John Adrian Short is a Welsh truck mechanic on the run evading British authorities after committing assault, destruction of several vehicles and property, and stealing a lorry. All on New Years Eve 06. He absconds over 2000 miles away to Europe and begins a threadbare life in a Portuguese scrapyard. Months later, an intoxicated late night crash forces him into a moment of rationale. He decides to return to the U.K. to face inevitable punishment.
The book then covers a penniless and Painful catharsis of reaching a destination over 2000 miles away riding stolen, wrecked cycles across two countries and 27 cities in 28 days. En route the author encounters truly horrible circumstances; he starves, burns, freezes, is shot at in torrential rain after midnight, and soils himself. He also suffers intense physical and mental pain, but develops a goal which keeps him going, covering up to 95 miles every day for five hundred hours as a ragged cycle tramp.
The author vividly describes the total immersion in Natural endorphins giving him incredible highs at the end of long hard days. These force him to deal with painful mental issues seemed to coincide with daily bouts of hypoglycaemia through poor nutrition. Fighting the luxury of negative thoughts. In an emphatic frame of mind he rides with urgency each day. Cycling across ever changing terrain and conditions becoming nearer to the U.K. he temporarily purges the vices which created the situation.
The author on a mostly lone journey meets various random and colourful characters along the way, such as a Spanish transsexual, a kind French alcoholic punk and hospitable Moroccan Muslims and the companion in the form of a fickle shadow.
The book answers questions of where did you go? what did you do?, what did you see?, how did you do it? And what did it feel like? It illustrates how a goal can beat the bad times, because they don’t last. The book will be enjoyed by people with life crises, the first time adventurer, and young and old who have alcohol and drug issues and those who wonder what it would be like to throw it all away and just go.
ISBN: 978 190704061 0
Paperback
234mm x 156mm
224 pages
Published: 6th December 2010
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