LifeAthlon

Cycling Cuba

‘Cinco pizzas por favor.’ When I was a kid, or so my grandfather always reminds us, my brother & I would chuck full garbage bags against the garage door of his cottage and say that our utmost ambition in life was to become garbagemen. And to this day, I’m strongly considering a career in waste…

A Day in the Life of a Brusher

No one is a human being at 3am. Not party till dawn 3am. Tossing and turning, have to get up for work 3am. In the grips of withdrawal from a modicum of sleep you don’t even remember consuming, you drag on your threadbare button-up shirt. Wafts of laundry detergent and gasoline, drift in your stumbling…

TranSierra Norte

Take a swig of this, te va a rehidratar! The day is over, we’re in a rusty carcass on wheels sucking diesel. Through the dusty windshield ahead another miracle of engineering running on black smoke and buena suerte is transporting the bikes. I’m looking through the Gatorade bottle that’s being handed down to me, at…

The Homeless Athletics Club

Blink once, Ceci is riding her mountain bike on the highest suspension bridge in the world on her way to her first Enduro World Series finish. Blink twice, Camille is running on a ridge at 2,450m in the snow on her way to finishing her first 60k UltraMarathon in 4th place. Blink one last time,…

Tree Planting 2018

Pick a spot roughly 1000kms North-West of Vancouver. Now zoom in. Way in. It’s seven thirty in the morning, 3°c, raining, and if you look around this wild desolate place of acrid smelling rot & shredded wood, navigate the treacherous landscape of fallen trees & sharpened sticks, the rotting stumps, the swamps, the webs of…

Cycling Malaysia

We’re sitting on the ground outside a gas station in the middle of nowhere drinking white coffee, eating cake. Que vamos a hacer? My bike is propped upside down, my panniers are all over the place. No sé. Ceci gets up and tries to yank it out. She sits back down and eats more cake. Then I…

Cycling Thailand

Sweat is pooling in my eyes. We’ve been cycling for more than 140km and hunger is fierce. We finished the day in the searing heat of 1pm and now we’re sitting at a tiny table behind a little food stand on wheels and for the thousandth time, I’m wiping the sweat from my face with…

Cycling Laos

The Mekong river flows sluggish and brown beside the boardwalk plaza where Ceci & I are dancing. We are celebrating. Our 46hr trip from Mexico City to Vientiane has been costly and stressful, yet somehow both we and our bikes have made it all the way through on time and mostly undamaged. It was my…

The Baja Epic

The alarm sounds, 3.30am. The first of many early starts to come. The team wakes up one at a time eating little and talking even less. We gather some last items and pile into the jam-packed car, sharing three seats between the four of us, and head to the airport. After a swift 3 hour…

Caballo Blanco 80k 2017

The sun is setting on North America’s deepest canyon. The bus bounces like an old couch and moans as it dives down a dirt road steeply carved into the canyon walls, towards the small town of Urique nestled by the river at the very bottom of the world. Urique. Cecilia & I glance at each…