Mark Brayne is a former journalist with a career spanning 30 years as a foreign correspondent for Reuters and the BBC and now works as a shrink specialising in trauma. Perhaps most exciting for us two-wheel obsessives, however, is Mark’s passion for cycling.
Back in 2008, he embarked on an epic 4,170-mile ride from his home in the Cotswolds to Budapest in Hungary, which is chronicled on Psychlotherapist – his blog about cycling, therapy and climate change.
Mark’s next trip, departing on Easter day, will see him cycle across Europe to Moscow where he once lived as a student. Travelling on the Trans-Siberian railway from Moscow to Beijing, Mark will continue his journey along the east coast of China through Qingdao and then to Shanghai, up the Yangste and into Sichuan province. His final destination with bike in tow is Hong Kong, where he will ship it back home before heading-off for two months of backpacking with his wife, Sue, through south east Asia, New Zealand (where his daughter is working for the International Volunteer headquarters) and the west coast of America.
A lot of cyclists would find the prospect of cycling to Moscow a daunting one and, most likely, feel the need to meticulously plan their journey. Not Mark: “I like to make these things up as I go along, so apart from making sure insurance, jabs, etc. are all in order, and my Garmin kitted with appropriate maps, I just head off, mixing camping (wild mostly when out of season) with youth hostels and calling in on friends from old correspondent days .”
Mark is raising money for the Rory Peck Trust and EMDR HAP UK & IRELAND, but that is not his only reason for the cycle. “I’m really doing it for myself – at 61 I know my knees and health have a now very limited shelf life, and with climate change heading our way, I do not believe we have many years left where such trips will be possible.”
Mark will be using the same trusted favourite as he did on the Budapest trip – a Thorn Rohloff-equipped heavy long-distance tourer. As all cyclists know, one bike is never enough. Mark’s fleet include a Brompton three-speed folder for commuting, an old Raleigh 531 racer for pottering around the Cotswolds and a tandem which he rides with Sue on holidays, which have so far included Normandy, the Loire, the Dordogne, the Camino de Santiago, the Elbe to Prague, Bavaria and the Black Forest, and Transylvania.
Mark has been cycling “Since forever. I’ve never been interested in racing or cycling as a sport. I don’t even follow the Tour de France. But I love commuting – I started in London in 1973 after university, and for 10 years and more cycled 25 miles a day in and out of central London from my former home base in High Barnet.
“Mostly these days I just do short distances to and from commuting railway stations and to clients in London. I do like to travel much further and like nothing more than settling into weeks on my tourer with tent and four panniers, cycling 100km a day and going the distance. I’ve probably never been happier. And, important to note, this is best done solo – it’s the best form of meditation.”
And what about the highs and lows on the road? “Lows are perhaps being totally soaked with nowhere dry to stay in Austria on the Danube, but my sleeping bag was dry and warm and the highs are too numerous to mention.”
What Mark loves the most about cycling: “The true freedom. Wind in (firmly-helmeted) hair – I crashed in 1997 and would have been killed without a lid. I cannot understand and detest, as a result, the CTC for campaigning against helmets. I love travelling at the same speed as the birds, knowing I will arrive on time and feeling so very good in my body; the not knowing where I’ll be staying until the very last minute and the smug sense of superiority.”
And, finally, Mark’s favourite place to cycle in Britain? “Scotland, Scotland and Scotland. I went on a wonderful tandem trip around the western isles and highlands in 1979. It’s one I want to do again.”
