Interview: Vin Cox - 10 years on - part two

In part two of our interview with Vin Cox, 10-years on from his record-breaking round the world ride, we continue our conversation, starting with his elongated return to normal life and ending with a chat about bikes. What else?!

Miss part one of our interview with Vin Cox? Check it out here.

 

With all of these countries crossed, what was it like to return home?

It happened in several stages for me. There’s a chap who I knew fairly well who I used to race cyclo-cross with. 

 

He had moved to northern France, so I stayed with him the night before I got the ferry back to the UK. 

 

I remember approaching the town with a few tears in my eyes about to see someone who I would know. I was used to forming quick relationships on the road, but to see someone who knew you was a big deal. I remember being very emotional about that. 

And that was before you had even returned to home soil?

Yes, when I disembarked from the ferry in Plymouth there were loads of friends and family there, so that was a whole extra thing and then that built up again as I got closer to London. 

 

Because of that I actually slowed right up. I didn’t cross the south of the country, I wanted to be composed so I took the longer route. 

 

Then because I had started inside the Greenwich Royal Observatory using the Prime Meridian Line, I realised I couldn’t just finish at any time, I had to do it in working hours! So I finished on a Sunday lunchtime and I remember the whole thing building up. 

 

My wife hadn’t met me in Plymouth, she wanted to meet me at the finish so she knew I wasn’t about to charge off again. So she was at the finish. That was really special. She jumped on top of the panniers and got a backie down to the hotel. 

 

I remember being at Greenwich and there being huge crowds there, mostly of people who had no idea what I was up to and a photographer from The Sun having an argument with the crowd to get them out of the way which was a bizarre experience. 

 

How was life after that, going home?

I do remember normal life was overwhelming. Suddenly I was responsible for more than just a pannier with one pair of pants I need to wash. I had wardrobes, and clothes and stuff. 

 

After I returned my wife and I went on a holiday to the Orkney Isles and there was stuff all over the place. At one point we parked and made a brew and after we finished, because we didn’t have a place for everything, I didn’t put the stove back, we just drove away. 

 

I thought, ‘how did I manage to not lose a camping stove in 18,000 miles of bike riding and now I’m back, I’ve left one at the roadside’. 

 

It was a weird experience to start realising what you’re used to coping with in normal life; owning lots of things and having places for all of them, the logistics of doing more than one thing per day. It’s interesting to have a different perspective on things because most people don’t get that. Even down to waking up each morning and knowing where you are. 

 

Once you were home and settled, was there ever that nagging question of what next?

I did get into those thoughts after the round the world record, people were asking me what’s next, if I was going to become a professional adventurer. 

But how do you top these things and have a normal family life and secure income? So I thought I would be what I was before, doing adventurous and exciting things and incorporating them into the rest of my life. 

 

I think it helped that I wasn’t a record hunter. The record made the whole adventure appealing to sponsors and added a dimension. But it was an adventure. The record ought to come if I rode the sorts of distances that I could ride per day. 

 

In the last 10-years there have been some huge changes in technology, especially in how such attempts are documented. Are you happy to have completed your journey at a time when perhaps things were simpler and social media wasn’t so influential?

I appreciated the opportunity to be a bit more anonymous about it and just get on. I did have a spot tracker on me but almost nobody had heard of those at the time and dot watching wasn’t a thing. A few people got into that from watching my feed. 

 

I was on Facebook, but there weren’t many people on there at that time. All those things were new to me and to my audience wasn’t big at the time. It wasn’t something people automatically went to. 

 

My enjoyment comes from doing emerging things and doing my thing within that. I was into ‘cross before it was a big deal - I went to race in Belgium where it was massive, and now and again a couple of Brits would show up, very different to the way it is now. It was nice to be part of something minority and building. 

 

Ten years on, do you still have the original bike – and have you ridden it since?
Every now and again I get invited to speak at events. Recently Penzance Wheelers invited me to speak at their club dinner and I cycled there on the old Croix de Fer. It was nice to resurrect it actually! 

 

It was really cool to talk to everyone as they asked questions about the record, and showed me people who I had inspired and it was very humbling. I didn’t know what to say really, except being as nice as I could possibly be. 

Of course that was in great contrast to my journey, where I loved interacting with people who had no idea what I was doing. To them I was just some strange bloke who had turned up on a bike. 

 

How was the bike – had you ridden it after the record at all?
The bike needed a bit of TLC as I had kept it pretty much as it was from the day I finished. 

 

I took the Shimano Alfine hub in to get serviced as it wasn’t quite selecting the right gears. However, in Shimano’s defence they did recommend to service it every 2000 miles and I’ve never touched it. 

 

There was a story behind using that hub as well. At the time everyone would use a Rolhoff, which was seen as the default setup for any long-distance bike ride. 

 

I thought the whole point of this – an adventure and a record – was to do something new and different to go at speeds and places that other people hadn’t done. So that’s why I chose the Croix de Fer and usied the Alfine hub. And the big advantage was if something went wrong, many people stock Shimano. 

I also got my original shoes out, which are one of the things I was most technically proud of. I got road shoes and glued trainer soles around the cleat.

 

Even opening up the panier bags, I’ve kind of preserved everything in the state I stopped riding in. Tech is a bit weird to look at from a decade ago. 

 

What were you using back then?
I had two bike computers and two phones. 

One was a Cateye wireless and I’m really glad I had that because the Garmin broke. So I continued by making paper notes of how far I’d gone each day based off the Cateye. 

 

The phones I carried, one was basic, but the other one was posher and had an early form of Google Maps and Skype.

 

Alongside the phones, I had two different SIM cards to keep the costs of calling as low as possible. I did have data connections around the world but it was very expensive so I’d try to get wifi at a hotel or restaurant.

These phones were not at all waterproof and the time you really needed them was when it was raining hard, so I remember sheltering under bus stops in Australia and New Zealand trying to check if I was on the right path or not. 

 

Of course today’s technology would make it easier, but I don’t think it would be that much easier. 

 

Looking back at your blog, you wrote a piece 10-years ago describing why you had made the decision to go wholesale with disc brakes on all of your bikes. It’s only taken all of the last decade for the industry to catch up! How do you look back at that?

I think they were the right thing and I only changed pads a couple of times with no wear to the rim. 

 

I chose my bike by putting together a list of things I would like and disc brakes were part of that. 

 

I wanted it to have disc brakes because I thought that was the future, it avoided problems with bucked wheels. Although I did buckle a disc, by way of a cat in the dark. 

For the rest of the bike, I wanted it to be a steel frame – and not too high-end either. I wanted it to be something that might be repairable should I get into an incident or accident, which meant that Reynolds 725 was a good setup. 

 

I liked the idea it would have a cross heritage and at the time it was labelled as a borderline cross bike which was good enough for me.

 
I wanted it to be a UK brand as well. It came quite naturally to be on a Genesis. It looked like the right bike to go around the world on. 

 

Funnily enough, the other day I saw one of the special edition bikes that Genesis produced for sale on Ebay and I put in a bid on it. A size too small really so I didn’t push the boat out, but I would like one, as I’ve never even seen one myself. 

 

While we’re talking about bikes, if you could be given one bike right now to have, what would you choose to add to your collection?

My latest project is building up a Bamboo fatbike – why not! I’ve usually regretted getting rid of bikes when I’ve got rid of them, so I’ve reduced doing that, so there aren’t many gaps.

 

I do like the way that the gravel bikes have evolved and I think that’s what I’m most interested in and connected to. I see how the range of gears is changing. 

 

I’d be tempted to try something more racy and lightweight on the gravel side of things. A lot of my stuff has been steel or titanium. 

 

What I haven’t done for quite some time is to have a carbon frame, with clearance for a wider back tyre and I’d like to see how racy you can go on that. 

 

The other thing that sparkles in my eye are tandems. 

This wasn’t a question originally, but now you’ve mentioned it… who would be your ideal celebrity tandem partner?

I think Rannaulf Feinnes, someone who has more stories than me so I could shut up and listen for once. Anyone who has done some other cool big deal adventures that would put me to shame – I’d like to listen.

Vin's Fugio from his successful Trans Iowa in 2016 - 500km in just over 30 hours.

 

After the round the world record, you moved on again to what would now be known as gravel racing, culminating with the Trans Iowa – another example of you getting involved in something new and pioneering!

That event I’m sure will go down in history. It’s finished now and I’m sure won’t ever happen again.

 

It was bigger - in terms of distance, reputation and riders - than Dirty Kanza at the time. As founding events go, I’m glad I focussed on that as a thing to do. It was an awesome event and I made some great friends out there too. 

What has been your take on how the gravel riding scene has developed over the past five years, after your experiences in the early days?

I’m a big fan of it all, I follow a lot of these things and I like the people, what they’re doing and the experiences they have along the way. 

 

My favourite parts are the bits that remind me of the cool little asides that you have. 

 

When someone posts that they haven’t given an update for a couple of days because there was a sandstorm and there was nowhere to stay, so they slept in a bush and then got into a town where kids threw stones at me… but then I found some really helpful people who fed me and gave me a place to stay.

 

I love relating a little bit to that and how emotional and grateful it makes you when the difficulties look like they can be surmounted and you start to get through something. 

 

Looking forward, what do you think the future holds in cycling?

I think the pandemic, what’s happening now is a big deal in the sporting world, particularly in cycling. I’m not sure how pro road racing will work after this. 

I fully support the UCI cramming the historic events into a shortened season. But the problems caused to sponsors and risks of second wave… especially when drawing large crowds to towns is the whole point of cycling. That might be a bad thing for several years.

 

However, maybe the sport is going to move toward gravel and adventure in a similar way that Lachlan (Morton) has done already. 

 

It’s a way that the cycling industry and the keen competitor can challenge themselves and have something to talk about and progress themselves, without it being required - or even possible - to have huge crowds at the roadside. So it may be boosted by the situation, depending how travel and quarantines work out. 

How about the next 10-years in bicycle technology?

I think we will be more comfortable with disc brakes and electric gears. Maybe the powering of electric gears is will be considered more for those going on wilderness adventures. 

 

I’d like to see some of the peripheral kit and how it integrates with bikes develop. Like tarps and tents for example. People have ways of using their bike now but there must be better ways. 

 

Something I was thinking about years ago, was if you could have some blades for spokes, turn your bike upside down and power your dynamo by wind for while you rest. 

 

When I’ve got a dynamo on I know I’m on a sustainable adventure. When I rode my round the world I didn’t carry a socket. It was all off the dynamo. 

 

Maybe some suspension built into the frame will become more common, but I’ll just be watching with interest. I think things are going in a nice direction. Tyres, disc brakes, gearing options, I think it’s going in a sensible direction. 

 

Finally, do you have any plans for your next adventure?
I have got a little plan to go and see some of the re-scheduled Tour de France, where I’ll ride down to the west-coast if I can and watch. 

 

The other big project is the shipping forecast. I’ve got a map on the wall and I’d like to ride all of the coasts in the world in the shipping forecast. It’s huge and it’s naturally episodic. It’s poetic and it’s mystical. I’ve ridden quite a bit of coastline in various other tours so I have made a start, but there’s a lot of it that I still have to cover!

Everyone here at Genesis would like to extend their thanks to Vin for sharing his experiences and winding back the years. Here's to the next big adventure!