Simon Evans and Fearghal O’Nuallain have been mates as far back as they can remember, and have been dreaming about going on a big adventure for almost as long. One rainy night in Dublin, about six years ago, they decided to cycle around the world over a few too many Guinness in the Stag’s Head. And so began the first Irish circumnavigation of the globe by bicycle in November 2008. Their unsupported expedition will ultimately cover over 30,000km, passing through 30 countries and some of the highest, lowest, driest, coldest, warmest and loneliest places on earth. As they get nearer home, the pair chats with Ross McDonagh and tell him what it’s been like.
Isn’t technology great? I’m sitting on one side of my kitchen table, and staring back at me is Simon Evans and Fearghal O’Nuallain in Romania, all thanks to the miracle of Skype. One party is bedraggled, grouchy from not getting enough sleep, with a few days growth on their face; the other has – quite literally – just cycled three quarters of the way around the world. Sitting here in my pyjamas, bathrobe and sipping a mug of tea, I have never felt lazier in my entire life.
For a pair of guys who have been run over by a maniacal driver, almost stabbed to death, and who are not sure what their next source of food/shelter/working shower will be, they are in incredibly cheery form.
They are less than one continent away from becoming the first ever Irish people to circumnavigate the globe via bicycle, have raised tonnes of money for charity and have faced breathtaking highs and terrifying lows en route, but the most pertinent question on everyone’s mind is: how are their arses?
“Mine’s okay, I’ve got a smoother arse than Fearghal, so I’m alright,” Simon laughs. “Yeah I’m a bit bony, I’ve quite a skinny arse,” Fearghal chimes in. “It was a bit sore, but then I got a gel saddle and now I’m happy; my arse is in good condition you’ll be glad to know.”
As funny as a sore arse might seem to me cosied up in my apartment, the boys are undertaking their amazing 30,000km trek completely unsupported. That means they can only travel only on their own horsepower, and anything they want to bring with them they have to carry themselves: shelter, food, water, cooking equipment, repair kits and first aid. And when you’re in the middle of the wilderness on your own, molehills can become mountains pretty swiftly.
Although from what I can see from the route mapped out on their website – www.revolutioncycle.ie – mountains do not pose these guys much problem. Over the past 15 months, they have covered 24,000km and 20 countries. Starting in their home town of Greystones in Wicklow, the pair cycled to Waterford and beyond through France, Spain, Uruguay, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania, with only Hungary, Austria, Italy, France again, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France one more time, and the UK, before their glorious return to these shores.
“That’s probably one of the reasons we’d never break the record, the route we chose is a little trickier,” Simon concedes. “We cross the Andes, we cross mountains in Kyrgyzstan and central Asia. The classic route is through Australia, through America, all quite easy cycling territory. But we really wanted to see more of the world.
“We can be cycling for around seven, eight hours a day but only managing 50 or 60 kilometres, the route is just so bad.’
As the boys rightly point out on their website, they are circumnavigating the globe, not just travelling around it. One could, in theory, run in a straight line near the North Pole and end up where you started, thus making a claim to have “travelled round the world”. To properly cover the whole circumference one must hit two points on complete opposite sides of the planet (in this case, Buenos Aires in Argentina and Shanghai in China), but what they do in between is their own choice.
So how did they know during the planning stage what parts of this route were even cycleable? “We don’t know till we get there,” Simon smiles.
“A lot of the countries looked dodgy from home, but we went through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and the only thing we met was being charged a bit more than we should the odd time for a bag of vegetables. There were no real problems,” Fearghal adds.
Food security
“Sometimes in certain places, actually finding the right food can be difficult. Vegetables are quite hard to come by in Kyrgyzstan. In one incident when one of us got sick, we were staying in a little village and we thought, ‘Okay, we’ll stay here until we get better.’ On the first day we went down to the small little shop, bought this, this, this and this … the next day we went back to the same shop, and there was nothing else there. By the third day we realised we had to leave. It kind of sounds crazy to people at home, but in a lot of parts of the world… ‘There are no Spars?’ I offer. “Yeah, or Tesco’s unfortunately,” he replies.
Despite the lack of dietary options, the boys look remarkably healthy. Cycling around a planet, you are obviously going to be fit, but rigorous preparation can’t be discounted: “We put in a huge amount of ‘wait training’,” Fearghal laughs. “We waited until we left to train.”
They are clearly in good mental condition too. If you are going to talk to just one person for the next year and a half, it helps when you are childhood friends. But as Fearghal points out, even BFFs need their alone time. “Sometimes we might take a day or two apart; the best thing about cycling is that if you need to, you can just tear off ahead and leave him a couple of kilometres behind you, or just sit back a bit,” he said. “We can give each other space.”
As anyone who has been following the boys’ excellent blog or Twitter feed will know, they have experienced highs and lows as diverse and as frequently changing as their distance from sea level.
“On my first day in Uzbekistan, I was cycling along a five-lane road when a car pulled right out in front of me and I went over the bonnet at 30kmh,” Simon recalls with a grimace.
“I cracked my frame, and smashed my (luckily helmeted) head, and both my knees were swollen. But luckily the passenger of the car took me into his house, which wasn’t far away, and I stayed with them for four days. It worked out in the end; it was actually a really cool experience.”
Highs and lows
So what was the boys’ best experience so far?
“For me, I had a great time in Kyrgyzstan,” Simon recalls. “I was cycling by myself and arrived just before the snow came properly, so all the mountains were covered in snow but the road was still dry, and it was still sunny. I had two or three just absolutely perfect cycling days by myself in beautiful countryside.”
Fearghal’s answer was a little less conventional: “I find that a difficult question. Over 15 months, a lot of it is quite boring, humdrum; cycle, eat, cycle, sleep, repeat. But the points that stick out for me, I thought Machu Picchu was amazing, that was a really special place, Kyrgyzstan was pretty cool – I arrived about three days after Simon, we were cycling independently at the time, so I caught the snow. That was ‘interesting’ from a different point. Crossing Turkmenistan, I got a kick out of that.
“But it’s funny, in expeditions like this it’s about the low points as much as it is about the high points. And oddly, it might sound a bit weird, but I got attacked in Iran. I nearly got knifed by three guys. And while that couldn’t be described as a high point … it was one of the most interesting points. We kind of did this so that we might get ‘attacked by three lads with knives’, as crazy as that sounds.
“I was just cycling into the city of Mashad and three guys passed me on a motorbike. They stopped at a patch of wasteground. I was cycling passed and they started shouting ‘Hey! Hey!’ and trying to flag me down. I thought there was something a bit funny about them. As soon as I didn’t stop they pulled down balaclavas and just ran after me. I’d been cycling for 14 days straight so my legs were just dead, there was no real acceleration there. They caught up with me, dragged me off my bike, and when I protested they pulled out knives and went at me.
“But I was lucky that I was making such a racket a team of workers working on the road heard me, they picked up shovels and pickaxes and started throwing stones at the lads and chased them away.
“But like I say, it’s things like that, that’s the reason we are doing it. There’s no point in doing it if you are worried about stuff like that happening the whole way, it kind of defeats the purpose.”
And their worst points? Yes, you read correctly. Apparently, it gets worse than nearly very dying via car/knife.
“For me, it was after my crash when I left the family and got out on the road, I realised I cracked my frame,” Simon remembers. “My legs were still swollen, I was in pain, I was scared of the traffic, and I was afraid my frame was going to crack before I could reach Toshkent where I may have been able to get a replacement. I thought that was going to be the end. I was worried I wouldn’t get a replacement on time, because I was still only on a one-month visa. I thought I was going to have to fly back home.”
Rock bottom
Again, Fearghal’s answer takes me by surprise: “For me, and this probably isn’t fit for print, but I had the shits for about a month. And that just really got me down, because I couldn’t get any decent food, and every time I did get food, well … you know. So that had me pretty miserable.”
As for the worst drivers and roads on the planet, Fearghal reckons, “Oddly, the motorists in Dublin are probably the worst. With the exception of China maybe – at least there are no missing manhole covers in Dublin. You could be pissing down the road at 50kmh and then suddenly there’s an open sewer,” he states. Simon chimes in, “You cycle past a hole, that if you hadn’t noticed, you could actually fall into – your bike and your trailer. It’s not that bad in Dublin.”
As we review the online map they have now almost bisected, they agree the “easy part” is ahead of them – the relatively nice roads of (albeit harder to find camping space in) Europe, while they both look forward to following the Danube. “Our sponsors Bubble Brothers are wine importers, and they want us to visit some of their producers along the way, so we’ll have to put in the hard work there,” they add.
To date, the boys have raised €20,000 for their chosen charity, Aware, which supports mental health in Ireland. “We chose it because it ties in with what we’re doing. We reckon that cycling is a simple way to exercise in their daily routine, and exercise is really important for a balanced life: healthy body, healthy mind,” they claim.
And they’re not finished yet. For the very last leg of their epic cycle, Fearg and Si are calling on everyone who remembers how to cycle (you never forget; it’s like riding a bike) to get out and join them on Saturday May 15 for the final 25km from Blackrock back to Greystones. In the meantime, get online at www.revolutioncycle.ie and donate!
