The story so far…
Long, long, ago, deep in the depths of deepest deep my story begun. It had been a hard winter, what with rickets, diphtheria, the Magic Roundabout and Tip Tops, but I made it through, damaged for life maybe, but I'm still here to tell the tales.
It was as a skipping young boy that I discovered the delights of the bicycle, a fine purple Chopper but spotting into teen hood a 6 footer didn't somehow look quite so befit on a Chopper, thus a rather splendid Raleigh racing steed was acquired, and the real journey commenced.
Back in those days life was tough, especially as the only guy in town with shaven legs. But those hairless legs and the racing machine were destined to shape the rest of my life. From teens right through my every hour was spent thrashing the iron horse. You name it I raced it, as long as it had two wheels I was there. Several scars, honours, and small trophies later and it was time to head west, to seek my fortune as a continental bike racer.
After
long spells of living on rice pudding and water while mastering foreign tongues
and race tracks all looked rosy. But then one of life's little interludes
kicked in, which kinda sidelined me for a few years, enter phase err, well
another phase.
Some damn Americas had gone and invented this great beast of a bike, and called it the mountain bike, wow, now that thing had my name written all over it! Without a minute to waste I straddled the great beast and rode it into a small time contract with a bike company, and then onto a bit of a bigger time deal with Raleigh, creators of the wondrous Chopper.
By this time my linguistic skills had lead me to put pen to paper, and that all too familiar wild nature had thrust me into the centre pages of magazines and even onto the great silver screen its self. By now I was pretty well done with the tameness of racing around fields, and sought greater adventure. Thankfully so did my sponsors and the media. Over the next few years Mr Steve "bad boy" was rampaging the far corners of the globe doing crazy things on a mountain bike.
Amongst these things the first ever Lands End to Jon O'Groats mountain bike record was established, as well as a self supported "Val's old knickers" style land speed record, successful descents of the infamous Cresta bob run, a ludicrous crossing of the deadly Aonach Eagach ridge, a mid winter crossing of Spain's highest mountains, rides along the Camino Del Rey catwalk, the scaling of many of the world's maddest mountains, eating of candles, fish heads, crop circle making and so much more.
One
of those chance meetings somehow led me to Pakistan with a bunch of head honch
mountaineers, including mountain god Doug Scott. Anyhow, after escorting the
guys across the world's highest plateau, then getting monsooned and near terminally
sick my attentions to adventure took on a strange twist. Mountains, they were
there, just yelling out at me. For years I'd only really seen them from beneath
a bike, but no more.
No these days I spend a whole load of time travelling the world, still always with my trusty iron horse, but more often than not with a whole load more gear too. Mountaineering, climbing, skiing, hiking, running, rafting, kayaking, jungle survival, kite flying, karaoke, you name it, there are very few limits in the repertoire.
So what does all this add up to? A very odd existence indeed, hand crafted and on the edge. But, it has transformed that push biking guy with the shaven legs into a global adventurer who produces some rather fun and interesting words and pictures. So please, check out the rest of the site to find out more, it could be fun.
