Parental Gap Year

Saved By a Ten-year-old Boy

My father died when I was 15yrs old. He was 37 and very healthy - or so it seemed. He had a heart attack caused by a burst artery or vice-versa. I had never even known him have a day off sick from work. Now I realise that this last fact was perhaps a clue to the cause of his death. He would not allow himself to be sick. If he ever got flu he would go to bed when he got home from work, pile on the blankets and sweat it out so he could return to work the next day. He was an avionics engineer. It wasn't that he loved his work so much, it was more to do with an ethos. You don't give in to things. This is how a man can become enslaved.

Image courtesy of Dreamstime.com

For myself, I did not begin as a dedicated hard worker. I loved primary school at first but as soon as the serious curriculum and rigid discipline kicked in I loathed school. I only went there to cause trouble - to fight against oppression, and school seemed to me to be its cradle. Later I could see that offices and factories were the same. Grown-up theatres of oppression. Places of drudgery where you were required to conform. It was not for me. I went to art college. But at art college I lacked anything to fight against. I left in search of adventure and found it at first in an army recruiting centre. I found plenty of authority and rules to fight against there. I left and after time hitch-hiking around Europe and Asia I eventually set up my own business. Here I made the rules. At last I was in the right place. I liked what I did and I worked with enthusiasm. I was determined not to work myself to death as my father had but after only a few years I found myself working longer and longer hours and driving 50,000miles a year. I became stressed (as I realise my father was) and short tempered at home. I was in denial. Money flowed in and fired my passion. I basked quietly in the glow of having built a successful consultancy business from scratch, but I could feel myself gasping for air – trying to cram more into every week. The eventual outcome of such a life is not hard for someone to predict, but I couldn't see it.

You will probably be expecting me to tell you I got a serious disease or had a heart attack like my father, but that's not what happened. I was saved from that.
So how was I saved?

Remarkably, I tell you, I was saved by a ten year old boy. My son.

Sam in Tarbet, Kintyre, Scotland.

It was the week before Christmas 2000. I had suffered a manically busy year at work. Arriving home I met my 10 year-old son Sam on his way to bed. I kissed him goodnight.
"Daddy," he said, "do you have any time off this Christmas?"
"Yes, I'm finished on Friday for around 10days."
"Could we go on a bike ride?"
The weather was cold but we did go on that bike ride. Around 20miles to nearby Folkestone. We camped the night and awoke with the tent frozen up with ice. Arriving back home that afternoon, shattered, I had a hot bath and lay on the sofa. Sam came and sat by me. I'd been worried about him but he seemed to have thrived upon it.
"Daddy, when I'm a big boy, would you cycle to Japan with me?"
"Do you know how far that is, Sam?"
"No, but if we go after I finish school - before university - we'd have a year!"

Eight years later, having found someone (the incredible Colin Bowyer) to run my business for me, we set off for Japan. 9 months and 10,000miles after that we rode into Tokyo. At 18 it was an amazing coming of age experience for Sam, but for me it was unexpectedly life-changing. Over those 9 months I had learned what was important in life, and it was not work. I had also finally come to terms with my own father's death. I felt reborn – a second chance. And all this was my son's doing. It had been his idea. My wife had encouraged me, and I'd done all the planning, and Colin had appeared at the last minute like a kind of miracle man, but without Sam it would never have happened. Bizarrely, at the end of the trip, it almost felt like he might have saved my life.

 Sam - Laos

 Sam with fellow cricketers - Cochin, India. He was their hero for a day.

 Iran was like a biblical landscape with 100miles between villages. We had to get water from truck drivers.

The return home - June 2009. Explorer's beard came off next day.

As a result of the cycle trip I had been encouraged by people I knew in the publishing and media industries to write a book about the experience. It was during the writing of that book, that I realised I owed it to other parents to share this experience with them – to encourage them not to allow work to enslave them. All too often I heard retired people and old people saying near the end of their lives that they wished they had spent more time with their children while they were young, rather than toiling away every day to provide for them. Kids, you will find, value one-to-one time with their parents far more than big houses, holidays, cars and money. An experience like the one I had with Sam is one Sam will always draw upon both in work and family situations. It will be a great story to tell his own children and grandchildren, long after I'm dead and gone. Sam says a gap year with a few mates bumming around Thailand, Vietnam or Australia would have been great but it would not have given him as much in the long term.

There is always a sticking point. I can see two.

1. Permission: Many of my friends asked me how I persuaded my wife to let me go. I didn't have to. My wife could see how valuable the trip would be for Sam as well as me and all of us as a family. I was lucky. Not all partners are as understanding, as selfless or have such foresight (although she did really enjoy the challenge of managing alone with my younger daughter during those 10 months). It must be seen as a joint effort. My wife was excited about the trip but would not have wanted to cycle 10,000miles. She played her part in the organisation and in providing support services.
Similarly, many employers would not take kindly to a request for 10months off by a valued member of staff. I was lucky enough to be self-employed. Except that this gave me more worry. Finding a replacement to run the business was very tough. However he turned out to be so bloody good that I have left him running the business ever since. How fortuitous is that eh?
Most of my clients were very supportive and I think they would have been just as supportive if I had been one of their own employees. It does no harm to ask.

2. Money: People also pointed out to me that I had the money. In 10months we spent £11,000. It sounds a lot, but I worked out that I spent far more when I was at home working as usual. And we needn't have spent that much. We stayed in B&Bs and hotels quite a lot when we could have camped more. I can honestly say that knowing what I know now, I would do it again with half that much.

So please, people, do not be one of those parents who gets to the end of his or her life saying, I wish I'd done more with my kids. Do something before it's too late.

Book is on Waterstones core list for non-fiction & a best seller on Amazon (cycling / travel)

More details in our book 'Long Road, Hard Lessons'. Available in Waterstones Bookshops all over the UK & Ireland and via Amazon worldwide. There are lots of colour photos and each chapter contains a section written by Sam (very humorous and most popular with readers).
Go to Amazon.com
Go to Amazon.co.uk
Go to Mark Swain on Smashwords

The Dunwich Dynamo

For Directions Always Ask Three People

When my son Sam and I were cycling from Ireland to Japan, there were a few occasions when we had to ask for directions. For various reasons, people sometimes send you the wrong way. Why?

1. You haven't made yourself understood (usually a linguistic problem).
2. They don't know, but don't want to feel stupid or don't want to let you down.
3. Even before you ask, they're sure of where you want to go. So they stick to it, blindly.
4. They think it's funny to send someone the wrong way.

From painful experience, we learned that the surest method of avoiding this problem, was to ask three separate people. That nearly always seemed to work.

The Dunwich Dynamo is an overnight cycle ride. It's a 'Turn Up & Go'. It requires no registration or collection of sponsorship money. People do it for the fun of it. At around 125miles, fun would not be the word used by most people. And it's 125miles if you don't go wrong. With minimal signposting (a candle in a jar at some key junctions) and no marshals, it's easy to miss turnings – especially if you don't have GPS (spits in disgust). Last year a bunch of about 20 of us went the wrong way after the half-way refreshment stop (in a village hall around 1am). For us our ride became hillier and extended to 145miles. I also ran out of water last year since after around 1am everything is closed and there are no water stops. I was dizzy and ready to collapse with dehydration 20miles from the finish and only made it by dogged refusal to get off the bike. The pint of Guinness I downed after I staggered through the door of the Ship Inn in Dunwich at 5.30am, was the best thing I ever drank. "Never again," I said as my wife arrived. But this year, there I was again – ready for more 'fun'.

Determined not to repeat the mistakes of last year, this year I had energy drink to sustain me and a plan to buy more water before the shops closed. I ate a good dinner with plenty of carbs at 7.30pm in Essex Road before heading down to the start area at London Fields in Hackney. Like last year the park was already packed with cyclists and a dense swarm surrounding The Pub on the Park. Slipping behind a car I removed my trousers and underpants before niftily getting into my cycling shorts – eating in a restaurant wearing lycra cycling shorts still rates somewhere below the plimsoll line for me. Getting naked behind a car in a busy Hackney street in broad daylight, however, is fine.

Outside The Pub On The Park before the start

At 9pm the diverse mass of cyclists began to move off. As the ad says, 'total gridlock'. The Kingsland High Road, running out through Lea before it hits the edge of Epping Forrest, is not a cycle friendly place at the best of times. At 9pm on a Saturday night, gangsters in pimped-up BMWs and Mercedes compete with peroxide blonde mothers in huge hoop earrings in a game of cyclist swatting. They're pissed off to be held up, but at the same time elated by the chance of verbally abusing and splatting so many cyclists in one place. "Like shooting ducks in a **kin' barrel," one said as she passed us.

Filtering out onto Hackney main roads - Bewildered drivers

Fortunately, this urban street hell doesn't last long at the speed most of us start at. Within half an hour you are in Essex countryside, passing Harvesters, Indian megga-restaurants and wayside inns now turned into pole dancing clubs. Gradually it gets quieter and darker until the streetlights disappear and you are in the world of old English villages, churches and small country pubs. Some cyclist begin to peel off for early refreshment at this point. Others plough on, head down until they are nearing the Suffolk borders in the early hours. I waited until around 11.30pm and stopped at The Bell. A lovely old pub in the small town / large village of Bardfield. Here, to my delight, I found they were serving free tea and coffee with Mars Bars. This explained the popularity. Inside at the bar, a lady at the head of a long queue filled water bottles. I chatted to a fellow cyclist outside for 20mins and got back on the bike. I'd already covered 49miles in 2.5hrs. Not too bad.

The Bell at Bardfield - Free Tea & Coffee

After you get into Suffolk it becomes very dark. Villages are more spaced out and there are no street lights. Now I found myself sticking with groups of cyclists with crazy headlights and separate battery packs. Without them you often find yourself hurtling at a sharp bend in pitch black and suddenly losing vision as the road turns but your light is still shining straight on. Later I discovered the benefit of putting on my head-torch so I could look around the corners. Even at 20mph, hitting a tree can be somewhat painful! This kind of riding continues for a very long way. All the way through Suffolk in fact until daylight begins to break. At around 80miles there start to be a few painful hills. Don't let anyone tell you Suffolk is flat. It's not the Alps but it still hurts. By around 2am you get the first indications of needing to re-stoke the boiler. Last year I didn't eat enough and this had compounded my dehydration problem. You don't want to suddenly run out of energy 20miles from the end. At around 2:30 I stopped and ate my packed dinner/breakfast. Peanut butter and cheese sandwiches with some cherry tomatoes and dried figs. Delicious. When I got back on half an hour later I felt pretty good. I had learned my lesson, I told myself.

By the time it got light, most of us were cursing the weather reporters. It was not dry and clear. There was now a wet mist that seemed to drench you without it actually being visible. But it was not cold. My route plan, however, was in my back pocket and I could feel it was papier-mache. Not a problem, I knew the way and there were loads of people in possession of GPS who I could follow. I passed the 100mile mark still feeling good. At 110 my wife texted me to say she would be at the finish area by the beach at 6am. It was 4.30am, so I had plenty of time. Soon after I saw a tea stop and pulled in. No point arriving early, I told myself. I asked how much further.
"Twelve miles," said the man behind the tea counter. I took my tea, filled my bottle from a hose and lay down for a well earned rest on the wet grass. I was almost there.

Last tea stop - 22 miles from the end (not 12)

At  5am I set off to complete the final 12miles. It seemed a tiny amount now. I stepped up my pace, racing past other groups of cyclists. After about 10 miles I asked a guy with a GPS how much further.
"Ten miles," he said, looking down at his screen.
It seemed impossible, yet I knew how these things worked. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me now, I reminded myself. It easily happens after such exertion and no sleep. I speeded up, feeling my legs burning and a sick feeling in my gut. But I'd be there soon.

Ten miles later there was still no sign of Dunwich. Stupidly I had raced ahead of the group with the guy who had a GPS. I looked back. They were nowhere to be seen. I had to face the fact that I'd missed the turning. Just about to turn around though, I saw two other cyclists arriving from another road. They were heading for Dunwich, they said, but had got lost. We headed back towards the way I'd come but met two other cyclists speeding along. One had a GPS.
"Is this the road for Dunwich?" I asked.
"Yes, follow us," said the guy at the front.
The three of us raced after them and managed to catch up.
"How far is it to Dunwich?" I asked.
"About twenty miles, he replied." He had a strange accent. He almost sounded a little drunk.
"Twenty miles! I choked. I was told 6 miles back that it was 3 miles!"
"Twenty miles," he repeated, pointing at his GPS.
I was going mad, I told myself.

After a further ten miles I felt sick and exhausted. Surely we must nearly be there now, I asked him as we approached a junction. He stopped and suggested I cycled back to London with them. The other two guys seemed to have got left behind.
"I can't, I laughed, my wife's waiting for me in Dunwich."
"It's about another ten miles," he said. Still speaking like he might be drunk.
Then, all of a sudden, through blurred exhausted eyes, I noticed something. A transparent plastic earpiece inside his ear. That explained his speech. He was hearing impaired. We cycled off together, with me trying to get my brain to work enough to work out what this all added up to. I was ready to keel over into the ditch, I was so tired.
"Sorry," I said, "I just have to have a break."
I watched the two of them cycle onto a roundabout and along a dual carriageway. I was sure there was no dual carriageway last year. It was definitely wrong. Then I saw another group of cyclists. I waved and shouted, then spent my last ounce of energy to catch them up.
"Mate, is this the road for Dunwich?" I called breathlessly.
"Dunwich? the back-marker said, open mouthed, "that's thirty miles back the way you've just come!"
I pulled over and stopped. They did the same. They could see the look of bewilderment on my face. How could this have happened, when I was only 3 miles away?
"Mate, this is Ipswich!" one said. "You'd be better off getting the train back to London from here."
"Wife's waiting in Dunwich," I murmured, turning my bike around.
I looked down. 139 miles, my cycle computer said. I got out my phone.
"Is there a hotel or a cafe there?" said my wife.
I told her there was a sign for a big country hotel called Scatfield Hall.
"Go there and order breakfast," she said. I'll be there in an hour.
Lycra was not the dress for breakfast in this hotel. A cravat might not have gone amiss. I piled energy-giving food onto my plate and slipped a croissant into my backpack to pacify my wife when she arrived.
Later I completed the last three or four miles and we had dinner in The Ship Inn, in Dunwich. The car-park was deserted. I still couldn't believe what had happened.
"But I asked three separate people!" I kept saying.
It didn't feel like my fault (which of course it was). But how can you be cross with a deaf man for not hearing you?
Next year I'll get it right.

A deserted Dunwich beach car park. They don't call it 'The Lost City of Dunwich for nothing you know!

If you would like to read the bestselling travel book 'Long Road, Hard Lessons' by Mark Swain, or his collections of short stories (including the prizewinning "Special Treatment"), you can find them on Amazon, Smashwords etc. Click the link:

Mark Swain on Amazon.com

Mark Swain on Amazon UK

Mark Swain on Smashwords

Please note, you can read an e-book without a Kindle or e-book reader. You just download the Kindle Reader App from Amazon for free, to your Computer, Laptop, Smartphone, tablet or i-Pad. Just google it.

Cycle Travellers See So Much More

Slower But Deeper

I remember back in the 70's people used to say that the best way to travel and really experience a country was overland. Overland meant taking buses and trains, buying a VW van and putting a mattress in the back, sometimes even hitch-hiking. I did a great deal of this in the 70's and 80's and certainly found it to be true. You got to meet real people and to get some idea of what it was like to be a local, living there. You also got to travel at a relaxed pace; giving yourself time to absorb your experiences, meet people and also to adjust to changes as you moved on. But by the turn of the century (hah, I sound like old father time!), I had taken up long-distance cycling as a means of travel.

Hippy Travellers - Courtesy of Flickr

Once you travel through a country by bicycle, you realise how much you miss when you travel by the usual 'overland' means. Buses and trains allow you to meet local people, but more often than not, backpackers use them to get between two major towns – either that or to a beach resort, temple or other place that draws travellers (and tourists). There are plenty of places out in the sticks that buses and trains don't go to. You could take a taxi, but how many do? And this is the reason for what I have come to call 'Lonely Planet Syndrome'.

Sam as we pass through rural North Vietnam (one of the better roads)

Lonely Planet Guides are fantastic. They have been around since the early 70's. I think they started out as something produced by amateurs on a hand operated bandalith copier (or similar). I actually had one. It was called 'Overland to India and Beyond' or something like that. It had a tatty pink cover and was available from BIT information office in London. It was bought by hippies like me (then) wanting to doss their way across the world in flipflops, shorts and t-shirts with very little cash, smoking dope, living in caves and meeting other beautiful people. It was a great time. The book was hard to obtain and got out of date quickly but it told you stuff that Fodor and Letts guides (All the important tourist locations along with useful phrases to use in your hotel etc) didn't. It told you about places young people wanted to go and things they wanted to know.

My copy was more pink than red. It eventually disintegrated.

Of course over time, Lonely Planet Guides have become more like the old fogeys guides they replaced. No longer do they tell you where you can score great dope! Like modern day music festivals, they have become sanitised and are aimed at a more establishment crowd (wipes away a tear). Now they say of places 'Nothing to see here,' just because a town has no 'attractions' for tourists. They ignore the possibility that interest can be found just in the local people and their simple way of life. Hence, young gap-year back-packers along with many others, follow the guides travelling to the same towns, the same back-packer attractions and the same 'home-food' cafes. I have long stopped caring. It keeps the hoards from spoiling the real life of the country by staying on that well beaten track.

But how to get to those out of the way places if you want to? Bus routes are often there to supply the demands of these happy bands Lonely Planet naives. This is where the bicycle comes into its own. It will take you anywhere (almost). My son Sam and I even climbed a mountain in Tamil Nadu (Mount Adai Mudi), carrying our bikes, passing through tiny mountain hamlets with little wooden houses on stilts. People at both ends of that trek told us that few people in the villages below had ever climbed over that mountain let alone foreigners. It is a tough, two day experience burned into our memories.

 A tiny hamlet at the foot of Mt Adai Mudi. Adimali Reserve, Kerala, India.

Nearing the summit of Mt Adai Mudi, carrying our bikes.

That 10,000mile cycle trip from Ireland to Japan took us through numerous countries. It was of course incredible getting out into the backwoods of countries like India, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. But one needn't go so far to experience the surprises of a different world beyond the well beaten paths. We had similar experiences in Romania, Bulgaria and even Germany. It taught me to keep an open mind about what may lie just beyond the routes most people take. Indeed, since returning from that trip, this has become even more clear to me. Over the four years since our return to England, I have made many shorter cycle trips and many of those on my own doorstep. I am regularly surprised by what I find cycling through the backwoods of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Devon. Even my local county of Kent holds many hidden treats. A bicycle takes you everywhere, and at a pace that puts you in touch with everything and everyone. It immerses you. You can hardly avoid it. And let's not forget, that you can do all of this very cheaply, avoiding jams and without causing harm to the environment. No wonder bicycle use is increasing so rapidly!

My cycling friend Martin Ashton struggles against wind somewhere in wilds of Yorkshire

If you would like to read the bestselling travel book 'Long Road, Hard Lessons' by Mark Swain, you can find this, his two collections of short stories and other books on Amazon, Smashwords etc.

Mark Swain on Amazon.com

Mark Swain on Amazon UK

Mark Swain on Smashwords

Japanese Hospitality

The Legendary Kindness of The Japanese to Strangers

Today some fellow long-distance cyclists, who are currently travelling through Japan and experiencing this phenomenon, asked on Facebook whether others had experienced similar kindness when travelling by bike. I felt I should reply, since in Japan in particular I have experienced it a great deal.

The Japanese word for foreigners is Gaijin. Literally this means 'outside people'. It has been translated by some as 'aliens', since it sounds rather xenophobic. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Japanese love visitors and like to show them great hospitality. They are concerned to give a good impression of their country. They seem to see it as their moral human duty as much as a national tradition. Imagine if everyone in the world was like that!

Back in the early to mid-80's I used to live in Japan as an English teacher. I met my wife there in fact (a fellow TEFL Teacher). Early on, before I met Lorna, my friend Steve and I needed to go to South Korea to renew our visa. We were low on cash so we decided to hitchhike down to Shimonoseki to take the boat. The Japanese didn't know what hitchhiking was back then. It was tough getting lifts but when we did, the people were incredibly kind and helpful - taking us out of their way. It's a long time ago but I suppose it must have been on the second day, a man picked us up and we got into vigorous conversation. He was excited about having this opportunity to talk to young foreigners (we were around 21 and 25). He was going to his brother's wedding, he explained. Later we stopped and he insisted on buying us lunch. He phoned his brother. Re-starting, he then insisted we should join him at his brother's wedding. We were invited, he said. Can you imagine how amazing that was for us? We stayed an extra night and left for Korea the next day wondering what had hit us! This is only one example of the hospitality we encountered on that short trip and one of the many experiences I had living there for two years.

Back to recent times. Fairly near to the end of our big trip, cycling from Ireland to Japan, my son Sam and I found ourselves on Shikoku island at the start of the Golden Week public holiday. I was reminded that during this holiday, hotels, hostels and B&Bs charged a premium and were very over-subscribed. We spent hours riding around the lovely small city of Kochi, looking for accommodation. People tried hard to help but everything was full. Finally, feeling very tired, we went to the tourist office at the central railway station. There we were helped by enthusiastic students doing a holiday job. Against the odds they managed to find us a traditional ryokan (Japanese family run B&B). It was expensive but we felt lucky and extremely relieved. We stayed for two days and were royally treated. Each day we found special Japanese treats left in our room and discovered that all our clothing had been washed and ironed by the old grandmother. By the third day we felt sad to leave. The whole family came out to wave us off. As we left the old grandma handed us a substantial packed lunch each.
"What amazing, kind people," we said as we rode away.

100kms later we stopped by a mountain stream to eat our picnic lunch. Unpacking mine, I found that the money we had paid for our two night's stay had been neatly wrapped and put inside. You don't find hospitality like that every day.

The river where we ate lunch and discovered the money

 One puncture in 10,000miles and it happened in Shikoku

 Kochi Castle. Sam and I were taken places by local people who befriended us

Owner of a bar demonstrates some Japanese dancing. This bar was closed for Golden Week but a friend we met (Kenichi Harada) asked them to open it especially for us - which of course, being Japanese, they did.

To read more about the amazing father and son journey from Ireland to Japan by bicycle, just click on the links in the right-hand margin of this blog. Thanks for reading.

Punctures and Why I Hate Them

I don't get punctures anymore.
"What's your secret?" people ask.
"I hate punctures," I reply.

I still remember the sense of let-down I felt when I was a small child, out on my bike having fun or on my way to somewhere in a hurry. That sudden rumbling beneath me accompanied by a slight loss of stability that indicated a puncture. That feeling has never changed.

It is for good reason that people use the word 'punctured' as a metaphor. 'Punctured optimism' - 'punctured pride.' It draws upon the feeling every experienced cyclist knows and loathes.

For years I accepted that punctures were an inevitable downside that balanced the outstanding pleasures and practical advantages of cycling. Nothing that great comes without a downside, I told myself. But I did come to wonder why punctures were so much less frequent with my car or motorcycle. "If they could fly men to the moon, what was so difficult about inventing a puncture resistant cycle tyre?"
I continued to cycle and muttered such things to myself every time I found myself kneeling at the side of the road with a tyre lever in my hand. "Bloody ridiculous!" is what it was.

Around five years ago, I was preparing to cycle 10,000 miles from the West of Ireland to Tokyo with my son. Punctures would be a big issue; I knew that from books and blogs I'd read, written by other long-distance cyclists. I toured the internet searching for advice and talked to mechanics in bike shops. Eventually, attending the 2008 cycle show at Earls Court in London, I talked to an elderly gent at a stand. He was demonstrating the puncture resistance of Schwalbe Marathon and Marathon Plus tyres. They had a thick protective band built into the tyre. With the 'Plus', it extended around the sidewall of the tyre as well as the main running section. I'd used things like puncture resistant tape and liquid slime type preparations and they'd improved things, but I'd still got punctures. Was this really so much better, I challenged him.
"I just had a girl here yesterday," he told me. "Four of them cycled from London to Australia, via Indonesia, using Marathon Plus tyres. They didn't have a single puncture between them."
Elderly and a gentleman he might have been, but surely he was exaggerating wildly.
"Not at all," he assured me.
He demonstrated, using an inflated tyre already full of drawing pins. Then he handed me a drawing pin.
"Have a go for yourself!" he said, seeing the look of suspicion on my face.
I tried several and even gave it a good old jab with the point of a knife. Nothing! The next day I ordered a set of Marathon Plus tyres for my Dawes Super Galaxy touring bike.

Six months later, Sam and I set off for Japan. Even in Ireland, some of the road surfaces were bad. Classic puncture territory, I thought. I waited, anticipating that sense of deflation - of punctured enthusiasm at any moment. We were loaded up and therefore far more puncture-prone. But days went by and rough surfaces with broken glass, discarded bolts and bits of vehicle debris passed beneath our wheels without that sense of impending puncture-doom amounting to anything. This good fortune continued all the way across Europe until after a few thousand miles I had almost forgotten about punctures. Sam's bike had been delivered with standard Schwalbe Marathon tyres (without the sidewall protection) but had proved equally resistant. I thanked that old man in my head.

Although my good fortune continued all the way to Japan - problems with perished valve seatings being the only blemish, necessitating new innertubes - Sam was not so lucky. He made the mistake of riding across a field in the dark, somewhere in Eastern Turkey looking for a place to camp. In the morning, as we repaired his multiple punctures, we could see that the field was a mass of large thistles. I remembered the drawing pin exercise. Sam suffered 15 further puncture episodes that day as the tiny, invisibly embedded spikes repeatedly inflicted him with that sense of deflation. The extra protection of Marathon Plus on my bike had proved worthwhile.

Over those 10,000 miles and ever since, I have added to the protection given by the Marathon Plus tyres I would now not be without. Sam and I came to realise the benefit of watching where you're going. There's all sorts of debris lying in wait for you on a road, just ready to deflate you. If you watch, you can see it coming. It can make the difference between a good day and a horrible day. What makes punctures so potentially damaging, is that while you are in the process of repairing one, you often do some other damage to the bike. A bad temper, haste and tiredness do not help. Even something simple like failing to reattach a luggage strap, which then gets caught in the back wheel and mashes your gears, or a trapped gear cable when you retighten the back wheel, or a tiny shard of metal sheared off the tyre lever or the rim, getting itself lodged inside the tyre can be deadly. I once read of someone (Christopher Smith) getting stuck in Greece for a week, waiting for new tyres after an almost invisible strand of protective wire in the tyre rim (dislodged by the tyre lever when mending a puncture), caused multiple further punctures and was almost undetectable. The poor guy almost lost his mind with frustration. So better left well alone. Inspect your tyres for cuts and things sticking in them but avoid taking those tyres off and on if you possibly can. It could be the start of something diabolical.

In the four years since we completed that epic trip, I have cycled a good deal and have not suffered a single puncture. I've helped others mend theirs but none of my four bikes have succumbed. Punctures, in my opinion, really are something where prevention is better than cure. Having said that, I last changed my Marathon Plus front tyre in India around 7,000 miles ago. It's totally bald and has a split in the wall. I have a new one in the shed. I will get around to changing it one day, but I sort of want to see how long it will go before I suffer that near forgotten deflating feeling again. Sometimes reliability can get really boring!

FREEDOM - The thrill of cycling

What made me take up long distance cycling?

As it says at the beginning of my book, I discovered the joy of cycling at around 4 years of age.
'I realised at the age of four that a bicycle was the key to freedom. The joy I felt as I first escaped down the hill from my home has never left me.'

For many people of my generation, a bicycle was their first real taste of freedom. Back in 'the olden days' parents might have been happier to let their young kids disappear for the whole day in a way that they wouldn't do now, but the fact was we had less money to go off on trips to theme parks or hop across the channel by train or plane, let alone fly to Florida to experience the dubious delights of Disney-world. But what we did have were bicycles. Bikes were fairly cheap, especially if like mine it was second-hand. I soon learned that I could travel quite some distance from home on my old bike (so long as I had a puncture outfit and a bone spanner). My cycling friends and I survived for a day on hastily prepared doorstep cheese sandwiches, an apple and perhaps some 'pop' from a shop. We talked to kindly old ladies, who sometimes invited us in for tea and old men who helped us fix a chain or a puncture. We had no mobile phone to call home if we had a problem. Once we were gone, we were gone for the day, with no real idea of what lay ahead of us.

I look at children of the same age (11 or 12) now, with their i-pads and playstations or sat for hours in front of mindless TV pulp, and I despair. This was why, after years of giving cycling a rest, I began to encourage my 10yr old son to come cycling. I didn't want him to become one of those kids. I wanted him to experience what I had, albeit with me so I didn't need to worry. Yes the thought of allowing a ten or eleven year old to go off cycling all day alone or with a friend is pretty scary. Not because the risks are higher - I'm sure they're not - but because we've changed. Not for the better, in my opinion.

As it turned out, encouraging my son, Sam, to come on a little (40 mile) cycle expedition over a couple of days when he was ten, put something more than a a set of bike wheels in motion. At the end of that 2 day trip, Sam asked me if I'd cycle to Japan with him. I remember chuckling to myself at first. Did he know how far it was, I asked. He didn't but he said we'd have a year to do it if we did it during his 'gap year.' At least he knew what a gap year was. Ten years later, after a few practice trips around southern England, France and Belgium, we set off on the 10,000mile journey to Tokyo. I have never stopped cycling since and nor, I'm pleased to say, has he. You see I still feel that thrill in the pit of my stomach every time I set off on a bike ride. I can't quite believe that with such a simple piece of equipment, it's possible to go anywhere and to have so much fun. You don't need an expensive bike or chic lycra clothing. You don't even need to take much money if you have a small tent that you can put up quickly in a field next to a country lane. It's the simplicity that can be such a breath of fresh air.

So rather than leave that bike in the shed - the one you bought a few years back with the intention of getting fit and losing a few pounds of Christmas flab - give it a service and get out on it this weekend. Take a short ride to a country pub or a tea shop. You'll return home with a beaming smile. Thrilled by the wind having rushed through your hair on the downhills and boasting about climbing up the other side. And people will talk to you. "How far have you come mate?" or "I had one like that." You'll wonder why you left it so long.

Sam inspiring small Vietnamese children to cycle

Cycling As Meditation?

"Sorry Dad, that's not meditation."

One of my daughters is, I suppose, what you'd call a practicing Buddhist. She's spent the last 3 years working in a retreat up a mountain. I would never put that down. I've been there twice and it's an amazing place (www.ecodharma.com) with a very special aura and ethos. She's advised me to meditate to avoid or release myself from the unavoidable stresses of modern life.

When you're at the top of a mountain looking down on so called 'civilisation' 

meditation is far easier

"I already meditate," I told her. "I spend all day sometimes on my bike thinking as my legs follow a repetitive circular rhythm. It's so calming and I work out so many things that way."

"Sorry Dad, that's not meditation," she told me.

She said it in a kind way, and she followed it by saying that it was undoubtedly useful, but it was not meditation in the Buddhist sense of the practice. It was thinking about 'stuff' rather than your mind being full of nothing. Deep!

I've had a go at meditation in the formal Buddhist sense and I certainly know the difference now. It's a great feeling. If I tried to do that on my bike I'm sure I'd fall off, or ride straight into something. Not wise, I'd say. So on my bike I stick to my kind of meditation – that being 'thinking about stuff.'

So what kind of stuff do I think about. Well, let me say first that I'm talking mostly about long distance cycling. In my case that means about 80 miles a day on average (see my book 'Long Road, Hard Lessons' - link at the bottom) but it varies with the terrain and whether I'm on my own or with someone else. Personally I like to get into a rhythmic groove and just keep going. I don't stop much if I can help it. Very soon I'm zoned out. Don't try talking to me – the most you'll get is a grunt. My regular cycling friends get used to this. They laugh about how I just keep going – like an automaton. I don't feel pain, because I'm not there. I'm in my head, or back in my childhood, or somewhere in a planned future or something. Sometimes I sing too. I sing things that suit my pace and the terrain. Not always out loud – mostly it's in my head too. When I'm pushing hard uphill it's something slow but forceful like 'Police on my back' by The Clash or 'Hold Tight' byDave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Titch. On calm flat sections with no rush it's 'I Will' by the Beatles and on a fast downhill it's probably 'Thunder Road' by Springsteen. And all the time I'm working through stuff. Hours of my legs going around and sorting out why it was I never managed to tell that girl at school in 1974 that I liked her, when the next property boom might happen, or why it was my parents had just laughed when I said I wanted to go to a drama school.

Monks cycling slowly to lunch in Laos. Proof that meditation is possible on a bike.

The thing about long distance cycling, is that you have plenty of time to pass and nothing much to do except look at scenery and keep your legs going around. Anything that stops you thinking about how much your bum hurts is good really. The thing about trying to sort this sort of stuff out at home is that you keep getting disturbed. Phones, doorbells, children, partners, sirens, car alarms, you name it. It's unavoidable unless you live out in the sticks and even then there's the phone. No the thing about long distance cycling is that you're busy doing something, but that something doesn't need any real thinking about. You can pretty much engage first gear and disengage the brain. You're free to let your mind wander, with no rude interruptions bar the odd cycle-hating motorist shouting 'wanker!' at you as they pass. It was an opportunity for relaxed thought that in centuries gone by men and women tilling fields or watching sheep all day long took for granted, but those days are gone. Sailing, walking and cycling have taken their place as the only way to get away from it all. I have no doubt that this is why mental illness and stress-related disease is so much more prevalent today. Do yourself a favour and get on your bike!

If you would like to read the bestselling travel book 'Long Road, Hard Lessons' by Mark Swain, you can find this along with his two collections of short stories on Amazon, Smashwords etc. 

In the UK his books can also be found in all Waterstones Bookstores.

Mark Swain on Amazon.com

Mark Swain on Amazon UK

Mark Swain on Smashwords