My good friend Rob gets married this afternoon – his next big adventure. It’s going to be a fantastic day.

I have been friends with Rob since university when we started doing stupid things together (like cycling to England and back on £10 bikes in a blizzard wearing socks as gloves, or racing each other round Arthur’s Seat and continuing the race even when someone was vomiting from overdoing it).
We cycled from Pakistan to China together and then tried to ride back home from Istanbul in just 20 days to make it back for a mate’s 21st birthday party. (Rob managed that one, I ended up flying home with my leg in plaster).

During my ride round the world Rob came to meet me a couple of times, in Ethiopia and in Peru, before he decided to give up his job and join me to cycle home from Siberia.

Our three months together in that Siberian winter were pretty nuts and we were about ready to murder each other by the end of it. We had some amusing times too, such as the interview we gave on Russian television where Rob battled heroically to express himself with about ten words of Russian and I, being far less fluent, decided to speak French. The interview ended when Rob accidentally broke wind and we found ourselves back out in the cold, pedalling on through the wind and the snow.

But real friendships run deeper than petty disputes at -40C and so I was delighted to organise Rob’s stag weekend recently, which ran true to the original English Wildman philosophy developed back at Uni. (I also enjoyed taking some engagement photos for the happy couple).

I am sure that Rob and Christine will be very happy together through all their years to come. And, when Christine needs a bit of peace and quiet, I hope that Rob and I will have many more adventures together as well.
Right, I’md better go and polish my shoes…

[Rob has just released a book and a DVD about his own 3-year cycling epic (including a hardcore crossing of Afghanistan). You can buy them here. Or pop back next week as I’mll be featuring some of his writing here on the site. (Or subscribe to the RSS feed here so that you don’t miss it).]