Firstly you will be doing it for yourself. Just promise yourself you are going to do it. If you hit the wall and question why you are doing it, if you are alone you wont have anyone there to talk sense to you, so your gonna need to talk sense to yourself.  Talk to yourself.  I developed a regular conversation with myself on the side of the road, berating myself and asking if I was a quitter.  Sounds harsh and slightly insane, but I got angry and by getting angry I got going. Anger is a great motivator, it really is.

Here is another trick for those really desperate moments when you find it hard to get angry.  Before you leave, when you have a clear mind, write down on a bit of paper in fairly strong language why you are doing it, seal it in an envelope and stash it in your bag.  When you hit rock bottom, and think you want to quit, open the envelope and read what you wrote to yourself at the beginning.  Your reasons wont have changed, only your mood has.  Without a strong reason for yourself, you may not have the motivation to get through it when the going gets tough.

Do it for someone else whom you care about. I wanted to do my ride not only to get myself into a better place, but also because of my mum.  She has been the single most inspirational person in my life and I wanted to do it for her.  She has spent the vast majority of her life in a wheelchair, and never gave up.  Every time I got low, I just thought about her, and it kept me going (and then some).  I would be a a point of despair and all I needed to do was remind myself about mum and the tough moments she must have faced, and all of a sudden I would get a rush and I would be off again with tears streaming down my face laughing and punching the sky.

Tell the world about your ride. Make it impossible for you to not do it, or you will be letting everyone down.  This is the fear of being a “quitter”!!  Originally when I started to plan my ride, I just wanted to do it for me. A quiet affair, a personal journey.  But then I realised the fear of quitting WAS why I wasn’t doing it for any other reason, and I wasn’t telling everyone was because I was afraid of failing, or worse, quitting.  I was afraid I wasn’t going to go through with it. I stopped and thought, “do I really think I will fail? No.  Do I really think I will quit? Maybe.” So I told everyone.  I created the blog, and told all my friends and colleagues about my ride.  Then I started spreading the word.  The more people that knew about it the more motivation to do it, and the more people would know I quit if I gave up.

The biggest fear by far you will have is the fear of failure.  And failure is of course a distinct possibility.  If it was a walk in the park then you wouldn’t be doing it, so the risk of something going wrong is real, as is the risk that you physically, mentally or emotionally wont be able to do it.  These are all valid reasons for not completing your quest.  If you break a leg, or completely exhaust yourself then no one expects you to finish.  But just”quitting because it is hard” is not a valid reason, and that is why you will fear this the most.  You will feel like quitting on more than one occasion, the secret is to be well stocked with motivation.  You will remember you are doing it for yourself, and berate yourself back onto the bike.  You will remember you are doing it for people you care about, and this will raise your spirits.  You will be doing it for a charity and all the great things they will be able to do with the funds, and you will be doing it so you can hold your head up high with your peers, including those who already think you will probably quit, and ultimately you will be doing it so you can get to the end and say,

“I just rode the length of New Zealand, on a bike, and I didn’t quit”.  Having the right to say that is a fantastic motivator, and is a damn crazy awesome feeling.

It’s the Internet stupid!  Today it is not hard to be connected on the go through the use of an internet enabled mobile phone ,and one of these will keep you sane.  On my trip I found it very lonely, and often stopped on the side of the road feeling down and out after 4 hours of riding over hills wondering if I would ever make it to my destination.  I would pull out my phone and check for messages from people online and whenever I got one from one of my supporters out there, it would really pick my spirits up and I would off again with new bounce.  I communicated with people through my blog, using twitter, Facebook, YouTube and various photo sharing sites.  Here is a run down on how you can easily setup and use each of these to keep everyone informed and gain more supporters, both online and in the real world.

A blog.

Get a blog.  It is really easy to do and quick to set up and this will be your platform for communicating with the world.  You can set up a free blog online at www.wordpress.com, www.tumblr.com, www.blogger.com and through a number of other very easy to use online services.  I used WordPress.  You will be able to customise the look and feel to your liking.  Your blog will be your website that people will go to to find out all about your adventure, and should have details on why you are doing it, info on how people can help/donate, and lots and lots of posts from you about what you are doing, where you have been and what you are experiencing AS YOU GO.  I would write a full run down on my trip roughly once a week, and each day would post a quick update letting people know where I was and where I was going.  This made it real, relevant and current to all the people who are following your progress.  Once you have the blog the next step is to let people know it is there.

Social networking (Twitter, Facebook).

The easiest way to make people aware of your trip is to use all of your existing contacts, friends and family, to spread the word.  You can use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to help you here.  Before you go, start updating your status on Twitter and Facebook to let people know you are about to go on a fantastic adventure, and give a link out to your blog for more info.  Then when you are underway, update your status as you go, as frequent as you like.  I primarily used Twitter to update people on the go as it is more of a “now” thing.  On my rest breaks I would tweet from my phone where I was, what I was doing or any interesting observations from my ride.  Then the cool thing was that within minutes I got replies back from people following my progress.  People love the fact that you can be on a bike or pogo stick in the middle of nowhere and be sharing the experience with others.  It is relatively easy to send photos from your phone through Twitter and Facebook also, and this is a fabulous way to let people live vicariously through you and your adventure.

YouTube.

As I went I took a small portable video camera, a Flip MinoHD.  These are ultra light and compact and let you film stuff as you go, that you can later plug into a computer and upload to video sharing sites like YouTube or Vimeo.  I edited mine as I went on a laptop allowing me to add music and nice cuts and transitions.  Unfortunately this meant having to carry an extra 4kg of computer with me but it was well worth it.  Every week I posted up a video of my progress and the feedback I got was awesome.

On YouTube, see the 'Embed' field on the right. Just copy and paste the code into your blog post.

Video is also a great way to virally spread awareness of your journey through the Internet and it is much more entertaining and novel than a regular blog post.  When you put up a new video, use Twitter and Facebook to send a status message with a link to the video.

If you are posting videos to YouTube, be sure to embed them into your blog also.  From your YouTube account just follow the ‘embed’ instructions which will give you some code to cut and paste into your blog post, and viola.

I edited all my video on my laptop, my MacBook, using iMovie which has to be one of the easiest video editing programs I have ever used.  If you are not familiar with video editing and want to do video updates as you go, then I strongly suggest taking a Mac and using iMovie.  It will make it so much easier.

Photo sharing.

There are of course photo sharing sites like Flickr and Picasa but I just used quick and easy pic.im and twitpic.com to send photos from my mobile phone as I went, and again automatically tweeted links to these through Twitter.  It gave people a near instantaneous snapshot of where you are and what you can see.

Google Maps.

A great way to show where you have been and where you are going is to put some maps into your site.  Google maps is really easy to embed into a blog post, like I did, to show a daily route.  Again just look for the “embed” link and follow the instructions.

Email.

Send out emails to everyone in your address book.  This is probably the only time you are going to get away with a mail bomb to all you know  Write a good email detailing what you are doing and invite all your friends to get in behind you, by visiting your blog, watching videos, following you on Twitter and so on.  Then ask them to tell all their friends.  When you are one week into the trip, send another one letting them know you are on your way.

Take a good phone.

To keep connected you will need a good internet enabled phone, and one preferably that can run downloaded applications like a good Twitter client, so you are not having to wrestle with the mini web browser built in to the phone.  I took my iPhone with me and it was the near perfect device.  I could take photos and send them instantaneously through to Twitter.  I could surf the web, send emails and play games when I was bored in the evening.

I also took a laptop.  It let me do more intensive things like write long blog posts and edit video and photos without needing to visit an Internet cafe.  You can get away with doing all of the above by using Internet cafes, but these may be few and far between in some parts, and you will have some problems editing video as you won’t likely have access to a good video editing program.

Pester the media.

Good media coverage is invaluable but it is hard to wrangle it.  The only tip I can give here is to email and phone every newspaper, current affairs/news TV show, radio station, blog site you can and ask others to do the same.  The media will start of a little sceptical, and they wont cover your trip on day one.  They will want to know you are serious and will actually get to the end so don’t get disheartened.  The further you go the more likely you will get more coverage.  Hit the local, regional newspapers and radio stations a few days ahead of when you will be arriving so they have plenty of time to arrange a photographer or a slot on the radio breakfast show.  Now I found this all pretty hard going.  I would spend my evenings writing emails and making phone calls and when you are talking to media after slogging your guts out on a bike all day it is a struggle to sound upbeat and enthusiastic.  If you can offload all the media wrangling off to someone else to do.  This way you can focus on your goal.  I am a sadist, and wanted to see if I could do it all myself, but I can tell you this, it is no picnic.  In the end I got some fantastic help from someone in the PR game which ended up in some really awesome coverage.

Make it easy for people to donate.

There are great ways to let people to donate to your cause easily.  You have the traditional can of coins to collect as you go but this can get kinda heavy on a bike.  Talk to a lot of people and tell them what you are doing.  People will be more than happy to buy you lunch, or give you a fiver after a quick chat.  It is a good idea to get a t-shirt or a sign made up that makes it clear to passers by that you are doing it all for charity.  I just walked up to people and talked to them, purely out of loneliness, but once I started getting media exposure people started coming up to me.  Make it easy for people to identify you.  I wore a bright red jacket in all the newspaper articles and on TV and then wore it every day.  This helped make me recognisable.  I also have a really big moustache so that probably helped too

Sign up with a site like www.givealittle.co.nz, where they enable people to donate money to your cause easy and online with either a voucher or a credit card.  e-commerce for your fundraiser!  They can also be your blog to and let you post up frequent updates about your adventure that informs all your Givealittle supporters automatically.  They also have a cool widget that you can embed into your site that gives the current total raised so far.

Lastly give out a postal address or even a bank account number so people can send you money in other ways.  Corporate sponsors will want to be able to do this.

So in conclusion, if you can do all of the above then you will get some pretty good online support and following, but it all depends on what you have the appetite for.  I had a lot of free time in the evenings so was quite happy to tap away writing blog posts and chatting to people online.  You might prefer to sleep  I knew it was all working when my wife stopped ringing me every day.  After a few days of silence I had to ring her to make sure everything was okay.  ”Yeah we are all good.  I didn’t bother ringing as I just read your blog, scanned your tweets, looked at your photos and checked out your map for tomorrow.  I can see you are still alive.”

Next will be the final post in this series – getting to the end, where I will wrap it all up explaining how to make sure you get to the finish line.

• Water – This is pretty important so I put it first.  Take 2-3 litres with you each day.  As I was cycling 4-6 hours a day, in the sun I would go through a lot of water very quickly so I carried 3 litres with me.
• Food – Being on the road can be very expensive and you cant expect to dine out every day for breakfast lunch and dinner.  You will need to take your daily supplies with you or face going broke. The key is to take only enough supplies for today+1, and restock as you arrive at your destination each day.  That way your will eat dinner and breakfast before moving on so that’s two meals you wont have to carry.  I would carry a dozen muesli bars and some tinned meals with me, that could be eaten out of the can or heated up.  Each day when I got near my destination I would look to get some more exciting foods for dinner and breakfast but it is near impossible to shop for food to make a decent meal for one.  You will probably end up carrying bread, cheese and other stuff in your bags over a few days.  It is worth taking a bit of extra weight with food as your body is you engine, you have to keep it well fuelled.  Tinned stuff like tuna and baked beans are good for protein and very convenient.  Keep a couple of tins at the bottom of your bag, as you WILL get stuck at some point and need these for emergency nourishment.  Stuff some muesli bars somewhere handy for on the go refuelling.
• Clothes – Have the best layers for the worst conditions.  I took far too many clothes to start off with but there is nothing like experiencing the actual conditions to determine what you will need.  Once I shed all the extra items I didn’t need I settled on the following:
  Bike shorts (2) – The built in padding for your arse is essential.  I took a second pair so I could alternate them, letting them rest and breath
  Light and fast drying trousers with big pockets – Long trousers keep he sun off your legs and give you plenty of pockets for stuffing things into.  I wore these over the top of my bike shorts and they were pretty comfortable.  On hot days I took off the trousers, but more often than not I just had warmer legs.  When it rained they helped keep my legs less wet and warmer.
  Thermal base layer – Icebreaker thermals! Essential essential essential. I wore my Icebreakers every day, sometimes as my only layer on top.  Icebreaker merino is magic.  It keeps you warm and cool and does not smell even after a week of wear.
  Merino socks (2 pairs)- Warm and cool and don’t smell (too much).  You will want to keep your extremities warm and your feel nice and comfy.
  Rain jacket –  This will be your saviour, especially if you are planning to ride through every kind of weather like I did.  I picked up a 2XU cycling jacket, which unfortunately I would NOT recommend.  The jacket despite being water proof, kept the wind off, but not the rain out. Inevitably I got drenched, but fortunately with my other layers beneath I kept warm.  On the second day of wearing the 2XU jacket, some of the stitching started coming undone. For a $300 jacket, I thought the workmanship was poor and all it really did was keep the wind off.  You can will find a better wind-jacket for a quarter of the price.  Also when I contacted 2XU to draw their attention to the problem I was having with the jacket, they denied their was any problem with their apparel and so the problem must have been of my own doing.  I would steer clear of 2XU as their after sales support does not exist and it appears to be a hollow overpriced brand.  Boo to you 2XU!
  A good breathable cycling shirt – On hot days you will wear only this on top, and on cold days you will layer this with your base layer and wind jacket.  I started out with a few changes of shirt but in the end I only wore one, so posted the others home.
  High visibility vest – You will want this on anytime you think visibility may be low.  Hell, just wear it all the time.  Be safe, be seen.  These also add wind protection too.
  Warm head wear and gloves –  You will want these on the coldest of cold days, and when you get off the bike for evenings and early mornings.  I found that I didn’t usually need gloves on the bike and after 20 minutes of pedalling my blood was flowing nice and warm to my hands.  I had both Icebreaker gloves and hat and can highly recommend both.
  Warm jumper – You will need something warm and handy for when you stop, so you don’t get too cold.  If you cool down too fast it will be hard to get going again.  You will wear this in the evenings too so take something tidy and smart so you look like a regular human.
  Clean casual wear so you don’t stink in public – You will want to integrate into society as you go, perhaps going out for a meal or even just to stock up on supplies.  If you want to actually talk to people, you will need to be relatively presentable.  I took a couple of changes of “civvies” so I was somewhat approachable .  You are fund-raising remember, so will be wanting to talk to as many people as possible.  Make it a pleasant experience for them
• Tools and spares – You will need some bits and pieces to ensure that you keep going should something go wrong with your gear.  You will want the right tools to be able to maintain all the nuts, bolts and screws that hold your ride together. If possible, you need to be able to take everything apart and put it back together with only the tools you take.  You can guarentee that the screw you dont have the right allan key for will be the one that comes undone. Here is a run down on what I took:
  Spanner – this was annoying as there were only a couple of things on my bike that required the torque of a spanner and it was heavy.  However, you have to cover off all your bases.  I should have found the smallest spanner I could find but resorted to taking one out of the shed at home.
  Small set of multi-tools, allan keys, screwdriver etc – These are brilliant and have all the sizes of allan keys and screwdrivers you are likely to need for a bike.
  Swiss army style pocket knife or Leatherman. – If you forget a tool, this will be probably what you will fall back on to cut, screw or bend something.
  Bike specific stuff…
  Bike pump – Ahh yeah.  It’s hard to pump up a tube with your mouth.
  Spare tubes – I took three, as you may not be passing a bike shop very often.
  Puncture kit - for when you don’t pass a bike shop very often and need to patch up one of your spent spares.
  Chain oil, spare chain links
  Cable ties – Essential.  These are handy for securing all sorts of bits and pieces to your bike.
• Plastic bags – for keeping stuff dry and seperating smelly things from things you don’t want to be smelly.
• Personal locator beacon – This was my wife’s idea, but probably a good one.  Worst case scenario you fall into a ravine.  You break both legs.  You are not visible from the road and no one can hear you scream.  Night is falling and hungry Keas are circling.  With one of these puppies at hand all it takes is a simple push of the big red button on the front and it will send out your co-ordinates to rescue services and you will be being winched by helicopter out of the ravine in no time.  These things add a bit of weight as they appear to be all battery, but they will keep your partner sleeping at nights.
• Cameras – Photo and video is essential.  You will not only want something to look back on 10 years after, but this is a great way to get other people engaged. Share the sights and sounds with the world as you travel.  I took a Flip MinoHD for video which was super compact and convenient.  My iPhone was also my camera. I uploaded photos and video on a regular basis so everyone could see I was really doing it, and could see what I could see.  People will live vicariously through your adventure, so make it as rich an experience as possible.  Here is a post I wrote before my ride about all the tech gadgets I took.
• Laptop – This was essential for me, but is really a luxury.  I used it to edit all my video as I went and posted regular videos to YouTube.  I wrote blog posts in the evenings and researched my daily routes online.  It was my connection with the rest of the world online.  I agonised about taking my laptop before I left as it and all its associated bits and pieces probably added 4kg to my overall weight, but it was worth it as it let me keep everyone else in touch with my progress.  I will cover keeping in touch with the world as you go in the next post.
• Maps and a guide book - Always carry paper maps and information as these never run out of batteries.  I took a couple of Pedlars Paradise NZ cycling guide books with me.  These are fantastic books with maps, elevation charts and information on accommodation and supply points.  These only cover New Zealand but I am sure there are similar books for every cycle friendly part of the globe.
• Sleeping bag – To sleep in.

Your shopping list may be a little different.  If you take too much, you can, as I did, post the non-essential stuff home and lighten up your load.  It is easier to post it than to realise you don’t have it in the middle of Nangatokatoka on a Sunday night.  If you have a support crew then they can carry more gear, and you don’t need to be so anal about weight.  If you are carrying all your gear like I did, here is a tip. Some of the weight you will carry will be stuff you don’t need every day.  If you know where you will be in five days box up a lot of the stuff you can do without for a few days and post it to yourself further up the line. By doing this you will save a lot of effort compared to lugging it all around especially if you have a few days of hills on a bike ahead. You will have to be sure the postal service beats you there though

Next post, keeping everyone informed.

When to do it. Super super important as this will determine pretty much everything else like what you will take, how far you will travel each day and your options for accommodation.  When I looked at how the hell I was going to achieve my bike ride from Stewart Island to Cape Reinga, I first set myself some timeframes.  It was important to have plenty of time to prepare and plan, there is no point in taking any shortcuts here. I wanted to do the ride before the end of 2009 so this gave me a year to do it. Next I worked out the best times of the year  to spend weeks on a bike. My choices were between Autumn or Spring. Winter would be too cold, and Summer too hot.  Going in Autumn gave me 5 months to prepare, Spring 9-10 months.

The weather can play a huge part in your trip.  On a bike, the rain and wind will affect you considerably. A headwind or a tailwind can make a big impact on your ride.  I studied the weather for that time of year and sourced some long range forecasts which gave me an indication of when I should go, and which route I should take.  Long range forecasts are pretty good for general predictions, like will it be a wet week or a dry one.  They won’t tell you the wind direction and temperature of Wednesday the 12th of May, but it will give you a good guesstimate.  With weather you need to be prepared to either change routes/plans as you go or be prepared to deal with bad weather as you go.  This will affect the gear you take and how you prepare physically.

Taking into account I picked Autumn, as I would be cycling north and the winds should be turning into a southerly tailwind. The weather looked like I would have extended periods of clear skies, and when it was wet it hopefully wouldn’t be too cold.  Heading north, I would be leaving the colder south behind me. Autumn was also a better option as it was sooner, so I had less chance to put the whole thing off. After a quick look at what I needed to do to get ready,  I figured it was very achievable to get ready in 5 months, and should there be any hitches, then I would have Spring as my fallback. So, in order to get ready, I would need to organise all my gear, and get in shape.

How to do it. I started riding, which is a good start especially when you haven’t been on a bike for close to 20 years.  I started out slow, then increased the frequency of my rides riding every couple of days.  I picked a short but challenging route that had a lot of steep hills and no flats.  I figured that hills would be one of the toughest parts of my ride and something I would really struggle with.  So I focused solely on the ups and downs until I was good at it.  Well when I say good I mean I no longer vomited going uphill.

I rode for half an hour to an hour.  I didn’t focus on long distances, as if I couldn’t deal with hilly terrain then there was not much hope of me completing the ride. This concerned most of my friends and family, who would see me coming back from a 40 minute ride panting and exhausted and wondered how I would manage with six hours riding each day. Luckily the vast majority of the route up New Zealand was nothing like my training route and so after two months of busting a gut on hills I went on my first long flat ride, and it was a breeze. It was now looking like I could do both hills and distance.  I would not know if I could do it every day for two months until I was actually on the ride.

I broke down my training into small achievable milestones, and as I achieved each one I then pushed myself a little harder.  So if I rode my training run in 40 minutes.  I would set out to do it in 38 and I would add a few more kilometres to the route.  I measured my times and distances on each ride and looked for improvement.  As long as I was riding faster and longer, and feeling better at the end then I was making progress.

Setting out some milestones on your journey as you go will help you keep on track and reduce the risk of failure.  Planning a daily schedule is important to know where you will start and end each day, especially important if your range is 80km a day, and the distance between two towns on a particular part of your route is 160km, with nowhere to stop in-between.  That could be problematic, so best to figure this out well in advance and come up with an alternate route, or take a tent.  Knowing where you should be each day reduces the risk of failure, as it gives you something to measure yourself against to see if you are falling behind.  If you do fall behind then you need to be able to adjust your plan to get back on schedule.  It also helps with planning replenishment stops for supplies like food and water, inner tubes, and other important things like Internet access and hot pools.  One of the most time consuming parts of my planning was planning where I was going to get to each day of my journey and research the accommodation options for each stop.  And so before I left I had planned a number of possible routes, depending on weather.  Then as I rode and altered my route to suit, I knew I had options for places to stay wherever I went.  I also knew where all the bike shops were so I could replace bike spares.

What you will need to do it. I obviously needed a bike, and researched the types of bikes and selected a bike that would be robust enough to get me to the end.  I didn’t pick a fast bike, as someone once told me it was not a race.  I just had to get to the end.  Instead I went for solid, reliable workhorse that was comfortable.  I was going to spend a long time in the saddle so I also wanted comfort over speed.

One great way to reduce risk is to take a support crew. I didn’t as for me a very important part of the trip was to do it unassisted and alone.  This meant I had to take less gear and carry everything on the bike.  The gear you take will make a huge difference to your risk profile of the trip. Planning the right clothing will be one of the most important planning decisions you will make.  If you have a support crew you can be a bit more relaxed about space and weight.  When you go solo you will weight everything.  My next post is all about gear so I will cover this all off then.

So once I knew when to go, knew if I could actually ride a bike, had figured out what to take and had planned all my routes, I put all this together and created my final master plan.  Then I refined it over and over again, triple checking everything and looking for ways to improve it. The more I checked and refined my plan, the more risk I removed. Review your plan with a friend, someone with a fresh set of eyes.  They might pick up on some flaws that you might not see, like the fact you are crossing an alpine pass, probably in the snow, and you don’t have any suitable snow gear or a tent.  Stuff like that.

Having a compreghensive plan let me focus on other things in the saddle each day, like how pretty the mountains were and how sore my arse was.  I just executed the plan, and enjoyed the ride.

Next I will cover the gear I took to reduce the risk even further.

If someone wanted to swim, pogo, rollerskate, or ride a bike their way on a journey of a few thousand kms, what advice would I give them?  Well I have broken it down into in a series of posts where I will cover:

• The idea – What exactly are you going to almost kill yourself doing.
• Planning – How to make sure you don’t actually kill yourself.  It is all about planning, planning and more planning baby (then a bit more planning thrown in for good measure).
• What to take – The essential items for survival and sanity.  I will review what I took on my ride and why.
• Keeping everyone informed – Letting people know your still alive, and moving. How do you raise awareness of your adventure and at the same time let your wife/husband/parents sleep at night and keep everyone in the loop?
• Getting to the end – How to accomplish your goal (or die trying).  What I learnt “on the job” that got me through to the very end.

The idea.

You could argue that this is the most important step.  Without the idea you will be still doing your 9-5 job and no one will want to donate money for you to do that.  So the idea needs to be suitably interesting and hard.  It is one thing to pick something you are really good at and can do very well in moderation, but setting out to walk to work every day for a week may not be the sort of thing that will inspire people to get in behind your cause, unless of course you live 50km from your office, and it is snowing.  The idea needs to be achievable, measurable, inspirational, and most importantly, really really hard for you to do.  Think of why you want to do it too. For me, I was inspired by my mother who has spent the majority of her life (and all of mine) in a wheelchair.  I wanted to do something on wheels that was also a tribute to her and all the tough times she must have faced and overcome. You may have your own reasons with special meaning and it is these sorts of connections that will keep you going later on when you are exhausted and hit rock bottom.

Achievable.  To be achievable, you need to know it is something you can more than likely succeed at.  No one wants to set out on an adventure that they know deep inside is doomed right from the start, but at the same time don’t expect to break 12 Olympic records either, because that is probably impossible.  Having said that, impossible is one of those funny words that people tend to misuse. Originally when I was thinking about my ride, I chose it because I thought is was impossible for me to do.  Then I realised that actually I could do it therefor it wasn’t impossible, it was just highly improbable.  Impossible and improbable are two very different things so don’t confuse them.  Leave that up to everyone else to do and let them be surprised when they realise you are doing what they think is impossible.

Measurable.  Next, to be measurable your goal needs to be something that others can see and measure your progress on. When you set out, people will pretty much be in one of two camps; those who think you can do it and those who think you will fail.  As you go they need to be able to validate their position, or be proven wrong. I cycled from one end of New Zealand to the other, a route that has a distance of 2,266km, wrapped up in a timeframe of 7 weeks. I had a mix of people who thought I could do it, but a large number of people who thought I would fail miserably. I was measuring my ride every day with the distance I travelled and how many days I had been on the bike. The further I went the more I validated those who believed me, and made it more compelling for those who thought I would fail to keep following my progress.  I called these “public” metrics.

Public metrics are those that are easily verified by their very own nature.  For example, by crossing geography you have the benefit of it being self validating.  When you were at A and then get to B, it is obvious that you are succeeding.When you report you just rode 100km in a day and you are now in Dunedin, this is easily understood and realised by others.  It is more real to them than if you say, set a goal to NOT eat 12 donuts a day.  This sort of metric is not as real to others as they can’t easily validate it. In order to prove it you would need to go to great lengths to show people you are actually achieving your mission.  So that metric is private.  By doing it, only you really know it to be so.  Each day I cycled from one place to the other, it was immediately evident to others that I was on the road, literally, to achieving my goal.  It was real.  At the same time I was also measuring myself on my fitness and how much weight I lost, and these were “private” metrics.  I shared them with the world but they were not as dynamic and really only I could easily realise them on a regular basis.

Inspirational.  Do something that has a bit of “crazy” in it.  This could be anything, and will be different for different people.  But the key is to pick something that people don’t normally do, and that others would not image is possible of YOU.  If you are a complete bike nut, and occasionally enter bike races and sometimes win then you wouldn’t choose to just ride the length of NZ as I did. Instead you would choose to ride NZ in under a week, naked.  That would have more “crazy”.  I was overweight and unfit and no one would have ever imagined I would ride a bike to the shop let alone from one end of the country to the other.

To inspire others, but more importantly yourself, you will need to break through some barriers that would normally stop you.  These barriers could be age, fitness, mental state, geography, culture … anything. Anything that would stop you when it probably shouldn’t. But it also needs to be …

…really really hard.  If it was easy then everyone will think “So what, I can do that”.  You need to challenge yourself otherwise you wont do it.  That may sound stupid, but if you knew you could really do it and it would be easy, you wouldn’t do it.  One of the big reasons why you are embarking on your adventure is to prove to yourself that you can do it.  Oh and to prove wrong all those bastards who think you will fail.

So have you got your idea?

In the next few posts I will cover planning, what to take, how to keeping everyone informed and how to make sure you get to the end.  I will use my bike ride as the example, but I am sure it will apply to what ever you choose to do on your adventure.

While in Whangarei I was reunited for the second time on my trip, with my wife Mel and for a couple of days and so I had a support crew of one. Apparently having a support crew means waving farewell to Mel in the morning while she buggers off to a cafe somewhere for the day. The ride between Whangarei and Kawakawa went quick, it was mostly uphill but I had an energy inside me, an excitement. I don’t know if it was being so close to the end that excited me more or being so close to my bed in Kerikeri, a pit stop on the way to the end. Kawakawa is only a stones throw from my home and so when I got there, Mel drove me home, to my home and my bed.

Being home was strange. It was another false finish of sorts. Getting to Auckland was like a false finish. A lot of people thought Auckland was the end when I got there. Being back in Kerikeri and at home, it was like I had never left, except the lawns were now six feet high. The kids were still away in Auckland staying with the grandparents, so it was just Mel and I, which was good, as if everything was back to complete normality, I might have freaked out completely. As it was I got to wear OTHER clothes and eat food from my fridge and sleeping in my bed was heaven. Being on the road and cycling all day, you are never usually picky about where you sleep. As long as the surface is flat and somewhat soft, you don’t care. But being in my own bed, for one night I really really cared, and I slept so well.

The next day Mel dropped me back to Kawakawa while she did her support crew-ing somewhere, and I resumed my journey back into Kerikeri and rode into town and that afternoon caught up with some friends and in general just hung out. I knew there was a danger in being in Kerikeri for too long. It might become too easy to stay at home in my own bed. When I originally planned the trip, one of the reasons to start from the bottom was due to the relatively close proximity of Kerikeri to Cape Reinga. Only three days ride, and if I started at the top by the time I reached Kerikeri, I would be three days in and feeling sore, tired and probably in shock. Starting at the bottom, I would still be forty days ride away from home so the only choice would be to keep going. So now being towards the end of my ride, the risk of being mentally and emotionally ready to quit when I reached home was minimal, but still, before I became too comfortable I again got on my bike and rode out of town. I had somewhere to be.

I was doing shorter rides of around 60km each day now, to try and linger a bit longer and enjoy the last few days. I was still getting faster and hit Mangonui before lunch and so enjoyed the afternoon feasting at the Mangonu fish and chip shop, which sits out over the water, and just chilling out thinking about things. Mangonui is one of my favourite spots. Quiet and beautiful. The town is on the harbour and has blissful views across the water. My accommodation was no exception, with large windows that let the sunlight on the harbour flow right in to the room. I relaxed enjoying the smell of salt air. In the morning I met some more people who had seen me in the paper and on TV, I was feeling like a bit of celebrity. It is great talking to people every day about the ride and hearing about all the impossible things they want to do, riding the country is on so many peoples lists.

The next day I moved on up to Houhora, one of the last towns before you run out of land running north. As I went, it seemed I was passing the last of everything. The last gas, the last hotel, the last pub and in general the last of every kind of convenience signalled by a big sign out front stating “Last “. I was good, I had all I needed to get to the top in two days, but I could not help starting to feel alone. With every kilometre I went north I was becoming acutely aware of how little geography was left. I could see the east coast as I travelled up north and the further I went, the closer both coasts came to me and at points could see both from the saddle of my bike. I was heading up the countries largest cul-de-sac, there really was no other exit.

On the penultimate day I made it to Waitiki Landing, only 20km till the top. I wanted to spend the Friday night close to the tip, so Mel and the kids could come up in the evening and spend the last night with me, and join me at the finish line. It was the first time we were all together as a family in almost seven weeks. We had a blast, despite the accommodation being one of the worst places I had stayed at my whole trip. Funny things happen when you get to the fringes of civilisation, usually you meet the most friendly people. However it would seem that the reverse is true when you head north. For our stay we were made to feel like we were a burden and a nuisance, and generally ignored. The facilities were non-existent and the staff were more interested in sitting out the front smoking all day. I have raved about all the great places I have stayed and not mentioned the rest, but this place was by far the worst I had been to, and as usual it was the people that made the difference. This bummed me out a little, as I was looking forward to having a night of fun with my family, instead we were hosted by a group of bad mannered, disinterested people. We had fun anyway, being together for the first time in so long far outweighed the bad mojo from a terrible nights stay. We laughed and played, much to the displeasure of all our hosts.

The next day was the last. The day was overcast, ironically after a week of perfect weather, the day I get to the end it was less than perfect. I didn’t really see it that way. Going to the cape for me is a spiritual experience. I can’t explain exactly why or what, it just is special to be able to stand at the very tip of our country and look north to the rest of the world, from the bottom of the world. I love visiting. And the cape has played a special role in Mel’s and my relationship. When we first met, young kids in love, we visited the cape, it was our first road trip together, and it was on that trip I decided all those years back to travel the world with Mel, leaving all of my life behind to discover a new one, and never looked back. The next time I visited the cape was just after last New Years, this time with Mel and the kids, some nine years since the last time, and this time I decided to do this cycle, to the complete horror of Mel. Now, on this visit, I was finishing my journey, almost six months to the day since I decided to embark on it. Since then I again become a different person in many ways physically and emotionally.

I set off on the rough unsealed road from Waitiki Landing to the end. I had forgotten how hilly it was heading up to the lighthouse, but with only 20km I would be there in just over an hour on the hills. I stopped frequently just to look around and soak it all in. When I started right back at the very beginning, each kilometre seemed insignificant compared to how far I had left to go. A couple of days ago it was 100km to go then suddenly I was only 10km, 7km, 5km, then 2km from the end. What would it be like to get there, the end? 1km to go. I was starting to feel very very weird. Only one hill separated me from the end, the very end this time. I would not be getting on the bike tomorrow and riding. I climbed it slowly then there it was, the finish line, I could see it. With both coasts of New Zealand flanking me, I rolled over the last stretch of road until the road ran out. Waiting for me on the kerb was Mel and the kids with pictures and signs the kids made. They were excited, they were going to get their daddy back. This was the end of the road, but not the end of the ride. Not just yet. I kissed my two girls and promised them I would be back soon, as there was one thing left to do. From the road to the lighthouse, right on the tip of the peninsular, was a walking track of about 400 meters. At the end of that was the real end, the lighthouse then the cliff that dropped down to the sea. As usual there was a constant stream of tourists visiting the lighthouse and I smiled and greeted every one as I rolled past. To some of them it seemed odd to be riding a bike down to the lighthouse.

Then finally 300 meters, 200, 100, 10 and then none. I was there. I had just cycled from as far south as I could go, right up to here, the northern most point I could cycle to, and it… felt… fantastic. I must have had a grin beaming from ear to ear, I just couldn’t stop smiling. Do you know the feeling where your cheeks feel like they are in permanent spasm? I got off the bike, and I sat on a small stone wall on the tip of the cliff looking out north, I closed my eyes and emptied my mind letting the wind and the waves filled my head. This was it, I couldn’t believe it. When I was last here I was not sure I would be back by bike. I thought I could do it, and I did. YES! I can’t actually describe what I felt. It was like a thousand thoughts, and a mixture of emotions all at once. It was like how I felt at my wedding, mixed with the feeling you had as a kid on your last day of school before the summer holidays, blended in with the feeling you get when you step out of a sauna, with a bit of saying good bye to a loved on at the airport and then, on top of that, imagine you have just heard one of the funniest jokes ever. It was all that mixed up and then more. All I can say is do it. Find it. It is one of the best feelings you can ever have.

I had done what I needed to to at the lighthouse. I could have stayed there for hours. I rode back up to the road and the waiting car. I gave my bike a well deserved rest and we drove slowly back to home. Again being in a car felt like such a weird experience. We went via the giant sand dunes by the cape, for some rolling and sliding down them for some family fun. Next to the dunes is a small stream that runs all the way out to the beach. Once we had our fill of the sand dunes, almost literally as our clothes hair and car were full of sand, I got into the dirvers seat of the car and sat behind the week and looked down the stream. I knew it lead to Ninety Mile Beach, and the beach was drivable down the coast assuming it wasn’t high tide. I had never driven on the beach for fear of getting stuck and the stream heading out looked like it could hold a few ruts that our mere station wagon would be no match for. “wanna go back down the beach?” I asked Mel. “Ahhhh, suuure” she hesitantly replied. “Okay then” and we were off. Hell what was the worst that could happen? We roared through the stream, with the water flowing over the bonnet and windscreen. The kids couldn’t believe it, what had happened to dad? First he disappeared on a bike for weeks and now he was driving down rivers. They were having a ball. Each small rapid we approached we all in unison went “Woooooooooaaaaaaah wheeehheeee” as we splashed through the water and onwards down the stream, over the ruts and banks. Then finally on the beach we were heading south with the waves on our right, the dunes on our left and the bike on the back. Crashing through small streams and taking the top of small dunes. It was an adventure, the first of many more to come.

Since then a week has gone by. Before I wrapped up my blogging on this fantastic adventure, I wanted to see what would be different in the week following my ride. Would it be like I never left, would I think about things differently? This is something that people always wanted to know as I went, was the trip changing me? Was I now a different person?

The day after I got home I went for a ride on my old training route. I had a few scores to settle with a couple of hills. I geared up, started my stopwatch and rode a route I hadn’t travelled for two months. It was funny, with each hill I came to on my old training route, and there are a few, I had the exact same feeling of apprehension as I approached the hills as I did when I first got on the bike all those months ago. What if I couldn’t ride up these hills again? My mind was being completely irrational of course. I rocketed up the first one, then the second then the third, then before I knew it I was almost home and facing Frank. Frank was strangely quiet, but still my legs felt like they were weakening, but I powered up and over and then I was home. I checked my time. I had shaved, no, hacked off a whole quarter of the time from my last ride on the route before I left. A whole quarter. I could feel Frank fading away. Sulking off to torment some other rider somewhere else. I was not going to put up with his shit anymore.

I have been playing at home dad with the kids for the last week. We have been on trips into town, puddle hopping, gardening and spring/autumn cleaning the house. It is hard not doing anything, and I have found that I am setting goals on everything I do and then take some reward when I do them, even if it is just doing the washing. I guess my mind is used to setting goals each day and then achieving them now. I wonder if this will wear off? I hope not because it feels good. I have pep in my step. I have been setting some new long term goals too. Some big and scary and some not so hard, but I have learnt that without a goal you have no reason to keep pushing you forward. When the goal is too big and too hard, then you just break it down into small achievable chunks. When I began thinking about riding the length of the country I started small. First, can I ride a bike. Yes, well can I ride a bike up hills? Can I do that without vomiting on every hill? Can I then ride for half a day non-stop? A whole day? Then finally can I ride a whole day, with gear on the back, and get up the next day and do it all again? As soon as I could do that then riding the length of the country was just repeating the same smaller goal over and over and over again until I got to the end. And that was it. If I had set out on day one with the expectation that I could just jump on a bike and go, I would have failed. Instead I filled my days with small achievable goals, that all add up to a greater goal. A life full of goals is a full life.

And so what else has changed? I don’t know. A lot, but I can’t put my finger on it. I am developing a dislike for procrastination, which is interesting. I am less self conscious about some things. I have less patience for time wasters. And probably a hundred other things. The journey was gradual and I have learnt a lot along the way. There was no bolt of lightning moments, but I know I am fundamentally changed as a result of my ride.

Would I do it again? you bet. I have missed getting up and riding everyday this last week. Will I do it again? No, not for a while anyway. I have some new challenges lined up. Some other things that are on my “impossible” list. I now want to see how may other impossible things I can do. How about you?

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