Our Founder

It all started with cricket. In 2009, I left my desk job in London and set off on the ultimate slow journey, cycling 28,000 kilometres over 14 months to Brisbane to watch the Ashes cricket series between England and Australia. The expedition raised over £75,000 for the British Neurological Research Trust and The Lord’s Taverners. It also embedded in me a deep love for bicycle travel. 

In 2011, I took a job as the Project Director of the Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation, based in the capital Kigali. The story of cricket in Rwanda is closely linked with the fall-out from the 1994 genocide and sport continues to play a hugely significant role in healing the nation. Eventually, we built Rwanda's first dedicated cricket ground, with one of East Africa's most beautiful buildings as its pavilion. 

During my time in Kigali I spent weekends exploring Rwanda's natural treasures by bicycle and when I returned home in 2013 I began hatching plans to take some friends to see what I had found. In the end, I had to wait a few years to get the first Slow Cyclists out to Rwanda. Instead, I started a little closer to home.

Shortly after the publication of my first book, Cycling to the Ashes: A Cricketing Odyssey from London to Brisbane, I found myself in the midst of a Transylvanian winter and knew I had found the perfect region in which to launch what became The Slow Cyclist. 

My wife Clemmie and I spent much of the next two years living in remote Transylvanian villages, intent on condensing the best bits of my ride to Australia - kindness, hospitality, friendship, adventure and the odd surprise - into slow, bite-sized journeys. All these years later, this remains the essence of The Slow Cyclist.

I still travel a lot but home is now North Oxfordshire, where I live with Clemmie, our two boys and a growing ménage of animals.