5 minute read
Cover Story
Recordbreaking solo motorcycle ride
In 2019, Jack Groves (LH 13) bought a secondhand motorcycle, a Royal Enfield Himalayan, and set off on a journey – with a mission to break the record for the youngest person to circumnavigate the world by motorbike. Arriving back in the UK, in June this year, almost two years later, he has achieved his goal and we are enormously grateful that he has taken the time to share his inspiring story…
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By Jack Groves (LH 13)
Crikey, where to start!? Turns out that summing up two years of one’s life in a few hundred words is no easy task. Therefore, I will stop wasting words and get straight into it. My journey started in July 2019, and finished in June 2021, at home in Hertfordshire, and took me through 30 countries and over 35,000 miles. Heading southeast for the first six months, I had the pleasure of crashes, breakdowns and extreme altitude in Central Asia and Tibet, swiftly followed by the worst bushfires and heatwave ever recorded in Australia. Clearly blissfully unaware of the bad omens, I then decided to fly the bike on from Sydney to Santiago, Chile, in January 2020; just as news of a global pandemic began to hit the headlines!
After several weeks following the stunning Carretera Austral south through the fjords and peaks of Chilean Patagonia, I dropped into Argentina and swung north up the legendary Ruta 40 through mountains and Malbec country to Bolivia. Arriving in La Paz to frenzied rumours of impending border closures, I made a dash for Peru and crossed the day before it slammed shut indefinitely. However, a real life ‘out of the pan and into the fire’ situation unfolded that evening as the Peruvian President suddenly addressed the nation to announce an open-ended period of Army-enforced national lockdown, beginning at midnight the next day. As the world began to shut down around me and I scrambled to find shelter in the storm, there was an ominous feeling that the ‘master of my fate, captain of my soul’ lifestyle was about to come to an abrupt end.
On the wet and windy morning of March 16th, I packed my panniers and, with a feeling of trepidation in the air, swung the front wheel northwest towards what would turn out to be my home for the next eight months. Ancient capital of the vast Incan Empire and gateway to the Sacred Valley, nestled three and a half thousand metres up in the Andes Mountains, and now a place ingrained into my mind: Cusco.
From March until November I was stuck in the wider region, bound by the extreme measures imposed on the population by a fearful government that had been caught out over a non-existent healthcare system. I contracted COVID at altitude, which I would not recommend; was turned down for or turned away from, all UK/EU repatriation flights (even as the Embassy closed and the Ambassador flew home); learnt Spanish and the unique traditions of the Quechua people through friendships forged in mutual jeopardy; and became comfortable living alone in a distant foreign city at an utterly bewildering time in history. This, more than the stunning adventures to the jungle of Manu National Park, the mountains of the Ausangate Massif, or “...there was an the misty awe of Machu Picchu, stands out as ominous feeling the biggest takeaway that the ‘master of my fate, captain of from my time in Peru: live for the moment, and knock it out of the park.
On November 26th, I left Cusco and finally hit the road again heading north. One month later, on Christmas Day, the British Embassies in Lima, Quito and Bogota sent through exceptional government authorisation for me to cross the land borders into Ecuador and Colombia in order to ship the bike off the continent from Cartagena. Those borders are still closed as I write and no-one else has crossed since.
Without wishing to be ungrateful to the family, the best present I have ever received will likely forever be from the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister. As such, a full-throttle, trans-continental dash to Cartagena ensued, in order to board an old German fishing boat sailing across the Caribbean to Mexico. Seven days at sea with only sunsets, storms and spray for company certainly puts things into perspective and was the perfect lead-in for two months of traversing Mexico from Atlantic to Pacific and back.
However, with the US-Mexico border clearly not playing ball (it is still shut), and with my self-funded budget running perilously low, I made the difficult but right decision to put the bike on a boat back to Spain and began planning an epic final leg through Europe. Pulling in a few favours with Royal Enfield to secure my father a bike of his own – we were able to complete the last stint together from Galicia, Spain, all the way up to the Normandy beaches on the French coast by late-May.
And so dawned the final day on a 693-day journey around the world. As the ferry to Portsmouth brought me back to home soil, and the reflections inevitably started on what it all means – if anything at all – one line from my Housemaster, Mr Seecharan, at Uppingham stands out:
At the time, I disregarded the comment as simply more lecturing aimed at my somewhat errant year group in Lorne House. However, upon reflection, and Lord knows I’ve had enough time to think, I realised that he was right. In a way, the challenge for us all is to find our cause and that search is not always a swift one. When you do find it though, if only for a brief moment, it is surprising how far it can take you. Thank you for reading!
