A creative approach to overcoming adversity is one of the hallmarks of a successful ultra-endurance athlete, and 25-year-old Andrew Ryan might just have it in spades.
In April this year, Ryan set off on his bicycle to circumnavigate the planet. When we speak, he’s reached Turkey’s Black Sea coast, having covered 2,300-odd miles after six weeks on the road.
Ryan – brand new to cycling but with a background in endurance running – had chosen the well-trodden path of gaining a university degree before embarking on a desk-bound career in the city. But one morning in March this year, as he swivelled on his chair in an office in Atlanta, Georgia, he had an epiphany. There was more to life than this. The very same day, he handed in his notice. He had a month to prepare. The world awaited his wheels.
But first he had to buy those wheels. “I found a Ritchey steel frame on Facebook for $500. It’s maybe 10 years old. I figured steel would be the most fixable material if something went wrong on the road,” Ryan told me of buying his steed.
Four weeks of planning ensued, and on April 6, Ryan found himself on a plane heading to Poland.
The trip, so far, is looking good – but it didn’t get off to the best start. A catastrophically timed mechanical failure – and the resulting stopover – on the opening day from Kraków (Poland) almost saw Ryan call time on the whole affair.
Ryan picked the bike up for $500
(Image credit: Andrew Ryan)
“The terrain I was riding was relentlessly steep,” remembers Ryan, “my front brake cable snapped, and so did the cable for the rear derailleur. One of the only spare parts I neglected to bring were cables,” he recalls.
Ryan had begun his journey on the Easter weekend – a period during which he discovered the “devoutly Christian” Poland essentially shuts itself down “from Good Friday right through until the following Tuesday.”
A long walk with a broken bike landed the adventurer at the Slovakian border. Whilst there was no bike shop, Ryan did chance upon a small homestay hotel.
“The hotel was shut down for the holiday, but I happened to run into the owner. She let me pay, checked me in, and then left. She told me she wouldn’t be back until Tuesday. I was the only person in the hotel,” recalls Ryan.
The building itself had no central heating. Most of it sat cold and dormant, in shutdown mode during the long weekend, save for Ryan’s room. “So I went upstairs, let myself into the room with the electric key card, and went to take a shower. When I came back from the shower, the key card no longer worked.”
A view from Ryan’s first day in Poland
(Image credit: Andrew Ryan)
Now standing alone in a “five or six degree hallway” wearing nothing but underwear and socks, with a dwindling phone battery and no neighbours, Ryan slowly began to realise the magnitude of the situation.
Then came a small glimmer of hope – the downstairs bathroom.
“I found a housekeeping drawer with four bath towels and some toilet paper in it. I realised I was probably going to get hypothermia if I stayed in the lobby, so I wrapped towels and toilet paper around my arms and legs and lay on the bathroom floor because it was slightly warmer in there. Every so often, I’d turn the shower on to fill the room with hot steam before the water ran cold again.”
By this stage, Ryan had been awake for over 40 hours, but the hotel hadn’t finished with him yet. “There was this incredibly sensitive motion-detecting light. If you moved your pinky toe it would blast on and stay on for five minutes.”
For fifteen hours, Ryan drifted in and out of consciousness on the bathroom floor. When he finally heard movement downstairs, he assessed himself in the mirror: “My eyes were bloodshot, my lips were blue, and I had massive bags under my eyes,” he says.
Finally, the owner had returned. “You’re late for checkout,” she told him.
When the full experience had been relayed, Ryan received an extra night’s stay on the house, sleeping for 24-hours straight before continuing his journey.
Months later, he’s still pedalling. Now in Georgia, Ryan hopes to be able to continue through the Far East, across Australia and up through South America.
Adversity still visits regularly, of course. That’s the nature of riding a bicycle around the world. But now he’s prepared for it. Andrew Ryan rolls with the punches. And perhaps that’s what ultra cycling is about.
