Episode 158: Tomas Mac An T-Saoir

Choosing the Adventurous Route to Cycle Around the World

What we often forget about taking on huge bike adventures are the messy, emotional parts that come with it. The “what am I doing?” moments, the tears, the fear, the doubt, and the deep resilience that grows because of all of it.

For this episode of the podcast I sat down with Tomas Mac An T-Saoir, an adventurer from County Kerry in Ireland who spent eight and a half years riding his bike around the world to hear what it was really like for him.

What began as a fairly spontaneous idea to ride across the United States in 2016 quickly turned into something much, much bigger. After finishing that first trip, Tomas returned home, briefly entertained the idea of becoming a school teacher… and then didn’t get on the bus. Literally. A couple of days before he was supposed to head off to Cork to start a new job, he decided instead to cycle across Africa.

And that’s where this story really lifts off as he filled me in on his decision making process for his journey. How he comes to seeking out the adventurous routes and what he specifically is hoping to experience with his bike travels. Our chat went on for so long that I’ve had to split it up across two episodes.

In Part 1, Tomas takes us from growing up in the small community of the Dingle Peninsula, and how from there he came to find himself riding across America. He’d had absolutely no solo travel experience prior, and he jokes that he’s ashamed to say he didn’t camp a single night on that trip. From there he certainly ‘levelled up’ on his travels, and that’s also where we get into the heart of the episode.

Tomas shares how he found himself deciding to cycle down the east side of Africa, starting in Egypt and heading toward Cape Town. It’s here we get some unforgettable moments, including being hassled by Egyptian police, who even threatened him with deportation, and eventually getting across the border into Sudan, where everything suddenly goes starkly quiet.

By noon on his first day in the Nubian Desert, Tomas has already ridden over 90 kilometres with a stonking tailwind… and he admitted to me he cried most of the way. He describes sitting on the ground, opening Google Maps and zooming out, the desert getting bigger and bigger until he felt like a tiny dot on the planet. He was overcome with a wave of anxiety and realised quickly, out there it was up to him alone to get through it. That moment of being at breaking point and needing to find a way to get yourself back to feeling ok enough to continue, is a captivating example of how world travellers like Tomas develop the resilience needed to continue taking on these trips.

But it’s not all hardship on this adventure. We also talk about the incredible hospitality of Sudanese people, the kindness of strangers, and the humour of meeting other cyclists later on who all share the same “Egyptian police” trauma stories over dinner. There’s a lot of laughing in this episode…although I admit it was often about things that definitely didn’t feel funny at the time.

We also talk about Tomas’ decisions to cycle to places like Afghanistan and Syria. Countries plagued with war, and what it was like to be on the ground there, and feel the impact that conflicts in those countried have had. He shares how Syria still impacts him now, and his memories of the very first kilometres pedalling into the country adn being overcome with the sight of seeing every single building being devastated by the war.

This is just part 1 of the conversation, and in the next episode we get even deeper into his experiences of this journey. For now, settle in and enjoy Part 1. It’s emotional, surprising, relatable and full of moments that make long distance bike travel what it is: unpredictable, humbling and in Tomas’ case, strangely addictive.

You can also follow Tomas via his instagram – @anbotharfada

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