Simon Jackson launched the superb Moors One Hundred bikepacking event in North Yorkshire. He guided me around some of his favourite trails on a glorious day of summer heatwave. Simon has a normal job and the usual commitments of raising a family. So he has to work hard to squeeze in bursts of adventure and spending time in the wild places that he loves. I loved the story he told me about setting himself the Strava challenge of cycling every single street in his hometown.

Simon is an evangelist for the North Yorkshire Moors and I could see why. We cycled over open moorland, through forests, and sweeping singletrack. It was a hell of a ride. Best of all, given that it was blazing hot, was that Simon planned our ride via a pub lunch and a return ticket on the famous Goathland steam train.

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Show Notes

• If you enjoy listening to this episode over a cup of coffee and think it might be worth the price, you can buy me a coffee here: www. ko-fi.com/al_humphreys
• Keep up to date with future episodes (and my other adventures, projects and books) with my free monthly newsletter: alastairhumphreys.com/more/subscribe
• Say hello on Twitter and Instagram: @al_humphreys
• A weekend introduction to the joys of bike packing on the glorious North York Moors: the Moors One Hundred.
• Goathland steam train (as seen in Harry Potter).
• Living adventurously is about trying to not be at work.
• Pressure to do interesting stuff when short of time due to work and family.
• If you ponder it too much you're never going to do it.
• Tug between wanting to go on adventures and wanting to be at home with his kids.
• Finding pleasure and beauty and interest close to home: count your blessings.
• Challenge of trying to cycle every street in his own town. Is that not adventure?

Transcript

Below is the transcription of our conversation. It's done by AI so is perhaps a wee bit ropey here and there. If these transcripts prove sufficiently useful then I will make the effort to clean then up and make them better. Do let me know if you think it's worth my time to do that. (Or, better still, do it for me...!). If you'd like to listen as you read along you can do that here:

https://otter.ai/s/F-QH9VhxTKSRqpReaFTZkw

Alastair Humphreys
Right. I'm sitting in a camper van. Very, very sweaty with Simon. Hello, Simon. Hello. Welcome to the podcast. Nice to be here. Are you in? Are you a veteran of lots of podcast?

Simon
No, this is my first podcast experience. Excellent.

Alastair Humphreys
That's how we like it. And what's your day job?

Simon
I have a small garage. Nothing terribly interesting.

Alastair Humphreys
What do you do then to try and fit adventure into your

Simon
normal life, try not to be at work. And that's, that's the key. Especially midweek because they're the best adventures made week. Yeah, they're the best ones they feel and feel a lot more special. Because you should be at work. You know, you shouldn't be sat behind your desk, you shouldn't be doing something tedious and mundane. You know, and other people are, and it feels great not to be doing that.

Alastair Humphreys
Okay, so what then is the secret of not being at work in the middle of the week?

Simon
And having good people around you you can rely on a very understanding wife that complains but doesn't really mind in a heart that you are taking a day off to kind of blow off steam?

Alastair Humphreys
how'd you go get your adventure kicks? Would you like doing

Simon
anything you know, it can be something you've seen on TV, something you've read about something you fancy doing something you read in a in a book, something that fits in with that available time that you've got something that's going to be worthwhile when you don't have a lot of spare time when you're working when you've got a family has to be quality notes. You can we just Well, that was all right. Yeah, there's a pressure there to do something. Interesting. You just gotta try and make the most of it. And if you ponder it too much, never gonna do it.

Alastair Humphreys
Yeah, that's very true. So we've just been out for a day out on a few hours out backpacking around North York tomorrow is that's how we got in touch originally, you run the most 100 is

Simon
that we call it last 100. Yeah,

Alastair Humphreys
yeah. Which is a bike packing

Simon
as a bike talking event that runs on the most hundred miles, hence the name over two days. Pretty much doable for anybody of any level on any bike, very sociable. It's great fun, I really enjoy organise it and everybody's who's done it say the vast majority or whether whether you really did or not, but there seems to be a lot of happy faces.

Alastair Humphreys
So I you you've been showing me around some trails day and I really enjoyed this beat North York was a beautiful place to this is beautiful. It really is. And you're clearly a...