In our final episode before our Grand Depart on 5th June guest host Phil finally turn the tables and asked the Back Half of SteLa Tandem, Laura, the questions!

Hear about the preparation and planning and find out who's in the hot seat on Laura's dream tandem!

In this episode we hear from the Front Half himself: Stevie Massey.  He talks about his cycling palmares, the mechanical technicalities of riding a tandem around the World and who else he would chose as Stoker!

With guest host Phil this is an opportunity to question the Captain...

If you don't know who Mark Beaumont is, you may have been living under an ultradistance-bicycle-World-record-breaking rock!  Amongst many other amazing achievements he had circumnavigated the globe twice on a bicycle both under Guinness requirements to break the World record with his most recent ride covering the 18,000 mile distance in under 79 days.  He wrote the book on Endurance... literally! 

Endurance: How to Cycle Further by Mark Beaumont | GCN Books | Global Cycling Network

We were massively grateful to have this chat with Mark and for all his advice as there cannot be many other people better qualified!

If you know a little about endurance cycling and round the World records you won't need much introduction to Jenny Graham!  She is the fastest female to cycle around the planet in 124 days 10 hours and 50 minutes covering over 18,000 miles.  If this isn't impressive enough she undertook the whole trip unsupported.

There aren't many other riders better placed to give us the advice we need for our record attempt and she is full of tips and advice in this episode.

You can listen to her own series of podcasts and find out more about her around the World adventure here:

Round the World - The Adventure Syndicate

Hels has been cycling the World solo since 2016 on a small budget but living it big in terms of experience and adventure!  She has cycle toured through Australia, UK to Sicily and back, from the North Cape in Norway through the Baltic states and from Istanbul to Germany.  She has covered 58,000kms of 5 years and is back on the road again soon!

Her YouTube channel (hels on wheels - YouTube) and Instagram (Hels 🚴🏼‍♀️ (@hels.on.wheels) • Instagram photos and videos) documenting her trip through vlogs and photos are amazing to follow and her real life experience of life on the road means she has some great advice for us!

She is funded by her Patreon page so if you enjoy her content please help support her travels :hels on wheels is creating bike touring vlogs, blogs, & photogs | Patreon

In 2021 Christina Mackenzie became the fastest woman to cycle from Land's End to John O'Groats breaking the Guinness World record with and astounding time of 51 hours, 5 minutes and 5 seconds.  Travelling the 839 miles distance she broke a 19 year old record held by Lynne Taylor.  We chat about how she got involved in long/ ultra distance cycling, what lead her to a World record and her strategy for her record breaking ride.

(20) Lejogmack 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (@Lejogmack) / Twitter

Christina Mackenzie (@lejogmack) • Instagram photos and videos

After a series of life changing strokes in her younger years Mel never gave up on here passion for sport and the outdoors.  Living up to her mantra of "Dream Big" she is a paralympian, having competed in the London and Rio Olympics and then went onto break the LEJOG (Land's End John O'Groats) handcycle record.  Just this year she has completed her Handcycle Britain challenge, circumnavigating the coastline of the UK on handcycle, unsupported.

Mel is an absolute inspiration and a delight to chat to so I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it!

Mel Nicholls - Home

In 2013 Rob started out on an epic adventure where he travelled 11,000km in 7 months to India.  This changed his life forever and he was hooked on long distance cycling.  He has since crossed several other continents before further raising the bar by getting involved in Ultradistance racing.  He has held the World record for cycling the length of Europe and raced events such as the Two Volcanos sprint.

His travels through so many different countries and his expertise in long distance make him a fantastic guest to give us lots of tips ahead of our own big ride!

Rob Gardiner – Cyclist (rob-gardiner.com)

In this episode I'm delighted to have the opportunity to speak to adventurer, ultra-distance cyclist and author Emily Chappell.  We first had the opportunity to hear about Emily's adventures alongside Jenny Graham (the female around the World Record holder) at a talk in Buxton and was introduced to her book "Where there's Will" (Or order direct via Instagram message and sometimes she even cycle delivers! He other book is "What Goes Around")

This event certainly sowed the seeds of interest with us of how far we could go and it was great to chat to Emily about some of her more far flung adventures, about her ultra-endurance racing career on rides such as the Transcontinental and of course the best snacks!

Although we didn't get the chance to chat about it so much she is a fantastic advocate of different body images in cycling and LGBTQ persons in cycling too 

Emily Chappell (@emilyofchappell) • Instagram photos and videos

About - That Emily Chappell

Vedangi grew up in India and started her endurance cycling career by riding through the Himalayas as a teenager.  When she moved to the UK to study, her passion for long-distance cycling remained and after riding to John O'Groats and London-Edinburgh-London she decided to try and break the female World circumnavigation record...aged 19 years old! Her story is full of adventures and dramatic stories and she arrived back having ridden 24,000km in 159days.

She now runs her own business helping others organise their own adventures and has exciting plans for the future too.

https://www.vedangikulkarni.com/

https://www.theadventureshed.com/