About – Alistair Todd

All the way around or die trying. That felt like an outcome with some possibility, but the most difficult step is deciding to take action. The rest is just doing.

Alistair Todd

The Adventures Of

Alistair Todd

Alistair was well into his thirties before he ever rode a motorcycle. Yes, of course he had bicycles as a kid, and he even earned a Cycling Proficiency badge from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, but it’s important to note that two days before that he somehow managed to crash into a house and end up in hospital. It wouldn’t be the last time.

Nowadays he lives on an island in the gulf of Thailand, trying to be a better writer. Trying to be a writer at all. He’s too easily distracted by riding his bicycle. He still has the beloved Yamaha XT600 that took him on an adventure, lovingly restored and rebuilt during the Covid lockdowns. He still dreams of visiting every country in the world.

Countries Visited

2005

Reads Jupiter’s Travels by Ted Simon, and starts planning

2009

Sets off on a Yamaha XT600E trying to ride around the world

2010

Severe traumatic brain injury. A minor setback

2014

Dusts off some old journals and has a crack at the Bike magazine travel story competition, sparking a slow-burning desire to write a book, if he can ever shake off the effects of brain injury and remember what happened in 2009

2020

Restores his XT600 from the ground up during the Covid lockdowns, then finally starts writing a book

2022

Moves to Thailand, quite by accident. For some considerable time, this rather gets in the way of writing

Long-distance travel had taken me to many high points and a few lows. The journey itself was also the cure for those lows. Doubts and frustrations drifted away in my exhaust smoke. If my mood began to close down, I opened up the throttle.

Alistair Todd

To See The World

124 countries and counting. Still such a long way to go.

Alistair has ridden a motorcycle around the world.

He has travelled southern Africa in a four-wheel-drive truck with a tent on the roof.

He has cycled through central America and the lengths of Vietnam and Cuba, explored Europe from north to south and east to west by motorcycle, driven all around Sri Lanka and Oman, cycled to hill-top forts in India, desert wadis in Jordan, and mountain passes in Morocco, and travelled around the world a second time by air.

And he’s not even half-way done.

The closest he’s come to fame is the time he met Jeremy Clarkson in a car park.

Alistair’s first bike was an SV650. He still has his XT600. His favourite bike was a BMW K1300S, which he rode from York to Belgrade in two days.

Alistair ran the Great North Run twice, with a best time of 1h38, and he once cycled coast-to-coast from Workington to Tynemouth in 11 hours, but that was all before a horrible collision with a car while cycling in 2010. That left him with a severe brain injury and a determination to see the world while he still can.

In case you ever wondered what’s going on inside Alistair’s head, it looks like this!

My epiphany was to grasp that this was now my own adventure, I was accountable only to myself, and I presided over my own success. Look at me. I’m the captain now.