Most people celebrate their early twenties with a weekend away. Joshua Moodie, 22, is marking his with a bikepacking expedition of roughly 25,000km — from the Atlantic edge of Cornwall to Russia's Pacific coast — crossing 26 countries in the space of a year.
Moodie rolls out from Land's End on September 14. The opening stretch through southern England ends not at a port terminal but on a sailboat: a family friend will ferry him across the Channel to the French coast near the Belgian border. From there he heads south, climbing through the Austrian Alps and the Dolomites before dropping down to follow the Mediterranean. He intends to keep hugging that warm coastline through Turkey, partly for the weather, before crossing Azerbaijan and catching a ferry over the Caspian Sea into Central Asia.
The final third of the route is the complicated part. His draft plan sees him skirt China, push north from Kazakhstan into Russia, cross Mongolia, dip back into China, then ride a long final leg through Russia's Far East to the ocean. But Moodie is refreshingly candid that nothing is fixed. The China question in particular — with the tight restrictions in the country's northwest — is one he'll settle only once he reaches Kazakhstan.
Riding through Russia as a British national is entirely legal, but not without risk. Explorer Charlie Walker was detained in Siberia in 2022 and held for a month, and French cyclist Sofiane Sehili spent two months in prison last year after using a border crossing restricted to buses and trains. Moodie acknowledges the headlines Russia has generated but points out that more than 20 other countries fill his route — a fair point when your itinerary spans the Alps, the Turkish coast, the Caspian and the Mongolian steppe.
What makes the project notable is that it's his first long-distance ride. Nearly every country on the map will be new to him. He'll travel hotel-free, camping his way across a continent and carrying 30 to 35kg of gear in his panniers — including camera equipment for a documentary he plans to make along the way. The one-year target is deliberate: it keeps him ahead of winter so he doesn't have to overwinter somewhere unplanned, and it keeps his budget from bleeding out. Still, he's built in slack for the adventure to steer itself.
For travellers, the appeal here is the route itself. Moodie's line is a masterclass in slow, overland journey planning: ferry shortcuts across the Channel and the Caspian, mountain passes timed for warm months, and a Mediterranean corridor that keeps riding conditions kind for longer. Even if you'd never attempt 25,000km, chunks of it — the Dolomites to the Adriatic, eastern Turkey, the Kazakh steppe — are exactly the kind of ground-based travel more holidaymakers are looking for. Watch how his route evolves; the final map could double as an inspiration board for anyone plotting a two-wheeled escape.
Via ExplorersWeb