Anatomy of an adventurer – the DVD
Nick Sanders has done it again The DVD
An anthology of past trips, Anatomy Of An Adventurer provides a thumbnail sketch of challenges covering sixteen years of adventuring. Inevitably it is pacey as the world is packed into its 60 minutes though Nick has dwelt long enough on selected images to avoid a breathless production. Some of the sunset over the Sahara shots are wonderfully atmospheric and there’s time to take in a line of camels, with riders having a day of hooves on a Sanders-led Moroccan trip.
The really awful ‘roads’ where the R1 ploughs valiantly through thick sand in the Nubian desert are quite spectacular, bearing testament to Nick’s resourcefulness as a cameraman who must double as a stunt rider.
The book.
I’m not sure if this is a book about Nick’s latest North South trip through the Americas against the background of all his past trips, or a book about his other trips set against the background of his latest. The fact that I am indulging such arty speculation convinces me that I am still under the poetic questing influence of a book that I finished just five minutes ago. The title more than hints at the nature of the text, pointing as it does to the deeply introspective quality of this literary effort. Given Nick’s preoccupation with challenging the clock, it may be thought that as he hurtles through each insane day his mind would be focussed on nothing beyond the old IAM adage of ‘making progress.’
This book more than any other, challenges such presumption and proves that deep thinking and obsessive mile munching are not just compatible but symbiotic. Many find the combination of world travel with speed records shockingly wasteful if not disrespectful. To some, the headlong adrenaline-fuelled rush to catapult oneself across creation is to ‘dis’ the creator.
The MAG Columns Two new books from Kevin Williams of Survival Skills Rider Training are now available at
www.motoonline.co.uk The first is ‘The MAG Columns.’ Kevin has been writing a bike safety column since 2002 in MAG’s magazine The ROAD’ formerly ‘Streetbiker.’ He’s now put all 40+ articles together and published them as a paperback book. The articles cover genuinely useful stuff to riders at all levels, everything from riding in fog, snow and rain, to dealing with hairpin bends and planning a trip abroad, to improving your riding in the winter off-season by using sports psychology techniques.
‘The MAG Columns.’ 122 pp £7.99 including P&P
Riding with the Devil
The second book is called ‘Riding with the Devil’ and is a biographical look at the first part
26 The ROAD
Atheists may wish to substitute ‘the miracle of chance’ here, though whether it’s possible to ‘dis’ a fluke is a question in itself, let’s not go there.
Of course Nick has built a career out of superlatives. He doesn’t just want to be the fastest, he has to be the fastest. His need is as the junky’s need for heroin against everyman’s fancy for a beer.
This very obsessiveness, that may sound superficial, seems to engender a depth of emotional and intellectual speculation for which this book provides a vehicle. The fact that a man averaging 800 miles a day can speculate that he may be ‘part of a cosmic algorithm’ may be more inevitable than surprising.
‘Consider yourself as a collection of numbers in the way the Human Genome Project describes the cellular structure of the body in numbers and letters. If a person could be mapped out in the way a piece of software is programmed ... controlling a motorcycle will become part of some intractable inevitability.’ I see the point he’s making though I had to read the unabridged text twice, and then realised that
of Kevin’s riding history from 1975 to 1990. Prompted by various people to put some of his amusing, the not-so-amusing and occasionally rather painful experiences together in one place, this collection of anecdotes takes the reader through his journey as a novice rider dicing with London traffic for the first time, through his days as a courier and on forays into Europe, as well as offering thoughts and observations on things that have annoyed and fascinated him on his time as a motorcyclist.
‘Riding with the Devil 136 pp £7.49 including P&P. Both books available to order securely online from
www.motoonline.co.uk Contact Kevin Williams for more information at
survivalskills@clara.net
We haven’t seen the books here at The ROAD yet so this is more notification than review though long-standing MAG members will be familiar with Kevin’s columns. As a rider of 40
on one level this is of course the very line of thought from which the book’s title springs. The fact that he fails to break the record brings a human reality to the volume. Things do not always go to plan, not every movie has a Hollywood ending. These challenges are for real and like a fighter who bites the canvas after a string of victorious knockouts, his misfortunes evoke an empathy with his audience. For the first time his bike fails him as his starter motor malfunctions, bringing home the precarious balancing act which these challenges represent. Nick’s flashbacks to earlier expeditions provide more dimension to the character of a man who has never had a proper job. Cycling to the source of the Nile, sailing canal boats to the Black Sea and attempting the world’s highest volcano at over four miles above sea level! All have taken him to the limits of mental and physical endurance and enabled him to learn about himself in a way that most only discover through intense warfare.
Book and CD combined £20 +£4 UK p&p. It’s good value, go to
www.nicksanders.com
years who is cautious about the safety benefits of very advanced training I can unreservedly recommend Kevin’s advice. The reason is that this advice is mostly about identifying hazards and avoiding them and having been a London courier myself I recognise so much sanity and honesty in his text. If you know someone who is forever getting into trouble, or starting out on bikes, you couldn’t do them a better favour than buying them this book. Mutch
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