well as the electric version, there are multiple engine options too, and prices start from£59 ,990, which, when you think about it, is something of a bargain, given Pogaccha's Tour de France-winning Colnago from last year sold at auction for£143 ,000. You could have bought two brand new Maserati Gricalis for that. Now you can find out more and also find out where your local Maserati dealer is at maserati.com where else. So that's maserati.com and check out the Maserati Gricali.

33:54you mentioned talking about things you missed what did you miss the most from home when you were riding my family and my dog definitely that i just i didn't really my mum and dad said to me before i went they were like oh do you think you're gonna miss us and i was like no i'll be too zoned in on the ride i'll be too focused i won't miss you but i know that sounds horrible but i was like you know i know i'm gonna see you when i get home but actually i did miss them a lot and i didn't think i would because i'm quite good at just going away and switching off and knowing that I'll see them when I'm home but yeah I really miss my family just sometimes just want a hug like you know because you're in an unfamiliar situation and sometimes there's some scary moments with like bison in Canada where we thought we were going to get stampeded and or in America where it was really loud and busy and you just think I just want a hug from my mom and you can't have it that was like I think there's a lot of simple things as well like you'd see people like walking the dog you're like I miss that just a simple thing wake up in the morning and walk my dog we're not doing that so it was like loads of little things that you didn't think you'd miss but you do because you're like you're doing this ride you can't just go into a cafe and have a coffee like we're too busy yeah we've got to keep going so there's so many like little things that you just miss constantly and then but then you still enjoyed the ride but yeah it was just so different it's like but now that we're home i was walking the dog yesterday morning i was like oh this is what i've been thinking of like being jealous of those people just living the normal life and now i'm like but i want to go back if someone rode past me now and saw me doing this they're probably thinking the same thing yeah yeah it's a strange feeling yeah you do have to really appreciate the moment you're in are you appreciating that that kind of thing more now you're back are you already itching to go again i definitely appreciate it more like just having your own bed and your own pillow and not having to get up and rush i feel like when i go in a supermarket i can take my time whereas i'm around the world we get back from the day i'll be like rushing around the supermarket getting everything i can as quick as i can because I know that the longer I take the less sleep I'm going to get whereas now it's like I can enjoy that and I definitely do miss the bike and I definitely want to get back on the bike but yeah I definitely appreciate little things like spending time with family and friends is just like the most important thing and like nothing money can buy like you can't buy that you need to enjoy it and yeah I really appreciate who you've got in life.

35:59Now you've seen most of the world how does it feel riding around Derbyshire do you can you appreciate it as much or do you appreciate that actually, Darmish is a pretty good place to run a bike. We appreciate it more, don't we? Yeah, 100%. We said, didn't we, I said, maybe I'm a little bit biased. But, like, where we live, I think because that's our place, I don't think there's many places around the world that's better than that. And that's not to say that nowhere else is actually better, but I think you just become biased and you actually do miss the roads that you know. And the surfaces are dreadful, don't get me wrong, in Darmish.

36:32But they're your roads. and I kept saying like there's the saying of there's no place like home generally isn't and I think that's where you're comfortable and that's what you know so it's not to say that anywhere else is not as nice but you do really appreciate what you've got I think you feel comfortable you know it and you know you know the turnings you know the corners you know you know the roads and the people and you know the the culture and you just feel feel comfortable at home so I think yeah I definitely appreciate it not the 20 % inclines but you know yeah I guess you also have that thing when you're riding at home, you've probably had it before, but riding at home now, you've probably got everyone stopping to sort of ask you about your trip.

37:10Yeah. Yeah, it's been a bit weird, really, hasn't it? Even coming to Wales yesterday, someone stopped us. I got recognised in a cafe yesterday in Whitehall. I was like, OK. Which is very random, but yeah. It's a bit bizarre. Yeah. So, talking about fueling, obviously you're a science and sport ambassador, and you've got the badge on, get the badge in, it's a good one. He's getting the briny points here. how do you go about planning your nutrition for around the world challenge like that because obviously you can't take 123 days worth of gels and you're burning no so i think one of the big things is actually just like well since beginning cycling i learned you have to get your body used to the amount of food you're going to need so we were burning like 6 000 to 7 500 calories a day yeah it's a lot and when i first started cycling i definitely got it wrong of not having enough so one of the big things in planning is just making sure your body is used to the foods that you're going to eat and for around the world that's hard because you don't really know what foods you're going to be able to eat you're going to have to eat different things but definitely making sure our bodies were used to the volume of food that we were going to need so like we did some recce rides we rode long days and did like a week tour and we were just making sure we were eating lots and just making sure our bodies could tolerate that because when i started i did that and it did not tolerate it and i ended up sick and not very well but the more we've done it is our bodies are now used to it yeah but i think planning wise we just sort of we could stick to the same breakfast and dinner every day because that's quite easy to get from a supermarket so it was always really high carbs basically porridge every morning we got sick of porridge after about 50 days and then we changed it to wheat a bix and banana and then the evening was always like rice or pasta with veg and meat because we always tried to stay somewhere where we could just cook our own stuff so that was quite easy but on the bike it was sort of just carbs basically anything we could get that was high carb i had a stash of sis bars like oat bars in my bag and it lasted for like the first few weeks and then we got a drop in new zealand new zealand so we got some more but i yeah basically lived off bananas oat bars milkshakes were really good yeah they're really easy way to get calories in smoothies but we'd always try and have at lunchtime like something big like a baguette or a sandwich just to keep us going but a lot of people say to me how do you eat that and then get straight back on the bike because it's like so much food i'm like well my body's just used to it I didn't always be able to do it you haven't really got a choice because you need that fuel so even if you felt uncomfortable sometimes you'd just have to ride yeah and you had gels didn't you as well yeah so I started he found some in his bag when he got home I did yeah so I didn't have to quite finish them all but I did take quite a lot on my bike yeah I weighed more than you for some reason yeah but I did take a lot of gels and I used them quite a bit to start but then saved some nights sparingly because I thought if there's nowhere like nowhere to get food then that'd be a really good thing to have in your bag I could tell it had one as well Wow.

39:53Yeah, and they were always really good, but I obviously wouldn't have them massively all the time because that would upset your stomach. But yeah, I took carb mix as well, didn't I? So I was using that quite a bit. I think as well, the thing for me was just like, in my mind, I've struggled with my eating a lot in the past. I had an eating disorder. So for me, when I started cycling, I was actually underweight and I wasn't having a period and I wasn't eating enough. Since I started cycling, I realised you have to eat if you're going to do well. so actually cycling has helped me get my period back I'm a healthy weight now, I can pretty much eat what I want but it took a lot of work, a lot of tears a lot of tears, a lot of hard work but the thing is you have to realise that there's a lot of emphasis on weight in cycling and loads of people have asked us, have you lost weight?

40:38For some reason it's just this massive thing but it doesn't matter what you weigh it doesn't matter what you look like the main thing is that you're healthy and healthy is different for everyone because we're all naturally different shapes and sizes and I think there's so much emphasis on weight. And yes, in elite, elite cycling, the people doing the Tour de France, yes, I can understand that. But there, they've got nutritionists, dietitians, they're very monitored. And it's also very particular to each individual. But we're like the everyday people. I know we've just cycled rather well, but we're still everyday people, like a lot of other cyclists.

41:06And I think we have to just bring it back to reality of we're all different and we just need to make sure you're eating enough. You will see the negative impact of not eating enough, dizziness. There's no way I could get around the world if I wasn't fuelling myself. and I think I've definitely learnt to be more free with food on this trip. I hadn't had a bacon carb for like four years before going on this trip because I was too scared to eat them because it's such a scary thing but I had one, didn't I? Yeah, what a sight that was. You see, they eat a bacon carb, it's brilliant. And I did have quite a few and actually it's not something to be scared of.

41:36We can eat food that's unhealthy. All food serves a purpose and sometimes we need to eat something just because we're tired and an almond croissant is going to cheer us up or a chocolate bar is going to cheer us up. whereas sometimes you need to eat something because it's what you need like i didn't necessarily want to eat a massive bowl of rice because it's a bit bland and boring but it's going to give me what i need and it's about having that balance you know you're never going to be able to eat perfectly all the time especially with what we're doing because it's just not it's not realistic you're not going to find all that good stuff all the time are you so it was just a case of like sometimes you're going to eat bad food so what you just need the fuel yeah and it was just a bit of that and um also we had sas multivitamins as well which is really important because obviously like we try and get as much fruit and veg as we can but you're not going to get as much as you would get at home on the bike going in little supermarkets petrol stations so having the multivitamin just made sure we had the right vitamins and illnesses prevented illness as well so yeah what was the hardest place to to fuel malaysia thailand yeah because we were so worried we know some people that cycled around the world before and they got really ill in thailand because i think of something they ate yeah and obviously the the food there looked amazing and it was so hard to go past all the little street like food things and if we're on holiday we definitely would have eaten it but obviously what we're doing we just couldn't risk it and the water and things so we were literally having pot noodle every day you're being super cool literally pot noodle every night for dinner it was not and also it didn't feel like eating properly which was a bit of a i found that particularly the most difficult bit of the whole trip with the eating because it was so humid all you wanted to do was drink you was getting calories from the drinks and then when you went somewhere to get food you have a little something but you just didn't feel like eating on the bike which was tricky you lost a lot of weight I lost like around four or five kilos just in the South within that nine days which wasn't good at all but then obviously he made up for it in Australia don't worry the roadhouse has helped me there the burgers there were good yeah so that was really tricky but yeah finding the food that you wanted to eat there was quite tricky as well yeah for me I'm really like into my healthy eating like even as recovered from eating disorder I still have treats and I still like enjoy chocolate and things but I do like to eat really healthy I'm quite cautious of what I eat.

43:45So it was quite a challenge in some places trying to find healthier food. But we managed it as much as we could. And again, we just had to be really flexible with what we could eat. But the main thing was just eat the volume, making sure the volume was enough. And at the end of the day, trying to get protein in where we could. Like normally at home, I'd have a protein shake, but obviously you can't carry enough protein shake for that much. So trying to get like yogurt and chicken. I had a milkshake every day. Yeah, every day a chocolate milkshake at the end of the ride. Like a really big one. life yeah and were you fine for like cramping and stuff you make sure you're getting enough salts in them yeah we didn't have any cramp but electrolytes i did take enough electrolytes to last the whole trip like we took so many of the little sachets sas do so easy to carry so literally like thailand i was basically living off electrolytes but i'm still very very swollen if you can see my hands are like really swollen from the trip you can see like my knuckle you can't see them properly it's actually gone down but um you struggled with their swelling didn't Yeah, I think it is due to the hydration.

44:43I've never been very good at hydrating. I have been known to go on a 100-mile ride and drink half a bottle. For me, it was like I had to have reminders to drink. So yeah, but electrolytes were really important. And we just put salt on our dinner as well at night. Yeah, I got through so many electrolytes. I just kept them in the frame bag every time you filled your bottle up. Plenty of them. Yeah, it's weird to drink. Normal water just tastes weird now because I'm so used to having electrolytes here. It doesn't taste quite as nice. No. So how have you found it since you got back? adapting to not eating for so many calories nice yeah do you know what it's been nice because we're both saying like i was fed up of eating so much like my mouth just felt horrible like there was a one stage where i got a few like ulcers in my mouth i think because i'm not used to it for that long i got it on tour de france as well and then i think my mouth just got used to it but definitely we've only been finished a week and i'd say my appetite is still elevated at the minute yeah my appetite is really high but it's nice not to be like right been an hour i need to eat something and you weren't just eating a little bit every hour you were eating quite a lot so it's nice just to get back into a normal 3-4 meal a day it's nice to have home cooked healthy meals and like nice fruit and veg for me like yogurts and just the normal stuff but it is hard to be, because we're so hungry all the time so it's hard to like not overeat because you're just used to eating so much but at the same time we've still got to recover half of the muscles and stuff so we do need to make sure we don't eat too little yeah having a lot of protein at the minute to try and help recovery yeah how did you deal with recovery when you're riding was it mainly through like banging the milkshakes or did you have sort of methods to sort of weigh your muscles up every day yeah so we had like a routine didn't we like as soon as we finished the ride we don't normally go to a shop on the way to where we're staying like try and get food so we don't have to go back out but it'll be like shower stretch and shake we always say shower stretch shake but actually it'd be shake stretch shower yeah so we'd have a milkshake first and like a little stretch which to be honest was as the days went on the stretch kind of went from a 10 minute stretch down to a one minute to a 30 seconds just a very quick um and then shower and then basically sleep was the most important thing so we'd try and get to sleep as quick as we could we only really managed to get about six hours sleep a night which is okay but it's not ideal it's manageable i'd say but anything less would be on the limit for us especially yeah i've been a bit overtired yeah Yeah, and in the morning it was just get up, eat a massive breakfast, get straight on the bike, basically.

47:07For me, two goffers. Yeah, get out as quick as we could, really. There wasn't really a warm-up, but we'd always do the first 10 miles a lot slower than the rest of the day to wake ourselves up a bit. And I'd try at the end of the day to put myself in a really easy, in the little ring and spin my legs really easy to the last five miles just to try and slow down a little bit and get some lactate out of the legs, but it didn't always work. But one of the rules that's specified by Guinness and World Ultra is you have to have either heart rate or power meter data. Yeah. So we add heart rate data on.

47:39And we always said from the start, we'll try and keep that zone one, zone two, anything above that. We're starting to use more muscle energy. So we sort of tried to keep it steady most of the time, didn't we? And obviously on some climbs, it's not possible. But yeah, keep it steady. And that really helped. You felt it like after days that your legs still felt pretty good. Yeah, I feel like we went through a phase of really struggling and then you kind of feel stronger because your body gets used to it. But I was saying, I've not actually, because we've been riding steady the whole time, apart from up the big climbs, I feel like I've not pushed my heart rate high so it's going to feel really weird trying to sprint because I feel like there's no sprint in me at all.

48:14We're very base level now. Yeah. What was the hardest climb that you did? What was that one in Australia we did, the famous one? Willunga. Yeah, I wouldn't say that was pretty tough because obviously with the weight and stuff, but it wasn't particularly steep and it wasn't massively long. But I'm just trying to think about a really steep climb that we did towards the end of the trip. Yeah, we tried to make it not as... We didn't do any big mountains. We tried to make a flat, efficient route because we wanted to be fast. There was definitely a climb in Spain that was quite long. I can't remember the name of it but one that stands out for me is in Alaska.

48:49It was steep. You're going down. You always know when you go down to a river you're going to be coming back up. Every time I was like, why can't they build a bridge across? so like every time we saw a river we were like yeah we're going down to that river and back up and you see a massive red bit on your arm you're like oh here we go there was this one in alaska i think it was like three or four miles long it just kept going on and on and on and that was quite hard yeah but there was a super steep one towards the end of the trip as well one of them maybe in france or spain yeah and it was probably only a small climb but it sticks in my mind because i was just in the easiest game just like you just felt like you weren't going anywhere again with the weight of the bike and yeah i couldn't really get out the saddle yeah that was pretty grim oh actually i remember one we came into bulgaria oh yeah and there was only one there's like a motor there's a motorway or the road we were on so you had to go on the road we were on and it was really steep climb it was about 15 yeah but it was gravel and like it was just really hard because you literally like at the point where you're like i need to keep pedaling or i'm going to fall off sideways it's like do i stop and walk or do i keep pedaling it's like we both and the surface which is so sketchy.

49:50So like your wheels slipping and even staying seated and trying to keep it. Yeah, the weight of your bike made it even more difficult. That was an area where we did have an argument because he said to me, this is rubbish route planning, Amy. What have you planned this in? And then we got to the end of the day and I said, look, Kyle, it was either that or the motorway. He said, oh yes, be fair. And you wasn't allowed on the motorway so it was your only option. So if I had to take even my words on that one. You had to apologise for that one. Yeah, it was pretty grim. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's probably that riding now is being able to just ride on a bike without any extra weight on it would probably feel so fast going up the ground yeah I can't wait to be honest yeah obviously you've got to wait until your collarbone's better but yeah I might be ready for hill climb season who knows yeah so get him on the hill class yeah I mean I feel like who did we speak to on the podcast I think it might have been someone like Elayah Wilcox who said after she did one of her things like the fitness is just so good you kind of almost want to make the most of having that in the bank yeah yeah it's not going to last forever that's for sure so you've got to make the most of it when you uh obviously were planning on getting your bike sort of if you're sponsored by pinarello did you make sure you always had enough gears so you're always going to be able to spin or was it kind of regular setup no so you bet yeah i'll better off answer this question because i'm not sure you actually know what gears we had i leave the mechanic i'm just like yeah it was so i can't remember the size of the two chain rings at the front but i remember having an 1136 cassette on the back um obviously 12 speed grx what was it might be 52 i think are you talking about the front yeah yeah so but yeah it was definitely 1136 on the back and we did a recce ride around wales and stuff didn't we before we set off and we made sure we actually did a 20 climb on the recce ride didn't we to make sure that we had the gearing and that was the only point with the gears that we had that we had to spin up the climb and i think the beauty of having the grx is it did work better because the get smaller yeah yeah so um we did find we didn't actually need easy gears it was pretty good all the way there was obviously real steep stuff that you're on the limit but we did make sure that yeah i think because we're living near the peak district we used those climbs so we kind of since we started cycling i always say i think that's what made us fitter it's just going out in the climbs when we couldn't we were so slow like we used to like really struggle up the climbs but we had no choice but to get fit and get good at climbing because it's what we were riding so i think that definitely helped us in our climbing ability it was like interval training in the peaks you go down and then you go up a really steep climb and you're down again and there was no respite really so we're kind of used to it not used to the weight but you kind of by the end of the ride by middle of the ride you don't really notice the weight on your bike because it's just what you're used to so yeah it just kind of just makes the climb a bit harder but that's just yeah you just accept you're going to be slow you were on gravel bikes obviously apart from that climb how much gravel did you do or you just stick to the road and just use the bigger tires for comfort we were mainly on road but we did quite a little bit of gravel like we had one day in turkey where it was just a lot of gravel we had kansas kansas a day where majority of the day was gravel there's a lot of gravel out in america but yeah i mean we weren't always happy when we're on the gravel because it's mainly unplanned, but some of the roads just were gravel, but called a road.

53:06You couldn't avoid, especially in America, we found that we were trying to reroute and go around the gravel, but some of it is just, that's all you could do. Some of it went on for, I don't know, we had some like 30 miles one day and stuff. So you did have long stretches of gravel, but none of it was particularly bad, was it? No. Yeah, the Bulgarian road. I definitely got more confident on the gravel anyway from this trip, because before I was always nervous of gravel, whereas now we were riding across a field one day because I had to go around a road diversion. I had to go on this footpath on a grassy field just riding through there with a bike bag on.

53:36Yeah, that was interesting. Whereas before, I definitely would have walked across that. Yeah, you definitely conquered some fears on the rough stuff, didn't you? Yeah. So how many days did you have without coffee and how many days did you have off the bikes? I feel like, did you ride all 123 days? Yeah, so we had six days off within the 123, but five of those were for flights and then one of them was in Kansas for bike services. because the leg from Alaska to Halifax, where we were flying, was 7 ,000 miles. So we just couldn't go that far without servicing the bikes. So yeah, we had to have a day off there.

54:13But we went and saw Shammy Butter and Garmin. So it was kind of, it was cool to do that. But it wasn't really restful. It wasn't really restful. Yeah, it wasn't particularly restful. But yeah, and then coffees. I think we did manage to get you one every day. I don't think we went a day without one. He wouldn't have functioned if he didn't have a coffee. there was one day I remember we went 60 miles into the day we were averaging 150 a day we went 60 miles in he hadn't had a coffee yet honestly it was the worst part of the trip he wouldn't talk he was just like riding with his head down in front like I need a coffee I need a coffee I was like okay Kyle we're going to try and go the question you asked before is were you close to quitting at any point I think that might have been the closest yeah where was the best coffee?

54:53Australia Australia is so good and it did make me realise in the UK we've got it pretty good here as well but America Canada no offence to them no good it's all very and I think they've got a bit of reputation for it as well but Australia was just insane like all the cafes were so good weren't they they're about the coffee bean things outside the cafes to tell you what coffee was I mean I don't drink coffee yeah but the child I take I'm a weirdo so I don't have caffeine I just run off pure I don't know sugar really but I like chai latte and they had really good ones there yeah and it was just like it was all like small coffee roasters and stuff and it was just like yeah this is good you loved it didn't you yeah I was very happy there I definitely saw the effect of caffeine on you Australia was probably the happiest you saw me yeah you'd have a coffee and be talking loads of like yeah it's definitely good I was like I love this country this is great although I did have my first ever can of Coca-Cola on the trip in Australia actually I've never had it before I've never had caffeine before and I was really struggling this day and like honestly I was just thinking I'm so tired I think I was a bit jet lagged as well and we're going up these climbs and we still had about 60 miles left of the day and I was just like this is so hard and I'm like so tired of that I don't know if I need to eat more or drink more I don't know what I need but I just feel so tired I need a bed basically I immediately can in my bag so Kyle was like I've got this can of Coke why don't you have it I was thinking I've never had it before I was like no no no I was like I can't he was like no Amy seriously just have it you need it I was like okay you'll feel good after so I had it and honestly about 20 minutes later I was just absolutely crazy I actually regretted it because all day I'd been on the front I was thinking I actually feel great like this is brilliant and then next thing Amy just comes flying past me up a hill and I was like what's going on here so I'm having to hold on to the wheel I was actually talking my head off like riding really fast I was like I should have had these before but I didn't make a habit of it because I didn't want to live off that but I had a thing I had four the whole trip when I needed them and every time a few I didn't tell Carl had had one and he was like I just knew he was like have you had some caffeine and I was like yep yeah so yeah yeah because it's one of those funny things if you had the you had the ADHD diagnosis before so I guess for Carl it's almost like he's kind of reaching your level when he's on the caffeine yeah yeah exactly he's like no stop yeah it was like me having a Red Bull was levelling me up yeah and then when she had that coke it was just like I can't keep it I don't think it's good for me I think I'm already hyper enough without it yeah yeah I like your analogy there though yeah I'll remember that one yeah but you're not no danger of coats now you're back and you don't need to pick me up no no no well the buns now well kyle tried to buy one kyle tried to buy one from the shop i was like kyle i thought we'd be in healthy he's like oh yeah he's i was getting sausage rolled instead yeah colorist what was the first thing you ate when you when you got back or i had so we went we finished at a cafe and we like pre-ordered what we wanted so i had tomatoes and mushrooms on sourdough and a big massive fruit salad and a chai latte and it was so good.

57:46And I had an English fry up with sourdough and avocado. Bit random to have the avocado, but I just missed it so much. He's got an obsession with it. I love it. And then I was like, everywhere else doesn't do sausages like the UK either. And like the bacon, it was so good. And you had a latte, didn't you? Yeah, and a latte, yeah. So good. How was the first sleep back in your own bed? Amazing. So good. My own pillow was just like, so nice. And I think we slept. We didn't actually sleep as long as we wanted to. We woke up, didn't we? We just woke up because we're so used to waking up early. But last night was actually the longest sleep I've had since finishing.

58:21I had nine hours last night, which was actually unheard of for me. So that was really nice. The first night we got back, we actually had to get up really early to go on TV, didn't we? So we had to get up a lot more time. We had to get up at 5am the day after we finished. So the alarm went off and I was like, oh, I've got to get on the bike. And then we actually had to go to Manchester, didn't we? Yeah, but that was an hour lying compared to what we're used to. So it's okay. And when you were tracking your sleep and stuff all the way around, yeah was there any ever spikes or like drops where you were concerned or was it all like surprisingly okay so we were averaging like five to six hours a night i mean i'd get into bed you'd fall asleep straight away so he's thinking it's like he had a bit more than me but i always struggled to get to sleep so even though we'd like be in bed for six and a half hours i'd only ever get six or five could just be like lying awake for ages and also just like waking up and not knowing where i was but yeah i think the worst sleeps were the flight date like the jet laggy days so we had the worst one was we had to fly from australia to new zealand but it was an overnight flight and you have to get two flights so it's like a four-hour flight and then a four-hour wait at the airport in the middle of the night and then a two-hour flight so we literally got no sleep on the first flight at the airport we lay down on the sofa and got about an hour and a half and then on the two-hour flight we both actually slept for like an hour and a half so that three hours sleep and then he'd like we got there and then we had to ride i think we rode 90 miles it It was really hilly.

59:42Super hilly, yeah. And that was really hard, that lack of sleep. And then the other one was the flight from New Zealand to Alaska. So we went back in time 22 hours. And the flight was split again. We had to wait in San Francisco for 10 hours. So a 10-hour wait at an airport. And we didn't sleep there, obviously. Didn't sleep. And then we got to Alaska, and I was so jet-lagged. That was really hard. It was like 10 and 11 p.m. as well. So we went to a hotel, tried to sleep a little bit, which was quite difficult because of the time difference. and then get up and then we rode 130 miles. Yeah. So, like, we were both super, like...

1:00:17It was horrible. Yeah, it was very unpleasant. You definitely saw how sleep massively affected how you felt. Yeah. But what was quite interesting is all the way through the trip and we've had to look at data and stuff to give to various people, like, our actual data didn't differ much between each other. Yeah, it was quite similar, like a HRV, all of that. Most stats were basically, like, the same all the way through the trip. Yeah. Which is bizarre considering you're two completely different people. even though we're doing the same thing you'd expect some of them to just be completely different but they were very similar you just had a bit more sleep i started more sleep yeah so how do you follow up cycling around the world and breaking a world record like that so for now we're just focusing on recovery but yeah there's definitely some more plans there's definitely more plans up i mean my i've got a solo record that i want to go for but it won't be until about four or five years time i'm going to have like a proper like just enjoy myself a bit do some rides and just maybe a family and stuff like that so maybe in like five years time we'll we'll go for that but next year immediate plans is you want to do the 24-hour time trial don't you yeah so i'm really gonna like i did the 24-hour time trial two years ago and i did that as a bit of a taste like tester and see what it was all about no tc bike i want to go back next year and really have a really good pop at it and see where i can get on that but i've probably got the base fitness at the minute but definitely not the top end so yeah it's gonna be interesting to have a go at that next year and yeah and support you in some things we've got paris express paris which is a big endurance ride it's 1200k and it's only on every four years that's on next year so you have to do a 200 300 400 600 kilometer qualifier for them so that'll take up a bit of the year doing those and then that's in august but definitely want to enter some endurance like races next year i'm not sure what ones Panestaltics maybe on the yeah I'm hungry to do some races aren't we rather than just the challenges as a pair yeah I think yeah I keep saying mostly as a pair maybe I'll pop at some myself on my own but yeah probably as a pair we'll work well together yeah we like to do some solo things as well but it's nice being as a pair like I just think like you just you bounce off each other and you know yeah it's nice for me I've just never done a solo race so yeah you definitely want to do a 24 hour if you're interested to see our go on me Yeah, I think we'll probably do a couple of things as a pair, a couple of things solo, because it's nice to be on your own as well and see how you can do it yourself.

1:02:36I think that Tour de France was nice. It's hard in a pair if one of you's struggling and the other one isn't, because then you've got to slow down. Mainly it was more me finding it harder, I think then you're stronger than me, but you feel like you're slowing someone down. Say if Kyle wanted to stop for food, but I wasn't really hungry, but I've got to stop and I don't really want to. like when you're on your own you can just do your own agenda yeah you're on your own schedule aren't you yeah so that's kind of nice but yeah definitely yeah the solo record I definitely want to do I was thinking of doing it next year but I was like do you know what my body probably won't be fully recovered even though I feel like it will be so we're going to wait until like I've told us you're not doing it next year basically we're going to wait until like four or five years time I keep reminding myself like you've got your whole life to ride doesn't need to be everything I'm very like a very immediate person and we're still young we're not getting old yet so four or five years time we're back for a big one but for now we're just going to still do challenges but not as big as around the world yeah it's good that you can appreciate the solo stuff from having your time as a pair and you appreciate how you're doing them doing the solo stuff and then you get your name in the Guinness Book of Records as well yeah that's going to feel a bit weird to submit all of the evidence which will take a while I think it takes about six or seven months then to do it because it's such a long process but yeah that does feel weird world ultra have already got quite a lot of it because we had to do a spreadsheet along the way yeah so that one's pretty easy but the guinness one's a little bit more of a longer process i think yeah there's a lot of forms and documents you have to do which i haven't even looked at yet because i was like i'm just yeah i need to chill out for a bit first yeah well fingers crossed that go smoothly and your your name will be on there i'm sure east midlands today will absolutely love posting that making getting out in the news yeah yeah right well thank you very much we'll let you get back to your holiday but i've been pleasure to speak to you all the best with the cycling and non-cycling that comes next thank you very much thank you

1:04:30james i hope you enjoyed that that was a one one hell of a ride one hell of a ride 120 few days is a hell of a ride and that's a hell of a hell of a chat and a little bit of peeking behind the curtain you were going to do it with robin but robin unfortunately injured herself and was unable to do the podcast she is fine so will had to fly solo i did fly my wings were flapping James I wanted to ask you something that came up in the conversation you haven't had a chance to listen to it yet but you will and you will love it but Kyle as the listener will know talks about he needs a coffee to get going in the day and he even did so every day of cycling around the world spoke about his favourite coffee was in Australia you've travelled a lot you've been around the world especially with the job and you know it's a coffee job being a cyclist it's a coffee job now Australia of course is the home of the flat white for anyone that didn't know that.

1:05:22They take the coffee very seriously. I wasn't into coffee when I went to Australia. I have been. I did a gap yard and spent all my parents' money and didn't work on farms. And most of the time, I spent the money on Jim Beam whiskey or Earl Grey tea. I just wasn't a coffee drinker. So that's a missed opportunity. But I would say, many years later, fast forward to James having matured slightly and got an actual, sort of an actual job, I went to Copenhagen under the auspices of our dear magazine cyclist magazine which is a magazine you can buy a magazine in the shops so long as shops continue to exist that is in the balance or you can buy online cyclist.co.uk i went to copenhagen and that was in all seriousness as completely like knobbish as all of this sounds when you're like oh i went to copenhagen had a really nice coffee that was the best coffee i've ever had and the reason apparently is a because danish people take stuff or scandinavia in general, but I think the Danes are really good.

1:06:15Like, they take stuff really seriously, almost. And here's me throwing out the sweeping stereotypes about nationalities, almost like people in the Far East. So I've experienced, like in Taiwan or somewhere like that, where things are like super specific or Japan, super specific and dialed. You just do that thing until you actually smash it, which is something we don't seem to have as much of in British culture, I would say. Just saying, you know, stop listening now if you've hated any of that. and the reason is they have a so they do that very particular but they also use a very particular type of milk apparently which is ever so slightly off which gives the coffee a little twang and really offsets what offsets i don't know whatever it does a thing in your mouth it makes it taste all nice and that so that was that was that's the best coffee i've ever had interesting were you drinking coffee when you went to columbia because columbia is obviously very famous for for producing the beans columbia's got shite coffee basically no one drinks because coffee's actually quite expensive like columbia is it's a typically poorer country right coffee is an expensive it's a luxury item ultimately and so local people aren't buying it expensive and be there's you know they're packaging up and selling it exporting overseas so i think there's not as much actual coffee as you might imagine in terms of like beans being ground up and going into a cup But Colombian coffee is amazing, obviously, but the coffee you tend to get in Colombia is typically quite rubbish.

1:07:41Sorry, Colombians. Someone's going to say I'm from Colombia. That's not true. It was my experience. That's the caveat. We'll leave that in there so someone can then email us. Long-time listener, first-time caller, and they can tell us whether they disagree with you. I also had two places that I wanted to say. I've not travelled as much as you, but we have travelled to the same place that you've just cited, Japan. Yes. They're all obsessives. And they do it with everything. It's, you know, it's a stereotype, but they do very much obsess over something and do it until they're the best. Yeah. That's it.

1:08:15I had a really great pizza in Japan. And it was like a classic Italian style, very good pizza. But it was because the guy got obsessed with pizza, went to Italy, learned from a really incredible pizza chef in Italy, then came back. And all of a sudden, he's making amazing pizzas in Japan. But it's kind of like, yeah, we're in Japan. Anyway, a lot of great coffee in Japan. A lot of great coffee. wanted to mention my favorites so i don't know if you went to any of these you might not even remember goodman roaster in kyoto which was very good um 24 7 coffee in hiroshima also do a very good lemon cake and lemonade because um that area is very famous for its lemons and blue bottle but that is also that's an international thing they have them in america as well but those are all those were my favorites in japan and also i went to kenya last year as part of my honeymoon and the coffee there was very good and that was kind of like why i was curious about columbia because kenyans obviously do a lot of the coffee growth and yeah it was very good by the side of a river watching the animals i mean that is pretty rad i went to um vietnam that's another big coffee producer vietnam produces something like i don't know i'm gonna finger in the wind i'm gonna detune my overestimation let's call it a third i think it's more like a third of all of um the robusta beans that end up being in instant coffee huge huge coffee growing empire in vietnam anyway and coffee there was there was loads of stuff that was pretending to be the coffee beans that were eaten by like what is it it's uh it's sort of like it's some sort of like muscle marsupial vibey kind of animal can't remember and then it's pooed out and it's cleaned up and then it's supposed to like ferment in the stomach of this animal but it's just all fake it's just like coffee beans that have just been covered in some random poo and being sold at the side of your own anyway and my mate my mate is really into coffee cliff top coffee there you go there's a free plug for rian who runs cliff top coffee out of the algarve and he was telling me i saw him yesterday he was telling me about going to a cupping where um there's coffees that are basically like 100 pounds plus a kilo mental sold in like 100 gram kind of bags because then it equates to about 20 30 40 quid which is just insane i myself realize that i spend probably about nearly 400 pounds a year on coffee because i buy i have a coffee subscription 30 quid i'm just sounding like more and more of a knob i'm gonna go i've got another meeting but uh yeah coffee coffee is great and i look forward to listening to this episode although i fast forward the bits with in it once it has gone to air.

1:10:47So thank you all for joining us. But I will let Will say goodbye because this is Will's show. What was that? It was goodbye from me and goodbye from him. Goodbye. Good night, JV. That was a big, great reference. Do you remember that TV show? He's talking about Jonathan Vortes. I don't think he listens to the show. No, John Virgo. God rest his soul. Anyway, right. Oh, snooker. Tiddly. Bye.