Some things are meant to come as a double act – Morecambe and Wise, Mortimer and Whitehouse in “Gone Fishing”, fish and chips, Tom and Jerry, wine and cheese, big climbs with epic descents, pleasure and pain! Time to stop that list as it’s heading in the wrong direction. I came across an interesting combo by accident travelling. I had been bought a book on my birthday and downloaded a cycling move for a long flight – little did I know how well they would go together. Let’s start with the book as this was the order I commenced my consumption of these. I time for the weakest segway but we have moved from France to sunny Scotland and I was sad to leave behind friends and some awesome roads for the two wheels. However the cycling here neat Aberdeen is incredible, with country side that can take your breath away. I have yet to expose the highlands and plan to do the North Coast 500 later this year. Scotland is home to two of the finest run the world cyclists to have ever existed, Jenny Graham and Mark Beaumont. Perhaps it is the rugged beauty of their homeland that gave them both the strength to travel around the world in record breaking time.

The book is Jenny Graham’s tale of her journey around the world and is a fantastic read. Her spirit and determination shine out from the lines as you get to enjoy from the comfort of your chair what she endured on this adventure. It’s clear the passage had up and downs and at times her drive to get through may have lead her to not be as social as she may have wished (indeed at time boarding on rude). But she explains why and certainly there are many occasions of shared moments of joy. What stands out is her drive to keep on moving no matter the distraction, being it a mechanic or amazing place right down to wanting to spend some down time. She is however relentless and through out the book there are many wonderful little anecdotes. It’s is really worth sharing her experience by reading the book. Jenny comes across as genuine, driven, passionate and a genuine character. I appreciate that can be interpreted many ways, so you read the book and make your own conclusion.

I literally finished the book on a flight back from Brazil and as I am terrible at watching the typically dreadful mix of movies on board, I decided to watch a move I had downloaded with little research other than of course it was about cycling. If I had researched realising it was subtitled might have sadly put me off but with my poor reading eyesight on long flights I am not so keen to read substitles )yeas. – I had just finished a subtitled movie with no moving pics -otherwise known as a book. Go figure). And this is where the perfect pairing started.

Home2home from the YouTube blurb: Home2Home tells the story of Dennis Kailing who travels 43,600 km (27,000 miles) through 41 countries on 6 continents to circumnavigate the planet in 761 days. He does it on a bicycle – on his first bike journey ever.
With the question “What makes you happy”, but without experience in bike traveling, the 24-year-old from Germany jumps into the deep end and simply sets off – always heading east. He’s traveling alone, but he’s rarely lonely: many encounters with interesting, crazy or “completely normal” people give him insights that ordinary tourists rarely experience. While others like a well-structured all inclusive tour, this bike tour is a journey into uncertainty. But in the uncertainty hides the biggest adventure – Dennis gradually becomes aware of this.
In addition to breathtaking landscapes and a good portion of humor, “Home2Home” also shows the unpleasant sides of a long bike trip: never-ending rain in the Andes of South America, illness between golden pagodas in Myanmar and loneliness in the endless expanses of the Australian Outback.
After 43,600 kilometers in 41 countries on 6 continents and the circumnavigation of our planet, Dennis is coming back from the west to the place from which he set out to the east two years earlier. In the end, he came a little closer to his question ’What makes you happy’ – mostly it’s just a very simple, tiny, but completely natural thing.

It is frankly an amazing movie. I quite moved me but I think especially so after reading Jenny’s adventure. A perfect pairing has common elements and then complete opposites and wow – these deliver just that. Jenny’s daily drive to move on no matter what contrasts with Dennis who spends his whole journey taking time to drink in where he is. That might sound like Jenny missed a lot and perhaps she did , but the two share a passion to circumnavigate the global on two wheels with different missions and yet live life to the fullest – achieving way more than normal mortals. Both end up asking the same questions of the themselves toward the end.

I cannot recommend these enough and would even suggest you follow my path with Jenny first and then with Dennis (with a glass of something!). As ever apologies for the typos… I think we have also now become the world’s least updated cycling blog – way 2 go!