How to cycle from Alaska to Argentina

{"text":[[{"start":5.7,"text":"I’m sitting outside a supermarket in an unloved town on the California coast, minding my own business with my nose in a book. My partner and a cycling pal are in the shop, bulk-buying lentils. Beside me, three bikes are leaning against the wall."}],[{"start":21.6,"text":"A kindly looking man wearing wraparound shades approaches and asks: “Where are you biking to?”"}],[{"start":27.700000000000003,"text":"I peek up from behind my novel, conjuring a weary smile. “Argentina,” I reply, in a tone that I hope intimates that yes, I’m aware that what I’ve said is insane, but that no, I’m not humblebragging, I truly will not be taking further questions."}],[{"start":44.35,"text":"“ARGENTINA?!” the man bellows, causing a number of patrons to look up from their trolleys. “Wow!” he continues. “Are you writing a book about it?”"}],[{"start":53.650000000000006,"text":"Sigh. You see, it’s not that I don’t want to meet people. It’s just that I don’t want them to ask me the book question."}],[{"start":60.85000000000001,"text":"For nearly two years, from May 2022 to April 2024, I rode my bicycle from Alaska to Argentina with my partner, now my husband. Just before the pandemic, I had challenged Edwin to make good on his throwaway but oft-repeated assertion that one day we’d pack it all in and ride our bikes to a faraway place. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":82.80000000000001,"text":"His love of bicycles is all-consuming, and I had grown to love the short cycling holidays we went on together — our biggest trip had, until that point, been a 10-day, near-700km ride from Tokyo to Osaka. I remember calling that “once in a lifetime”. But having found ourselves in our early thirties with some savings, and finally feeling more sure-footed in our respective careers, we decided to take time off, to ride our bicycles in a beautiful place."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":112.70000000000002,"text":"I appreciate that nearly 24,000km of cycling through some of the world’s most remote regions may not sound like an easy trip. But when you get into researching this sort of thing, you quickly discover that lots of people have ridden long routes. Europe to China, and the east coast of Africa, are also popular. The main attractions of the Americas route are its simple visas; the fact there’s only one language to learn; that there’s little messing about with air travel (although we did take a flight, from San José to Bogotá, to jump the Darién Gap); and, of course, the insane natural beauty and topographical variation on offer. It also features, especially in the Andes, some of the world’s best roads for cycling. Plus the touristic highlights, from Big Sur to Machu Picchu, were undeniable. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":160.55,"text":"So, with our “where” decided, we spent lockdown acquiring new bike parts and camping kit designed for environments tougher than the Isle of Wight, and an inordinate number of hours on Duolingo. The time cooped up undoubtedly helped offset any nerves with pure excitement — by 2022, when the US’s last travel restrictions finally fell away, we were eager to go."}],[{"start":183.20000000000002,"text":"Starting in Fairbanks, Alaska — roughly at the same latitude as Reykjavík — we slowly travelled south, at first planning our movements in advance but by the end having blind faith in the network of cyclists we had built up, who would advise us, sometimes day to day, on the speediest, most relaxed or most gnarly route that would eventually spit us out at Ushuaia, an Argentine town on Tierra del Fuego famed for being the bottom of the road, the end of the continent, el fin del mundo."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":214.60000000000002,"text":"As we progressed, our favourite aspects of travelling by bicycle quickly solidified. We saw abundant wildlife, from bears to tarantulas, beavers and guanacos. We enjoyed our simple daily interactions with those from whom we bought groceries or a cup of coffee. And, especially in parts of Central America and the Andes, we had the pleasure of experiencing the still-strong Indigenous cultures of the communities we passed through. We were unconstrained by the bus routes that hampered our backpacking counterparts."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":246.3,"text":"We lived mostly in a tent, camping in the quietest spots we could find — once perched on a sweeping plain with views across a Peruvian valley, another time, less successfully, behind a Nicaraguan petrol station. Despite our constantly changing surroundings, daily life had a comforting rhythm. My partner would brew an Aeropress coffee every morning while I packed up our sleeping bags. We pedalled until we got tired, and then we would stop for a peanut butter and jam wrap. We weren’t interested in showing off our physical prowess or adventurous spirit. It was just fun; for us."}],[{"start":282.7,"text":"We planned to pass through 14 countries and top out at 5,100 metres above sea level. And from El Salvadoran beachside restaurants to Colombian city hostels and Patagonian campsites, the people we met would constantly ask the question I hated: “Are you writing a book about it?”"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":301,"text":"For goodness’ sake, the answer was NO. No no no. I would not be “finding myself” or assigning deep philosophical meaning to my holiday, thank you very much. "}],[{"start":311.05,"text":"My aversion to believing the trip to be something special stemmed from a fear of becoming an Eat Pray Love stereotype; of succumbing to a case of narcissistic memoirist’s main-character syndrome. This idea that telling your own story is the same as being obsessed with yourself was likely forged during my Presbyterian Northern Irish upbringing. I grew up in a household where humbleness was seen as the trait to aspire to most. Not that I have always managed it."}],[{"start":337.45,"text":"I was fascinated and confused by the bikepacking influencers with whom we crossed paths — bastions of self-belief and storytelling skill. They seemed so sure that they had insightful things to say about being — in almost all cases — a privileged European or North American person travelling through the Americas. They often framed the journey as a challenge or the pursuit of a personal goal. Some were having a nice time, often raising money for charity. Others were completely miserable and unable to see that reaching the bottom of the South American continent was not worth the price of their mental and physical health. But while their follower counts kept going up, they kept riding. They convinced me that I was right to downplay any psychic effect that being on the road was having on me. Beside that, the idea of reframing my day-to-day life as inspirational seemed totally exhausting — I was already riding 70km a day."}],[{"start":392.9,"text":"One day in Mexico, on a particularly beautiful tarmac ascent from the seaside resort of Mazatlán towards Durango, I gazed down over the carpet of lush green trees, at the road we had just climbed in the sopping humidity. Some friends back home were getting married that day and, in my sadness about missing it, my mind began to half-form ideas about hard work, sacrifice, friendship and adventure. I stopped myself: nope. No deep thoughts, thanks."}],[{"start":419.5,"text":"Slowly, as the journey continued, my thinking began to change. We got to the places we’d dreamt about: the rainforests of Costa Rica; the cobbled inclines of Ecuador; the Incan archaeological sites of Peru. Other cyclists started to drop out — health issues, robberies, fatigue. I tackled routes that I thought I couldn’t, slowly improving my technical riding abilities to the point at which we could travel almost entirely on unpaved roads, avoiding the lorries and angry dogs that characterise the highways of South America. Despite never being able to match some of our cyclist pals in terms of power and fitness, I kept plodding. A dog bite in Honduras, a broken finger in Guatemala, an episode of deep loneliness in Colombia, our constant exhausted bickering with each other and countless incidents of tummy trouble didn’t stop us — we were slowly creeping southwards. The all-encompassing feeling that I wasn’t able to keep up with others, whether on this trip or in my regular life, started to fall away."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":483.25,"text":"And I lost my big-city affectations. I started the trip obsessed with the fact I only had one outfit. Every time we rolled into a metropolis, often after weeks of not seeing a supermarket, I would glance at well-dressed young people and feel an overwhelming urge to scream at them: “I too, back home, wear all black and attend experimental music gigs!” But finally, around La Paz, Bolivia, I settled into who I was at that moment. My life back in London was important for sure; unlike some other long-distance cyclists, I hadn’t realised that my true home was “the road”. But I did start to accept that I could be many things over time, and that this version of myself wasn’t inauthentic just because it was different."}],[{"start":527.65,"text":"On the bike, I relaxed into time with myself. Rather than plugging in a podcast every time I felt the impulse to reflect on our journey, I let the thoughts slowly float around, coming to unexpected ends. I read Hua Hsu’s Stay True, and admired his beautiful take on memoir — here was an example of a personal tale written by someone who clearly wasn’t obsessed with himself. Maybe it was possible?"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":552.5,"text":"Bit by bit, the realisations were mounting. Soon enough I was getting naked on the Salar de Uyuni. Stripping off on the world’s largest salt flat is a time-honoured tradition among touring cyclists that I had originally been very set on not doing. How lame, I’d thought. But it dawned on me that I had ridden 17,500km to get there, and it now seemed super-lame not to take my clothes off. Afterwards, when I shared the carefully censored images online, I realised I was finally no longer concerned that the thing I was doing wasn’t original, revolutionary or “worthy” of a grand narrative. I was going through my version of these experiences, and they were affecting me in a way unique to me. And perhaps it was OK to tell people about that."}],[{"start":596.9,"text":"I gave myself permission to reflect on how I was being changed by the trip, not worrying that it might be trite to do so. Because I was different now. I was thinking about my body differently, my place in the world differently, my own abilities differently. Maybe I had been on an inner journey? Oh no. Gradually, I began to see that some kind of self-reflection and pride in your achievements is a natural part of being human. I was visiting some of the most beautiful places in the world, navigating most of them in a language that’s not my own, and doing it solely via my peanut-butter-fuelled legs."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":630.85,"text":"A little over two years later, and I’m still uncovering ways in which the trip has changed me. A farmer we met in Peru still occasionally WhatsApps me pictures of his alpacas, which is, of course, the “lasting impact” that I tell people about in the pub. But my ick regarding self-reflection has mellowed to a more gentle “ew”. After batting away the words of all the people who called me inspirational for so long, I’ve come to realise that I’ve inspired myself. But look here: I’m still not writing a book about it."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":660.75,"text":"Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram, Bluesky and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning"}],[{"start":676.5999999999999,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1787327170_6650.mp3"}