Markus Stitz

So this is a slightly weird one. Someone who makes the living podcast, it's a bit strange

that I'm going to start a podcast as a hobby. The idea is so young that I don't have a name

for it yet. I don't have a theme tune for it yet. I kind of played with a similar idea

maybe a bit a decade ago. However, I thought I'd give you a sneak preview. Yesterday I had

the privilege to talk to Marcus Stitz, who's most known for riding around the world in 2015-2016

on a single speed, and here's that conversation. Let me know what you think. The plan is to have

conversations with people who are find interesting, a bit of a riot of topics, be it guitar, be it

climbing, be it cycling, or even politics. Who knows? Anyway, here's Marcus. Welcome to this

the first episode of a new show. I show so new I don't actually have a name for it yet. I'm

joined by Marcus Stitz, who I first came across in I think 2015-2016 when he was involved in an

exploit that we'll talk about later. Marcus, welcome. How's lockdown treating you?

Welcome, John. Pretty well so far, to be honest with you. I think I'm getting a little bit tired

after seven weeks now. I've been pretty busy at the beginning with working on new projects and

writing, and also producing a new film. I kept myself busy, and I think this week I kind of

decided I'm going to spend the week cycling indoors, a little bit outdoors, and just kind of refocus

my mind a little bit of that. It's been okay so far. We need to talk about this indoor cycling

thing, because as I'm interviewing you, I think you're actually sitting in a turbo trainer.

Yes, so I know Mark Beaumont quite well, and I know Steve Fade as well, and they're doing the

world in one day challenge, and I've been doing it for the last couple of weeks, and I have never

been on a turbo trainer, and at a moment I think the closest thing I have to a road bike with

skinny tires is a 1970s single speed, so I think for the last couple of weeks I was just like,

I'm not going to do it this, and I think I always had a fair excuse not being able to get my hand

on the toe, which when I had the moment, and then Mark organized me one on the weekend. So

I just, yeah, it's a no farther good excuse to say no, it has gone, so yeah, so I've just mounted

my single speed on the turbo, and yeah, trying to get used to that, I've kind of dug out my old

world shoes again, and yeah, so far it's fine, I think it's very different to what I'm used to,

but on the other hand, I think I'm just trying to see the positives, and make the most of it,

it's quite, because I can sit on this, and do various other things while I'm cycling,

that's actually quite cool trading coffee and stuff. It's funny actually, I mean, I watched

your film Distance last night, and I think you made a really good point in that,

you know, the phrase that's being used is social distancing, but it's actually just physical

distancing, we're still socially connected, you know, you and I are 22 miles apart just now,

but we're still able to chat as if we're in the same room, so I think embracing the technology

that keeps us in touch is really important at this time, but it isn't social distancing,

it is actually just physical distancing. Yeah, and I mean, it's part of the reason why I did

the film as well, the story behind the film is quite interesting, because I took the

material last year in June, when I was visiting a friend who lives near Oben, then I had the

shots, there were some really nice shots in there, but I didn't really have a story along,

because it was just a nice weekend trip to get away, I kind of get some head space, and I love

the area where I was from, one of my favourite parts in Scotland, and then... It's where my

asses will be scattered when I'm going, the head of locator is my favourite bit of Scotland,

of all of them. Yeah, and it's, so yeah, and I think, like, and then when I looked at the

material again, and I felt like the whole social distancing isn't really social distancing,

I think, you know, I'm still able to talk to people, like we're not totally locked down,

you know, we're not told, you know, you need to stop any social contact now, and I think it's like,

yeah, physically we are apart, and I mean, this is, this is quite hard as well, and I think it

might be much harder for people who are not used to that, I'm fairly used to that, because I've

been travelling a lot, and whenever I'm out travelling, basically, my only means of getting

a touch with my girlfriend, my family, and anyone else's, by some sort of, yeah, phone calls,

Skype calls, WhatsApp, whatsoever. So, you know, I think, like, in a sense, this is kind of why I

think I can cope with the lockdown thing quite well, because I'm essentially treating this, like,

as another longer trip, although I'm not able to leave my living room, but on the other hand,

you know, it's fine, from a mindset point of view, that's much easier to get to a time like this,

when you kind of, like, remove yourself a little bit from the situation. It's funny actually,

I mean, we're known, or you're known now, for some frankly mad expeditions across the world

in a break. How did it all start? I mean, you were born in Germany. Have you always had a

wanderlust, if you always wanted to move about? I think there's this, so there's once,

going very far back into my childhood, I initially, in terms of biking, it took me a long time to

learn to cycle. I was always a little bit of an anxious kid, and it took a while for me to mount

two wheels. Once I had mastered that, there's one occasion where the peace to in East Germany

passed very close to our garden. So we were living in an apartment block, but we had a garden on

the outskirts of town, and we have pretty much, whenever the weather was right, after school,

I spent my time there, playing with friends. So the peace to with passing, my mum wasn't really keen

to take me there, and kind of watching my dad without working. So I kind of took my little

folded bike and went off by myself with a blanket that was back in the days with no mobile phone

reception, and it's quite interesting, my mum wasn't being terrified by that. So I was,

I think I was going about 10 kilometers, but back in the days that felt like, basically like

cycling around the world by myself, I felt really brave that day. And I watched the, yeah,

I watched it guys go past, and went back to the garden, and everything was fine, my mum was a

little bit terrified by the whole thing, but I think like if you look at a very far back, that's

kind of where this wall started, and then we moved into a village about 15 kilometers out of

that was born, or where I grew up, and from there onwards, like I think for me to get to place,

there was always a distance in between, so I never really had things readily available on my doorstep,

and I think all of those things have shaped me over the years in my mindset, and then I started

where the travel bug kicked in was in 2000 when I studied at university, and I did a working

holiday in my first break, so the first two semesters at our university, and then went to the US,

and did a working holiday there for about three months, and basically arriving in New York,

whether we turned ticket from New York in October in July, and what was happening in between

I had absolutely no clue, I had to find myself a job, and I, yeah, so I ended up traveling to

a state bit in New York, then went to the Grand Canyon, worked there, went up the rest,

goes to San Francisco, and then back to the East Coast, and I think this is where I really

like the wander those kicked in, and in your once you've done something like this is really hard

to go back, kind of not doing it again, and then at some stage, I think when I discovered the bike,

so all of this like in the US, I had maybe two trips where I took a mountain bike, remember I took

a mountain bike around Lake Tau, and had a brief encounter with a black bear, not so good,

thankfully didn't do anything, and then I think where the bike really kicked in this

then when I continued studying, I started exercise, we discovered the bike again, and then went

to New Zealand in 2007, and that's where kind of the whole cycle touring really started then.

And you ended up somehow in Scotland, which I mean when you're talking about glamorous places,

I mean people who are here know how beautiful the country is, but you know you've traveled all

across America, you've been to New Zealand, how did you decide to live in Edinburgh?

I did a semester and on the University of Sunderland in 2003, and when I went up to Edinburgh a

number of times when I was back down there, absolutely fell in love with the city, because it's such a,

it was, it's like, yeah, it is still I think my favourite city if you take all the things.

It's my whole country, it's where I was born.

Beautiful place, first time I set my foot on Edinburgh, it was just like, wow, this is kind of like,

this is totally amazing. And again, it's the sort of stuff, I think I'm the sort of person,

one self, you know, one self-seen something, and I've kind of made my mind up, this is what I like,

then I'm also quite ambitious in order to get there, so I always kind of had it in the back of my

head that I want to go back to Edinburgh, and two years later I did an internship in New York City

and had a month left before going back to university and thought like, oh well, I might as well see

if I can get a job at French festival, because that's kind of the easiest bit to get into Edinburgh,

and got a job after two days, this box office manager for Annabelle, and so I came here in 2005

working a box office to be honest, I had no clue about managing a box office,

but it's fine, it's not that tough of a job, you know, if you count properly and got a good amount

of IT knowledge, it's fine, and that was also kind of the start of returning back to Edinburgh

to work here each summer, so I came back in 2006 for the summer working for Annabelle in 2007

as well, and then I moved to New Zealand, and even when I was in New Zealand, I took a month off

to fly back to Edinburgh to work here over the French festival, and then finally in 2009,

I made the decision to leave New Zealand, and kind of the aim was as proud as going back to Europe,

because I wanted to be a little bit closer to my family, and spend four weeks in Germany,

and looking for jobs couldn't really find anything that was kind of like suited to what I was

wanting to do, and then I saw a job at the Edinburgh International Festival, and again, it was

kind of quick, kind of quick thing that needed someone immediately, basically they said like,

if you're ready to start to work, you can start to work, it took a few more days to kind of

sort of logistics, and then yeah, and that kind of, since then, I stayed in Edinburgh.

I like the thing that you say about being close to your family, because one of your first big

bike trips I think was riding home to visit them, wasn't it? You rode to Edinburgh to your family

in Germany, which is, it's quite a commute. It's a commute, 14-day commute, yeah,

the story, yeah, it was, so I spent two years, I know, yeah, two years in New Zealand with

three Christmas's, and over there I kind of really got to, got used to the fact of doing a longer

bike trip over Christmas, because you've got plenty of annual leave, and it's also the sort of time

if you're not close to your family, you know, you possibly want to do something fun, nice,

and I was in New Zealand, you know, all I could do to keep in touch with them,

study out Skype call whatsoever, and then I came back here, and I kind of realized that actually

I would really love to do a cycling trip, either before Christmas or during Christmas, but then

the weather in Europe during that time is usually quite miserable, and let's go to Southern Europe,

and then I thought, so I spent the first year coming back to Europe, 2009, not doing it,

and I was just like, this is not for me, just sitting around eating all the time and whatsoever,

so I decided back then already, well next year I'm going to cycle home for Christmas, so I've

done my adventure beforehand, I've got plenty of time then to chill out, sit down with my family,

relax, and that's what I did, and there was the year when Edinburgh was just covered in snow all over,

so it was tough on that one. Well, let's skip forward because there are other adventures

between, but of course the one that everybody I think first noticed you with was when you decided

to ride around the world, now being Scottish, this is a, you know, it's a common thing to do,

you know, you've got Mark Bowman who's taking off and ridden around the world, you did it

slightly differently, though, and there are two things that struck me about the way that you

did it, the first is the obvious one, you did it on a single-speed bike, which is,

it's unimaginable for me because if you've got a gear you can climb in, you must have been

pedaling at about 160 revs a minute on flat roads, so we can talk about gear choice, but the other

thing is, you went the wrong way, almost everybody used to do it west to east, but you took off

east to west, did you have a plan or did you just do as you'd done when you decided to travel

before or did you just make up as you went along? I think, again, it was a combination of two,

I had a rough plan to say I didn't have a plan, it would possibly be, it would be a straight life,

so I made the decision in March that year in 2015 to leave my job and to set up around the world,

and I had three months notice in my job and I really wanted to work until the notice period because

I worked with great people at a great time there, so I didn't leave my job because I was fed up

with what I was doing, I left my job because I wanted to do the trip, and so I was finished by

June, and I also knew that I'd need a month or two to kind of get ready for the trip, so adding those

two months up as July or August, I knew that I'm going to be roughly leaving in September,

what I did, and leaving in September would have brought me into some severe difficulties,

getting across the mountains of Asia and that time in the middle of winter, countries like Turkey and

Iran, so there for me was possibly, I think there were moments where I was supposed to be thinking

about trying that, but then I also knew, the thing is like if you go around the world, you can pack

for conditions I would say up to minus five, you know, minus ten at the very extreme

with the bikepacking set up, if you go with panorbecs you can possibly take much more winter clothing,

but I wanted to take a singer's beer, I wanted to take a bikepacking bag, so I knew well this is not

going to happen if I leave in September, so what else I'm going to do, and then I was just looking at

basically, I then planned my trip based on the seasons, and I thought getting across

Europe in September is going to be really nice, it must be the best time of the year to do it,

because it's the end of the tourist season, and it's like France and Spain is going to be really

nice cycling, so I decided on that one, but I didn't really factor in that Iceland and

October is cold already, and that I also needed to get across the continent to divide in the US

in November, which was also cold, but never demise, so I kind of made the decision right, I'm going

to go across the US first, that will get me to the west coast at some stage of the end of November

then I can fly over to New Zealand, to New Zealand and Australia, basically in the middle of summer,

and then head into Southeast Asia and April time, and then go back to Europe in summer, so

in a way I try to follow the end of summer, beginning of autumn as much as possible, and I think there's

a little bit of interesting thing, so I think the reason why a lot of people choose to go the other

way around is because of the prevailing winds, because normally you will have rest of the winds,

what was very interesting that the hardest part of the journey were just the Nullabor, and I think

if you look at it, if you talk to people like Mark or Jenny or anyone else who cycle the course

a bit of Australia, that psychologically is one of the toughest challenges, and the time I went

through the Nullabor was in the end of summer in Australia, and the prevailing winds on the Nullabor

actually self-easterly winds, so in a sense that going the other way around towards Perv actually

worked really well for me because on those 10 days I only had one day of headwinds, and that helped

pretty much, and yeah sometimes like if you go across the US in some places, yeah you will have

a headwind, but I didn't really find that the wind was too much of an issue, especially if you're

on the single speed, you can only go so fast, and yeah, and there was the rationing behind it.

What was the decision to use a single speed, did you just want to set yourself an extra challenge

for something that was already an extraordinary challenge? Yeah, I think with the single speed

thing I started riding single speed in 2010, and I fell in love with it because it was something

that was a little bit extraordinary, I think it's fair to say, and also mostly because of the

simplicity, the amount of bike and you ride, it was quite interesting, I did a podcast with Charlie

a couple of days ago, and I think we talked about the evolution of bikes, especially over the

last 10 years, and I think we've developed something, or the industry has developed something which

was incredibly simple to start with, into something incredibly complicated to end up with,

and one of the reason why I love cycling is you've got this simple thing that gets you a long,

long way to get to great place to meet great people, and that has always stayed the core of my

cycling activity, this is why I sit on a turbo trainer, it's quite odd, but on the other hand,

I'm also quite like the simplicity of just spinning the wheels, and just doing other things

at the same time, so, and there was the reason behind taking a single speed, it was just like,

I wanted something I knew, if I'm going around the world, I do not want to spend a lot of time

fussing about my bike, I don't want to fix, I don't want to adjust gears, I'm strong enough to

ride up hills without a derailleur, I knew that before I set off, and then it was just like,

I think it was just a very logical choice to make for someone like me to kind of say,

if I've ridden on a single speed for five years now, I've cycled things like the Birnachnabau

on Bungir, I've gone up so pretty steep roads in Scotland, like why would I not do this,

and you know, in the sense, if I wouldn't have taken the single speed, I would

well, I wouldn't have used the potential I had for the stuff I'd done beforehand,

for, yeah, which has been the biggest trip of my life time, it's fair to say,

and so yeah, so, and I also, I mean, I was curious because there were a few people who

were quite critical of that saying, you know, cycling single speed for a thousand kilometers,

for land-tired John Accrodes, fair choice, but for going all around the world, are you not,

and I was just like, well, you know, that's the thing that needs to be proven, and in a way,

it was a lovely thing to kind of see whether it's possible or not.

Yeah, and that's a bike mechanic, this implicitly the thing gives you a very reliable machine,

you do it of cables to worry about, you do it of derailleur to break, your chain's going to last

for eight years because it's not shifting across cogs, so if you're capable of doing it physically,

it actually makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and I think coming back to the single speed riding,

I think I had one time where I had not a bad knee injury, but knee injury bad enough to having

to go to the doctor and having to get physical, and that was simply because on the road bike,

I was pushing the massive gears, like I was, and I was possibly cycling above my ability

in terms of the strength I had. And the nice thing on the single speed is you are stuck to a ratio.

So I think you just, a, you have to condition yourself to kind of cope with that. So in the mountain,

by the way, it sends, you know, you need to have proper leg and upper body power to get up

here with a 32 18 ratio. But also, if you look at the GPS data from around the world trip,

it's very, very consistent. Like it differs a little bit in countries like New Zealand,

but incredibly hard to climb some of the hills because I was mainly off road. But across the board,

my average is pretty much consistent. And that's the cool thing. So I hadn't had like, within a year

of cycling around the world, I did not take a single ibuprofen. And I think this is the kind of

thing for me as well. I think for like, I love cycling. It gets me to places, gets me to kind of

clear my head every now and then. But I'm very, very reluctant to take anything in order to improve

my cycling or to having to recover from it. You know, the whole kind of thing of like pushing

your body so hard that you need to take ibuprofen afterwards. I don't see the points in that.

You know, this is just kind of like, I think it's a good thing for the body if you do it wide,

and you do it in a wide dose. And there was the reason for the singer's speed as well,

because I knew I'm not going to, if I'm on the Nullabore, I can only cycle that fast.

You know, there is...

Yeah, 32 18 is not going to let you think fast enough for that route.

No, about it. I don't know what a mile it's that is, but I did about four 24 kilometers an hour,

normally, and that looks incredibly fast if you pass with a car. If you're on the bicycle,

it's pretty slow. But yeah, it's fine, I think.

An impossible question. In that year of your life, what are the highlights? Can you pick out maybe

two or three things that when you're very, very old, you know, looking back in a life well lived,

well, we'll stick out in your mind from that year of your life?

Yeah, definitely, definitely. So, I think from a cycling perspective,

the first thing, because it's still fresh in the memory, it was going across Kurdistan.

There was such a mind-blowing experience, because it was kind of like the combination of,

you know, having spent years and years and years on the bike to get fit,

and then being able to cycle in the mountains of the tea and chan,

was just amazing. Like, it was physically hard work. It was, in terms of mindset,

probably one of the biggest challenges you have ever done. You know, if you push your bike

across an icy slope at 4,000 meters of altitude, and you can hear a wax tumbling behind you,

and you kind of go like, oops, why am I doing this? But on the other hand, you kind of go like,

I've worked hard all of those years and all the to get to a state that I can actually do this.

And this is kind of, that's been, that's been amazing.

Around the world trip as well, I think it's just going to, I think it's fading a little bit of

memory at the moment, just a bit, just a little bit, but, I mean, it's just the sheer,

the sheer trip I met amazing, and I think it's really difficult to find a particular highlight

from the trip because basically for a year I got to ride my bike, I went to some mind-blowing,

beautiful places, and I met incredible people. And I think the social aspect, that's,

that's the thing that sticks in my mind, and it's characters. So just to take, and as I said,

it's hard to take one occasion, but there was one day when I cycled across the mountains in

New Mexico and ended up in Albuquerque, and I ended up to stay with a couple overwarm showers,

and they were so incredibly helpful. I remember I went into Albuquerque, there was the first time

I had to put my down jacket on for cycling because it was just freezing cold. And then I ended up

with the two of them, and I was sitting with Bruce over a bottle of wine, talking about things

life in general. There was a person I had never met in my life before, and they had never met me,

you know, they didn't know much about me other than possibly the things that

possibly could find out over the internet. And there was such an amazing evening, you know,

woke up the next morning, being totally revitalized, kind of like, and there was just this kind of like,

and there were many of those situations where you kind of go like, you know, there was two hours of

meeting people, I've never met, and I possibly will never meet them again in my life. The reality is,

like, you know, I can't go back to meet all of those people again. But yeah, it's just this sort of

stuff, especially in times when, like now, when you travel is restricted, you kind of go like,

you know what, I've done those things, you know, it's just like, and that's the kind of thing,

yeah, they will stick in my mind, yeah. It's funny actually, whenever I travel, the people are

what sticks in my mind, you know, the scenery is lovely, you take the pictures and you look back

in them and smile at the memories, but it's the people that really stick in your heart. I mean,

just so interesting, and so, just hospitality is wonderful, you know, people all around the world

will just welcome you, and for nothing, you know, just because they want to be nice. And that's

what we remember. Yeah, and it's also, I mean, and again, for this time, it's interesting, because

the first thing I did is deleting news apps for my phone, like, because what you'll recognize when

you go around the world is essentially that the world is a really nice place, like even if you go

into places which are Iran is such a great example for that. Look at the news coverage about Iran,

you will hardly find any positive news about the country. There are a lot of issues in the country,

and especially if you look at the way women are treated and things like this. So I'm not, you know,

I'd never say, you know, I agree with any of those things, but then if you go to the country,

you travel to those tiny little villages, and the world in those villages is a very different one

you get from the news, you know, really welcoming people, really well educated as well, like a lot of

them spoke English. And if they didn't speak English, they had a relative who spoke English and then

translate back to us. And there was the kind of thing, I think that's the thing where I realized,

you know what, on this very macro level when you travel, like I would say 99% of the people are

welcoming and curious about what you're doing, and you have a great time. And there's, yeah, of course,

there's a little bit of danger every now and then, but, you know, I think for your own

health and well-being, you can ignore that for the time being and not listen to those things.

No, absolutely. Moving on, you've done work recently in Scotland for

Argyll and Butte Council, and also I think for East Lothian as well, developing

bike parking routes have written a bit of East Lothian one. Yeah, it's taking advantage again

of the beautiful scenery of Scotland. How do you find the routes? Do you look at the map,

or do you just go out in your bike and explore? And a combination of a lot of things, and I think

like over having done this for almost three years now, I think that I've kind of shaped my approach

a little bit. So when I started doing that, there was when I developed the capital trail,

there was just kind of on my own back, and a lot of those routes are historic. So I think

a quite inspiration for anything I've done so far is kind of looking at all historical routes

in Scotland, 12 roads, military roads. There's such an amazing network of ancient parts of

the Chris Crosses Scotland, which is, you know, I think for the work I'm doing is such a quite

starting point. So whenever I, you know, go to a particular region, I kind of have a look at

what old road roads, coffin roads, and stuff like this exists, and then how can I combine those

things together? The approach has somehow changed that I'm working on a project in Highland

Perthshire at the moment, and my way of designing routes is about giving people a great incentive

for cycling, but also to stop. So, you know, I think it's like there's some routes which are

in terms of the riding are stunningly beautiful, but on the other hand, I think if you look at

making a little bit, making them a little bit more accessible, they also need to be places along

the route where people can eat, you know, where I can get some supplies. I think it's safe to say

that a lot of people will possibly not fancy cycling 100 kilometers or more without any

resupply whatsoever. I think it just makes, you know, that kind of would exclude a lot of people.

So the way I look at things at the moment is, so when I did the project in Perthshire, I looked at

all the places which are in the area, which could be of some sort of interest, things like the

Fortenville View, for example, oldest hotel in Scotland. So, you know, because Scotland, again,

is such a, such a rich place, because the history dates back such a long time, you know, more than

four or five thousand years at times. So I was mapping all of those places, then I was looking at

cool places in the train that are, that are nice for cycling as well. So there's not much use if you,

if you've got a lot of interesting places, but you have to cycle on a massive big road in order to

get there. So that wouldn't work either. And then combining all of those things, and then like the

my approach to the sort of things. So I do the planning mostly on my computer, but then the most

important part of that is actually going out there, taking a bike and ride it. And then in that

process, a lot of the things actually develop further, because East Lodian is a good example for that,

because there were paths in East Lodian, you won't find on the map, you know, and then you see

this tiny little path hidden away. You kind of go like, I was planning to go this route, but then

there's this great single trail to the forest, which a lot of people would enjoy. So of course, I'm

going to kind of try to find the ways to kind of incorporate a single track. That's why in that stage,

you'll end up cycling a lot, sometimes, just to find an improvement of two kilometers somewhere.

But that's cool. That's the way I think this is kind of, I think this is why the stuff I'm doing

is very different from just using an online route planner, because there's the online knowledge

that goes into that, but there's also a very personal note in all of those trails. And I think

this is what I'm trying to do with bike-packing Scotland. Well, you're succeeding. I mean, my

family are from Preston Pans originally. I'm riding bits of your route in East Lodian. I got a

completely new perspective on the countryside. I thought I knew so well. So I think you're succeeding

100% in that. What's the best place for people to find the routes that you're laying out for the

councils? So there's a couple of websites which are really handy to start. So there's

Heritagepaths.co.uk, which is one by Scott Ways, the Scottish Wight of Ways Association.

That's sort of which resource, because basically it's got all the old paths and it's got the old maps

as well. And some of the trails, they no longer exist on modern maps, but they exist on maps from 1906

or even further, further than that. So that's a great starting point. There's a couple of other

websites as well. Geographs can more. Then I'm also really keen to look at sometimes at local

tourism organizations' websites. Although they might not have information about particular cycling

routes, but they give you a good look and feel of an idea. A guide, for example, is about water.

It's about water, about forwards. It's not about massive mountains like in Torridan, for example.

You won't find that there. So I kind of always do that as well. And then sometimes look at

individual routes from people as well. Although I must say that a lot of my approach is not trying to

look at other people's stuff too much, because as soon as you do that, there is a tendency potentially

to copy things. And that's what I don't like to do. It's the same with my round-of-voltage whip.

I was deliberately not looking at other people's routes, because I'm kind of going like, you know,

I've got a very particular style of riding to make it fun for me, and that might be the approach

of someone else. One thing that really interests me that you've done recently is, as long as

listeners of the fellow cast, I don't know, my middle son lives in Chongqing and China.

I think it would be a long while before I'm able to fly over to visit him, which we've done every

year since 2013. So I thought I might as well ride a bike to China. And you rode the Silk Road,

which is the obvious way to go. And we've got friends in a town called Yang Ye, which is one of

the entry towns for the Silk Road and China. What was that experience like?

Yeah, amazing. I only thought I could part of the Silk Road in Kyrgyzstan. So the Silk Road mountain

race just taken some parts of the Silk Road, but it also goes over other parts of the Tian

China. I think it's just a good catchy name for the race. But I guess, you know, I can, like,

you get to totally get a sense for what it's like. Imagine massive big mountains, snow-capped,

nomads, wild horses, a lot of cold water. It's probably my shoe toys wasn't the greatest one on that

group. But it's just, I think it's a very, for me, Kyrgyzstan in particular was a very different

culture to hear. Very different approach to life, you know, just seeing the nomads still moving

around the country with their roots is, for me, it was quite refreshing because you're also,

you see a very different life to what we are living here. You know, I think you're kind of

sometimes living in the rest of the world to get very stuck to those principles of owning things

and making money. You know, you see those nomads in their roots. They're living a very,

very simple life, but they're smiling. And that's the thing that struck me as this is this is

creative, you know. And the other thing as well, I think, and that's possibly the same if you go

to other countries. Those are countries that used to be part of the former Soviet Union. And I

grew up in East Germany, and I speak Russian, not great any longer. I had Russian at school for 10

years, but at least I've got the ability to read signs, and especially when I was traveling,

across Kyrgyzstan, I was my Russian in little bits came back into my mind, which was quite nice,

and you're again, like for me, it was when I arrived in Bishkek and then I cycled out

about 60 kilometers. I automatically, I thought like I'm going to be transformed back

30 years and time back to my childhood in East Germany because there were like Lenin statues,

and a lot of the communist symbols. And in a way, like a lot of the machinery and whatever they

were using was basically the same as in 1989 when the war came down in Germany. So for me,

that part of the journey was quite important as well, because I could, while I was riding my bike,

just kind of like think a little bit more about my upbringing, and also about the whole concept of

I'm actually having the freedom to do this here. You know, I can go to those countries,

they allow me in, they allow me to get a sense of their culture as well, and I think that was just,

it was a lovely experience. It's funny actually, I'll let you go now because you're sitting

in a turban, you've already sat in the turban for longer than I want to. Where can people find out

more about you? I mean, I've seen one of your talks, you know, very engaging public speaker,

once all this has finished people, if you can, and watch one of Marcus's talks because they're

fantastic. We follow you into it, you're very, very active in social media, but where's the best

people, or the best place for people to follow you in the internet? So there's, there's, there's

basically three things I'm doing at the moment. So there's my own stuff, there's my website,

Marcus.it.com, which has a lot of the information. I've actually one of the upcoming lockdown projects

going to be to bring that a little bit more up to date, because it's been so much stuff I've

been doing in the last few years that doesn't yet feature on that. And there's a couple of

social media channels as well, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And I think most recently YouTube,

I am working on a couple of film projects this year and the whole filmmaking is basically

been what I'm kind of want to move more into. I love this stuff that you're doing with drones.

You know, your drone work is absolutely inspirational because it gives you a sense of the scenery

that you're moving through. You know, you're not just a small point in a sea of green.

Yeah, and I'm actually, I'm working on a new film, not as we speak, because I'm sitting on a

turban train, but in my, in my head, I've got some lovely footage from cycling the Cabotera,

I was 12 in Patagonia. And I haven't done anything yet with the footage, because a lot of the work

I'm doing, or the stuff on social media, you possibly worth seeing, that's, I, I, I'm quite

keen to tell stories and inspire people to that, you know, and then that's, and I think like,

if you've got a good story, you can get things to people much easier other than if you don't have

that. So like, a lot of this stuff is about storytelling. So that's my personal stuff. And yeah,

hopefully I'd love to go back to, I've got some cracking pictures from Morocco, which was my

most recent trip. And yeah, hopefully I'll be able to do some public speaking again whenever

that's possible. Then there's Bikepacking Scotland, which is a large part of my life as well.

And, but that's about the route. So there's BikepackingScotland.com as a website, which features the

routes. And then there's a Facebook page and Instagram and Twitter as well. And then the next

new project is that I'm running events with Charlie Hopps, which I call the dirt, that is,

and that's very much, I think, in a sense, that's something that combines me as a person

and my BikepackingScotland approach, because it gives me the ability to design shorter routes

and get people out there to have fun. That's like, Charlie is pretty much the same as me.

We're both single-speeders. We both love cycling to the pub every now and then, again,

when that's sociable, acceptable again, and the pub's so open. But, you know, I'm a keen racer,

but at the same time, you know, I also, like, you know, I love the funny aspect of cycling.

And the dirt as events are pretty much about that. And they're a little bit more,

a bit more wacky at times as well. You know, it's just kind of, we had this, we just started the

podcast for that. And it's about bicycles and well-assorted nonsense. And I think that's exactly what

the events are about, you know, is to try to get people outdoors in a nice community of people.

And sort of stuff is about the dirt dashes, it's on dirt dashes.cc and a couple of social media

channels as well. Well, thank you so much for your time, Marcus. Once this is all over, I'll take

a pedal the 22 miles up the road and pick your brains a bit riding a china and buy a beer.

Yeah, that would be awesome. It's been an absolute pleasure. Now, a quick question before we go,

did Mark get a fan for you? Have you got a fan for your turbo trainer?

Or do I need a fan? I would imagine right now you're sweating buckets in your far too hot.

Ah, okay. Yeah, no, not yet, but I'm pretty sure that I might be able to get that from the

Tesco. It's just around the corner, you're on one of my essential journeys. Yeah, a fan will change

your life on the turbo trainer. Ah, okay, well, thanks for that advice. I've got two big windows

I can open as well, so I can at least listen to the birds as well.

Well, thanks again, Marcus. I hope to see you soon, eh?

Put it in. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.