Tom Davies - Emu Racing and Record Chasing: A Teenagers Ride Around the World

Copyright 2019 Tom Davies

Image (Tom Davies seated with globe) reproduced with the kind permission of Cycling Weekly magazine (Daniel Gould).

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ISBN 978 1838598 754

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For Mum, Dad and Anna

When I was 19, I became the youngest person to cycle around the world. Throughout this 18,000-mile ride around the planet, I wrote a blog every day. A number of people asked me to follow up with a book, suggesting that, along with some very crisp tan lines, I must have come back with a story worth reading. Whether or not that is true remains to be seen, but this is that book.

It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it, but, after scrapping my first few attempts, I have finally come up with something that Im happy with. I may touch on a few delicate topics and I may use a few swear words, but I promise not to go too far.

I have aimed to put a different spin on my account compared to similar books that are out there. Whilst this is fundamentally about my journey around the world, I did not want it to be a generic summary of what happened every day. My blog did a good job of representing my day-to-day frustrations, so I have done my best to avoid repeating myself. My blog is still available ( www.tomdaviesrtw.com/blog/ ), so if that would interest you, please feel free to read it.

Something I have always been a big advocate of particularly in regard to this trip is authenticity. My intention is not to sell you a lie, and tell a story of the guy who exceeded expectations with ease and smiled the whole way. I was honest in my blog, and I wanted to be honest here. What follows is a look at the world from a bicycle saddle and I have kept it as genuine and unsanitised as possible. I hope its interesting, I hope it makes you laugh and I hope it gives you an idea of why I did what I did.

Disclaimer: My ride around the world put me under considerable stress and I often saw the worst of the countries I visited. So, whilst I hope they are fairly amusing, my thoughts on the places I went to should not be taken too seriously. If you believe me to be mistaken, its very likely that I am, so please just ignore any or all of the assumptions I have made.

The truth is, I was just a normal adolescent afraid of growing up when I set off, and I was still deeply insecure and immature when I first started this book. It took me a long time to digest the experience, and, although not ideal, the three-year delay was necessary. Anyway, this is my story; I hope its worth the wait.

Its a seemingly innocent question, one that I get asked more than any other, and yet its still the one I find hardest to answer. I get many variations of it: Why cycle around the world?, Why not do something normal?, Why did you want to do it?, and, my personal favourite, Why not just drive a fucking car?. This last one came whilst I was buying a bacon sandwich in an Australian roadhouse, 100 kilometres away from the next building.

I have spoken to a couple of people who know what they are talking about when it comes to writing books, and they told me to put the answer to this question at the beginning. Apparently, it tells people what they want to know, and it introduces the reader to who I am.

Despite this advice, I am slightly against the idea. Firstly, I find it very difficult to put my answer into words. Secondly, I hope that, throughout this book, I will be able to provide some justification for doing what I did. I hope that, by the time you finish reading, you will already have an idea of the answer and wont think Im completely insane. If not, I will answer the question at the end as best I can. Lastly, I enjoy doing things unconventionally, so if thats one more way that I can flip things around, then all the better.

For now, I shall provide a partially honest (and probably unsatisfying) answer: I dont know why. I forced myself through injury, illness, wind, rain, heat, sleet and snow. In many ways, it was a pretty stupid thing to do.

My route as was the case with many of the plans I made changed on numerous occasions leading up to, and during, my trip. Even when I reached North America, two-thirds of the way round, I was still making fairly major alterations to the route I was going to take. So, to keep confusion to a minimum, I think its a good idea if I fill you in on the final route and schedule I ended up taking, just so that you have an idea of whats going on. I have included maps at the start of this book (wonderfully drawn by Hannah Rummery), indicating the actual routes taken, so feel free to just look at those if youre not interested in the intricacies of the trip.

I started at my home in London, and the first day was a ride down to Portsmouth, where I boarded an overnight ferry to Caen (France). Over the next five days, I headed through the middle of France in the general direction of Monaco. My dad joined me in a car halfway through Day 7, and he left towards the end of Day 9, after having accompanied me along the south coast of France. I then spent the next 17 days riding onwards to Istanbul via the Adriatic coast.

I flew to Mumbai from Istanbul, and rode down the west coast and up the east coast of India until I reached Kolkata after a total of 24 days.