The path will reveal itself....

With seven hours to yourself on the high moors, there is plenty of thinking time. And as I walked around my self-created challenge of visiting "Ten tors in 1 day", I thought alot about what the future may hold for me.

One of the questions that I get asked most often is, "What will you do once your 100 goals challenge is over?" And at the moment I don't really have an answer. I was asked the same question many times during the build up to ALife4Sale, and until about a month before the sale began, I didn't have an answer then either. All I knew was that I wanted to do some travelling.

But it was the question itself that eventually helped provide the answer about what I might like do after ALife4Sale was over. "What will you do after you sell your life?" Often the answer in my head was, "Whatever I like!" And what did I want to do? I started to write a list of some of the places I wanted to go, and some of the things I wanted to do, and with a couple of other little triggers, "100 goals in 100 weeks" was born.

And having been asked a couple of times in the days I have spent here what I will do after this is all over, I suppose the question was on my mind a bit as I wandered the moors from tor to tor.

Once above the walls of the farms the moor opens up, and the choices available in terms of route choice are endless. There are a few well defined paths, but for the challenge I had set myself, these paths did not always lead in the direction that I wanted. Most of the time I had to strike out across boulder-strewn moorland, with my target tor visible far in the distance, but the route between where I was and my final destination unclear.

I would set off knowing exactly where I was going to get to, but had only a vague idea of the exact route I would take to get there. And so with head down, watching the uneven rocks ahead, I only ever really had about three or four steps ahead clearly planned. After taking these steps, the choice of route for the next few steps became clear.

Sometimes when the ground became clearer the path for quite a way ahead was obvious. But on occasion the path that had seemed so obvious turned out to be boggy and unpassable, and some back-tracking and re-planning was necessary.

And as I walked this slowly unfolding and often changing path, I thought about what a good metaphor it would be for not only my progress throughout my 100 goals challenge, but also for life really itself.

In both cases we have a pretty good idea of the ultimate destination, but the path between here and there is often unclear. And it is only when we make a start towards the goal that we wish to achieve, and we take those first few steps, that the next part of the path reveals itself to us. Sometimes there are dead ends, and we have to back-track, but even as we do, so long as we keep our focus on the end goal, we are still progressing towards it, even though it may not feel like it at the time.

And so my thoughts wandered to one possible future course that a friend had suggested to me not so long ago. "Maybe you could do inspirational talks! About goal setting and achieving. You will certainly be able to consider yourself some sort of authority on the subject after this!" And this day on the moor, I thought, might make a good analogy to use in such a talk. About life's often hidden path that only starts to reveal itself to us once we begin to walk it.

I have no idea how I would go about becoming a motivational speaker, but if I decide that that will be the path that I follow, I guess I just need to take the first step in that direction, and the path will reveal itself to me step by step.

Maybe even just writing about it here is taking the first step?



Many thanks to Simon, Helen, Cosmo and Daisy for their wonderful hospitality during my time here. What a wonderful and inspiring place you live in.

A few days down in Devon.

My friend Simon, who wrote the very first press release about ALife4Sale back in March last year, and started the ball rolling on the huge amount of international coverage that my auction received, lives down in Devon.

So with a few days to spare before heading off to Spain, I packed some stuff in Martin's trusty car again, and along with Martin and his box of food, we headed west out of London. Martin has a ticket for the huge Glastonbury music festival this weekend, and was meeting up in a motorway services area with his friends who had rented a camper van for the event.

After a quick bite to eat, Martin's pals showed up, and he moved his gear into the camper van, and I continued south, eventually crossing Dartmoor to find the secluded little cottage where Simon and his family live. I hadn't been there long before the trials bike was out, and we were thrashing around the abandoned quarry behind his house.

I have never been very good on a trials bike, and watched amazed at some of the hills Simon rode the bike up and down. I managed a slightly lesser hill, but sensibly knew my own limits and declined to come down the bigger, steeper section that Simon encouraged me to tackle. Maybe a bit more practice needed first, I think.



The next day I headed out onto the hills to try to toughen up my legs in preparation for my "7 Peaks" goal in late August in Colorado, and walked to the top of the moors behind the house. The weather was lovely, and the views were spectacular.



Encouraged by my first foray into fitness, I got up this morning, and after a quick breakfast headed out onto the hills again on a slightly more ambitious circuit. I spent a couple of hours wandering around the hilltops, known as tors here, and thoroughly enjoyed the silence and tranquility.



I think Simon and Helen may have trouble getting rid of me, it is so lovely here. However, I think the weather at the moment certainly helps. I can imagine it is a long, cold, grim winter here!

Their roof of their house can just be seen here on the right hand side of the first of the three pictures below - what a fantastic location!



I am having a day off from the fitness training tomorrow, although a quick walk over the moor to the local pub for Sunday lunch may be on the cards. Then on Monday I have planned a route covering a reasonably challenging "Ten Tors in one day", as more toughening for my legs and feet. Hopefully the weather will remain clear until then!

Never give up!!

Okay, so I never expected everything to be easy when I set out to achieve 100 goals, but I also never expected getting five blokes into a pub for a couple of beers to be the hardest thing I have tried to organise so far!! I have now had a couple of tries at gathering 5 Ian Ushers together in one place, and came so close to success on Saturday, when we got four of us together! After all the effort in the week beforehand to try to gather a fifth Ian, I really felt like giving up on this goal.

But when I met the three other Ians, we had such a great afternoon and evening out, and they encouraged me not to give up on the idea. Their support for my rather random goal was very welcome and inspiring.

In the blog I have previously written off one of my other goals as unachievable too. The Worthing Birdman Festival (which used to be the Bognor Birdman Festival until Bognor Pier caught fire!) takes place this year in August, when I was scheduled to be climbing mountains in Colorado. However, with a bit of research, some planning, and the lucky discovery of a reasonably cheap return flight from Denver, the goal is still achievable! Never give up!!

And so on Saturday night the four Ian Ushers came up with another date to try to achieve the goal of gathering five or more of us, as well as securing Richard Branson's very kind charitable donation offer of $500 per Ian gathered together.

We would like to invite any other Ian Usher along to join us in Worthing on the Birdman Festival weekend, which takes place on August 22nd and 23rd, two months from now.

The event looks very entertaining and quite spectacular, and attracts visitors from all over the world. Thousands of people are expected to come and witness this crazy, unique British event this year. The activities take place over two days, with the more serious and competitive flyers stretching their wings on Saturday, and the rest of the competitors plunging gracelessly off the pier on Sunday. I have entered in this second category!

More information at the Worthing Birdman website here. And check out the video highlights from last year's event:


So hopefully, with the help of some more Ian Ushers, I can achieve two goals in one weekend. Come on Ians, it will be a brilliant event! Make a holiday weekend of it!

As with almost all of my other goals, the offer is open to anyone else who wishes to come along and offer support and encouragement. Or just to laugh at me jumping off a tall pier! It really does look quite high in that video, doesn't it?

Oh, by the way, I just realised earlier today that it was exactly one year ago today that the ALife4Sale auction started, and bids reached a crazy $2.2 million, before the bidding idiots were weeded out!! The year seems to have flown by since then, but in another way that all seems so long ago too. Isn't the way we perceive time odd sometimes?

Four Ian Ushers!

After the wingwalk I had to dash back around London to drop the car off at my brother's house, and caught the underground into the city to meet some other Ian Ushers.

I have been trying everything I could think of over the past week to try to gather five of us, and by Saturday morning I had three other Ians confirmed, making a total of four of us.

I had been in touch with four or five other Ians from various parts of the country, but all had other engagements, or London was too far for them to come. I had hoped to be able to get the four of us in a car and drive to briefly meet one of the other Ians, but had been unable to get in touch with him to make arrangements.

So eventually I had to accept defeat on this occasion, and be happy with meeting three other Ian Ushers.

Ian (London) Usher had arrived at the pub just before me, and we got a couple of pints and sat down for a chat with the first other Ian Usher we had both ever met.

Sortly afterwards Ian (Portsmouth) Usher arrived, followed minutes later by Ian (Bristol) Usher. We had a couple of rounds in the fantastic old Glasshouse Stores pub, and got to know each other a bit.

We all got on pretty well, and the other Ians had some funny stories about how my eBay antics had impacted upon them. Ian from Portsmouth is about the same age as me, and had had many old friends contact him, asking if he was okay, and why he was selling everything.

And Ian from Bristol is an artist, and when setting up his website, his web designer couldn't understand why they couldn't get him a good ranking in a google search, until he discovered why... "Oh, that's unlucky! You've got the same name as the guy selling his life on eBay! That makes it much trickier."

The fire alarm went off just as we were finishing our second round, and we all ended up out on the pavement until things were sorted out, and decided that it would be a good time to head off to the Roundhouse in Covent Garden, where the new owners, Fuller's Beers, had offered each Ian a socially responsible free two pints of beer. Free beer! Fantastic, thank you Fullers!



As the afternoon turned into evening the beers continued to flow, and we did alot of laughing at unusual and entertaining situations that could occur. I mentioned that I had hoped to drive the four of us to meet a fifth Ian, but if I had borrowed my brothers old car, which overheats in busy traffic, I could picture a scene when we breakdown in central London. When the police turn up to sort it out, imagine them asking who was driving...
"Name?"
"Ian Usher."
"And the others here? What's your name?"
"Ian Usher."
"Right! And you?"
"Ian Usher"
"Hmm, you?"
"Ian Usher"
"Right, you're all under arrest!!"



Eventually Ian (Bristol) had to leave to catch the coach home. Ian (London) was next to head for home, and Ian (Portsmouth) and I headed for the tube, and I dashed headlong onto mine which was just about to leave.

Unfortunately by then I was pretty drunk, we had had a good long afternoon and evening, and I did not check the destination of the train. I also did the late night comedy trick of falling asleep almost immediately.

The Piccadilly line splits into different directions before my brothers house, and when I woke I was at a station I had never heard of before. It took a few drunken minutes of studying the tube map before I figured where I had gone wrong. Fortunately trains were still running back towards the city, and I backtracked, and eventually managed to find my way home. Two hours to do a journey that should have been about 40 minutes!

I woke with a fine hangover this morning... I'm never drinking again, I promised myself, as I have done many times before, and am sure I will do again in the future!

I cannot thank the other three Ians enough for coming along to meet a group of strangers that possibly had nothing in common other than a name! It was great that we all got along so well, and had a great evening. I really do appreciate the efforts you all made to be there.

It is a shame that the goal was not completed, but the other three are still all keen to help me achieve it, and also secure the $2,500 charitable donation from Sir Richard Branson, so hopes are not yet dead.



Pictures also available on my Facebook page here.

Thank you Ians, a brilliant night!

Goal 48 - WingWalking.

My early accident on Colin's Wall Of Death last weekend could have been much worse! The first attempt ended with me sliding down the rickety wooden wall which is filled with rusty nails and dodgy screws, and yet a bit of a graze on my arm was the only injury sustained.

Colin reckoned I was relatively unscathed only because I was wearing the safety tie that he had insisted on, and suggested that for any further dangerous activities, wearing the tie might be a wise choice.

So before climbing up onto the top wing Boeing Stearman PT17 Kaydet biplane, I made sure I was appropriately attired. Pilot Mike told me I would be his first-ever tie-wearing customer!

WingWalking UK is based at a small airfield on the east side of London, and it had taken me about an hour and a half to get there around the M25. It was a busy place, as there was a big gathering of kiteboarders there, flying kites and boarding around on the grass on wheeled boards.

I met Mike and after a very quick briefing I was up onto the top wing, and was strapped in. As we trundled over to the runway I nervously checked the straps again - they felt good and tight, but there didn't seem to enough of them for my liking.

As soon as we got a clear runway Mike gave me a shout, and we were off. Almost as soon as the plane took off, Mike banked it over to the right, and we swooped in low over the airfield.

We went through a routine of turns and swoops, and I was amazed at how low to the ground we passed over the field. Mike later told me that he is licenced to fly as low as 30 feet during a display. It felt very quick being so close to the ground.

Towards the end of the sequences, we went up to about 500 feet, and Mike dived the plane towards the runway, gathering speed, and then pulled up into a climb and another dive - it was like being on a huge rollercoaster.

The whole display lasted about 10 to 15 minutes, and I could have happily stayed up there for much longer, it really was quite an incredibly free feeling. And what an incredible position to to be too.

It was quite similar to the thrill of a skydive, but for a more extended period. By the end I was feeling pretty relaxed and confident.



Afterwards Mike presented me with a certificate, and I hung around to watch the next person's flight. It was fantastic to be right under the plane as it flew over at speed just 30 feet above.

Take a look at the video of my flight here:-


Many thanks to pilot Mike from WingWalking UK, what a fantastic experience!

Two invites for tomorrow - goals 48 and 49 - possibly....

I have had a pretty quiet week this week after the exciting weekend of defying death on the vertical wall.

On the Sunday evening I headed from Stamford across to Nottingham, where I stayed with friends Scott and Janine, who are all set to marry later this year. Sorry I won't be able to be there, but congratulations from me in advance!!

On Monday morning Scott and I went for a quick 9 holes of golf. As I have mentioned before, I am a regular golf player, on average playing 9 holes every two years or so! So this is an early return to the greens (or more accurately, the rough), as I was beaten by my brother just last year in September, while in London. See earlier blog here.

I think Scott was a bit worried, as last time we had played three years before it had been a very close match, and I had been playing with a bag full of ancient clubs. He must have been practicing, as he quickly went three holes up, and despite a few shared holes later in the round, and a win at one, Scott still beat me quite convincingly! I dread to think what the score might have been if we had been counting strokes!

Between us we managed to lose quite a few balls, at one point early in the game wondering if we had enough with us to complete the round.



Next stop was near Uttoxeter to visit my cousin's family there, and a wonderful couple of days playing Guitar Hero on the PlayStation, ten-pin bowling on the Wii, and old board-game favourite, Cluedo.

And then finally back to my brother's in London, where I have been lounging around on the sofa trying to do some more planning ahead.

And so the next two goals are falling into place, and if you wish, you are welcome to come along and watch the first, and join in with the second. If all works out as I hope, I will be achieving, for the first time, two goals in one day, as well as making a decent step towards another.

Tomorrow morning (Saturday 20th June) I am scheduled to do a wingwalk at 11am, and anyone is welcome to come along to watch. This has been organised through WingWalking UK, who can be found just to the east of London, at Damyns Hall, near Upminster, Essex which is close to Junction 30 on the M25. Come along and see me get put through a tough aerial routine!! There is a map on their website here.

The second goal scheduled for tomorrow is the gathering of 5 Ian Ushers in one place. At this late stage, with only 24 hours to go, I am still not 100% certain I can make this happen. I have three other Ian Ushers confirmed coming to London tomorrow afternoon, making a total of 4 of us, and I am waiting to hear from two others, so hopes are still alive.

If I can manage to get the four of us together with a fifth Ian Usher, I will also manage to raise $2,500 towards my charity fundraising total, as promised from Sir Richard Branson when I met him a couple of weeks ago. See here for more on how that happened.

The meeting will be in a central London pub in the late afternoon and evening (Saturday 20th June), and if you wish to come and join us you are more than welcome to do so. If you feel like buying a round of beers for a group of Ian Ushers, you would be more than welcome to do that too, of course, but it's not a condition of attendance!

For more details on time and location, email me via the "Contact Me" page.

Goal 47 - Wall Of Death, day 2.

A barbeque with a few beers, and a reasonably enthusiastic game of back garden badminton was the ideal end to the first day of wall of death riding. Colin and Charlotte's spare room had a very comfy bed, and I slept pretty well, but every time I rolled over in my sleep, my scraped arm, from my initial crash earlier that day, woke me up, which was slightly frustrating.

On Sunday morning we went around to Mark's house to watch the motorcycle MotoGP from Barcelona, which had an incredibly exciting finish, as Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo fought an astonishing battle for the whole of the race, and to huge cheers in the living room, Rossi snatched a well-earned victory at the final corner.

After a quick bite to eat we loaded the bikes back onto the truck, and headed out to the wall again. Once the bikes and tools were lowered back in, some repair work was carried out to the dodgier sections of the lower parts of the wall. Finally cameras were set up and fiddled with, and it was time to get back on the wall.



My idea was to make the first couple of circuits slow and steady until I got the feel for it back, but things didn't quite work out as planned. In quite an impromptu fashion, Colin and I ended up with both bikes running, and with a nod at each other we both set off from opposite sides. I knew I had to get up the wall quickly and keep my speed up, and I was very quickly back to the transition point where the wall became vertical, aware of the noise of Colin's bike opposite and behind me. We managed a couple of good dual efforts before going back to the safer solo rides.

Once again I tried to creep further and further up above the transition to vertical, with similarly frustrating results as the day before. I could feel myself getting better bit by bit, and my confidence was building, but I knew time was running out, and I had still not ridden around the wall in the way that I had imagined it beforehand.

One of the other guys, Lee, came down to give it a go, riding in the opposite direction to everyone else, and with a background in BMX riding, managed to quickly get the hang of doing big arcs up onto the wall, like riding a bike ramp.

Spurred on by his quick successes, I pushed myself harder on the next couple of turns, and got a couple of good rides around, and on the next try Mark, who was operating the video camera reckoned I had done a full circuit completely on the vertical section. There was a cheer from above, but Colin looked doubtful, and reviewed the video footage. "What do you think?" he asked me, and handed me the camera, and I watched through the viewfinder.

"It's still not good enough, is it?" I said quietly to Colin. "I thought you'd say that," he replied.

But something in me had clicked, and Colin and I talked about pushing up with the lower handlebar, and he explained that the first time that you felt yourself actually hold the bike up on the wall when it's weight wants to pull you down, and it stays where you want it to, everything mentally falls into place.

The next couple of times on the wall I was conscious of keeping the throttle open, and pushing on the lower bar, and made a couple of much better circuits of the wall, creeping up higher for longer, until I made what I thought was an excellent double circuit.



Colin, who had been watching from the top of the wall for a while, came back down, and I managed another good lap on the vertical. I was so pleased, and quickly gathered my spinning thoughts, and set off again. This time I could keep the bike up for a much longer period, and my confidence soared. I had cracked it! It felt absolutely awesome, and I was incredibly thrilled.

And just in time too, as Colin, who decided to have another quick go himself, found himself struggling to keep control of the bike. No wonder, we discovered as he brought it down looking very discouraged, it had a flat rear tyre. The day was over!



We packed everything away, and dragged the bikes back out of the wall and put them on the truck. There was quite a crowd now, and alot of chatting and laughter, and I thanked everyone profusely. I couldn't really find the words to properly express to Colin how grateful I was to him, but I think he knew, and I imagine my face said more than words ever could. He and his wonderful friends had pretty-much given up a large chunk of their weekend to help a complete stranger achieve a goal, and although I am sure they had enjoyed themselves, I was quite overwhelmed by their generousity. Thanks to all who were there. It really was one of the most outstanding weekends of the trip so far.

As I drove away I felt very proud, and very satisfied within myself, and thought alot about what I had just achieved. I had seriously underestimated how difficult a skill it would be to learn, but was pleased that even after an early setback, scraping down the wall without the bike on my first attempt, I had not given up.

I had managed to push past the fear and the frustration, and the spinning disorientation, and stuck at it, pushing myself when it might have been easy to give up, call it a day, and say that I had given it a good try. And ultimately I had succeeded in what I had imagined doing, and the feeling was absolutely wonderful. This goal is certainly, by a long way, my proudest personal achievement so far.

Just a few days before, I had been asked in a radio interview why I chose to have some of these crazy, dangerous goals in my list of 100. As I drove away from the Wall Of Death, I thought to myself that if I could just take some of what I felt right then, and hold it out to someone as a physical thing in my hand, and give it to them, I would simply say, "There, that's why I do these things!" What an awesome weekend!

I have a few bits of video on my camera, but not really enough to make a decent video from, so I will wait for Colin to edit the footage from the three cameras he and Mark had, and see how that looks. I will post a link to it as soon as he gets it done.

In the meantime, I will finish my notes on the weekend with the specially penned tune about the wall by local group, March To The Grave, several members of which I met over the course of the weekend. Cheers to all the Stamford Cowboys!

"The Wall", by March To The Grave

Thanks to Lee and Mark too for several of the photos used here, and thanks to Colin for the generous provision of a "safety tie", which all riders of the wall are required to wear! Why? "Well, you've got to look your best, don't you?" was the closest that I got to an answer that made any sort of sense. But as I left at the end of the weekend I asked if Colin needed his tie back. "Keep it as a souvenir," he said, "as long as you promise to wear it at the movie premiere if your film ever gets made!" I kept it as a souvenir, and I will keep my promise too if I ever get the chance to!

Check out more of Colin's inspired madness on his YouTube channel here:
Colin Furze's YouTube Channel

And watch how an expert does it. Three videos here of building the wall, first attempts and crashes, and what can be achieved after some practice:

Death defying goal 47 - day 1.

What a day! I was up pretty early, and packed my bags again, ready to leave Darlington once more, and head south on the next leg of my adventures. After a quick farewell to my mum, I hit the road, and two and a half hours later arrived again at Colin's house at Stamford.

Colin Furze is a very interesting guy, and owns a homemade "Wall of Death", built in a friend's field, and was kind enough to allow me to come and have a try at riding it. I had called in on my way north a week and a half ago, and was quite alarmed at the run-down appearance of the wall, but excited too at the prospect of having a go on it.




Over the last week, Colin had cleaned out most of the thistles from the bottom of it, and prepared two Honda scooters for the day.

Getting the bikes into the interior area of the wall was treacherous enough, involving a tricky ride up the steep ramp, stopping just in time to avoid plunging into the deep hole at the top. I wisely left this tricky operation to Colin.



Once inside the wall with both bikes, Colin fired one up, and headed around and up the wall. He said he was pretty rusty, as he hadn't ridden the wall for a year and a half, but I watched in amazement as he worked his way pretty quickly up on to the vertical section several times.

After a bit of fiddling around with the older, tattier looking bike, which we couldn't get started, Colin foolioshly offered to let me try on the better bike, which was the first mistake of the day. My theory was to attack the wall with confidence, much as Colin appeared to, and did so. This was the second mistake!

Before I had managed the second circuit, I had the bike onto the vertical section, but having never experienced such a thing, my natural motorcycling reaction was to try to get the bike upright, and before I knew it, I was sliding down the wall behind the bike, which had obviously lost all grip! I scraped my arm a bit, but otherwise was okay.



Colin pretty quickly put some extra effort into getting the older bike running, suceeding this time, and after a bit of a pep-talk, I was off again. The idea is to progress upwards a bit more slowly at first, and lean more.... much more.

I really had imagined that it could not be too hard to do, but was a bit frustrated at my slow progress. It is SO much harder than you can possibly imagine! After three or four circuits you end up incredibly dizzy and disorientated. And the hardest part is to overcome the natural reaction to want to be upright.

But I persevered, taking regular breaks to stop the mental spinning effect, and then back to it. The wall itself is very ramshackle, and pretty bumpy, and there are quite a few potholes in the 45 degree-angled section. The vertical wall is alot smoother, apparently, but it is a huge mental hurdle to get up there.

But after a couple of hours I was getting up onto the vertical for short stretches, which I tried to make longer and longer, but it really is very visually and physically disturbing!

By the end of the day, I was confidently riding at the transition point between the 45 degrees and the vertical, and getting up onto the wall regularly, but could not quite stay up there!



And now, relaxing afterwards, I feel a strange mixture of elation and frustration. In a way, I am enjoying the fact that it is a much, MUCH harder skill to master than I thought it would be, but am also disappointed by the fact that I still haven't done a complete circuit on the vertical wall.

However, like many things in life, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it, wouldn't they? I feel that I can say that I have achieved my goal of riding a "Wall of Death", but I want to do better. But I still have more time tomorrow to crack it!

Huge thanks to Colin, and mates Mark and Lee, who gave up a huge amount of their time today to help me, and to everyone else who came along and offered support and encouragement. What a day! I can't wait to get back to it tomorrow again!

See all of Colin's videos, including his awesome Wall of Death building, crashing and riding videos, on his YouTube channel here:
Colin Furze's YouTube Channel

There will be a follow-up blog early next week on day 2 on the wall, with more pix, and video too, once I get it edited.