My cycling journey started in the 1970s and my first off-road riding started in 1972 when parents moved to a farm in Northland New Zealand.
Since 1972 I have been riding all over the world, to date 41 countries which is apparently 21% of the world.
I had planned to return and cycle in Africa to finish off my trip from Cairo Egypt to Cape Town South Africa (which I started my Africa cycling adventure from Cairo in 2012 and I got cut short due to ending up with double pneumonia in a dodgy international hospital in Khartoum, Northern Sudan)and also to ride from Banff Canada to the New Mexico border in Bikepacking event called “Tour Divide”
But due to my unplanned dismount cycling to work on 31 August 2017, all these plans got derailed as despite asking all the medical experts I could find at the time, no one knew what I should’ve should not do post severe traumatic brain injury. In early 2017 I completed the Kiwi Brevet (short course 750 kilometres) very easily and enjoyed riding late into the night every day completing the event in five days.
Post accident and before I got diagnosed with the Brain Injury, despite them knowing I had a number of brain bleeds and a lot of bruising to my brain, at the time and being sent home and despite asking for all the medical help I could at the time why I should’ve should not do. I return to the start line of my next bikepacking event Tour Aotearoa in February 2018 and despite having done a few training rides I realised riding down 90 Mile Beach, that I had to stop every 10 or so kilometres to have a nap as I was mentally fatigued. I carried on not noticing that this was unusual for me and completed the first 800 km approximately in 15 days, absolutely mentally exhausted and had to sleep for approximately 15 to 18 hours a day for the next three weeks before I could try to return to work.
I tried again in 2020 and unfortunately or should I say “fortunately” I realised there was something drastically wrong as despite having a good night sleep, the next morning I’d get a ride 10 km to where I was going to have breakfast and then stop and have a short nap, dinner and I rode another 5 km up the road sat down because I was tired and woke up over an hour later. There must’ve been a lot of people cycling past and driving past seeing me sleeping on the side of the road.
This has not changed in any way and I tried again in late 2025, to see if I could ride any distance without the mental fatigue and after a kilometre of riding, I turned home to fall asleep for over an hour.
Starting my career as a motorcycle engineer/mechanic and having raced motocross and enjoyed motorcycle trials since the 1974 I have wanted to return to riding motorcycles as well but under the orders from my neurologist, who pointed out my mental fatigue from riding a bicycle would be 100% worse on a motorcycle. I have had to stop thinking about riding motorbikes for my own safety as his review of my Brain Injury would when riding a motorcycle let me fall asleep while I was still riding before I got to stop to have a nap.
So what have I tried to do to help with being able to ride a bicycle since my accident?
First off I sold off all my suspension mountain bikes as with suspension you sit up higher, to have a higher centre of gravity and if you hit any bump badly you can fly over the handlebars like I did in my accident. From my engineering background, I worked out that they are dangerous so I kept one mountain bike that I’ve been riding since 2015 a 29+ non-suspension mountain bike. It’s got a much lower centre of gravity and also a longer wheelbase putting the rider in the centre of the bike, but despite being much safer I still got mental fatigue just riding this bike. So I tried something under many restrictions for my neurologist and in that I purchased a mountain unicycle and tried to ride this for a short period of time, which I knew would mentally exhaust me straight away as it feels like I’m in the middle of a motorway, when riding it as the Brain is overloaded. This was totally uncomfortable from mental fatigue and overload despite having riden Mountain unicycling since 2004 competing in mountain biking races and the World Unicon when it was in New Zealand.
So my next option, was to make the bike that I have much more stable, as it’s got the largest wheel size available at the time 3.00″x 29″ tyres. First off I purchased the heaviest tyres available in New Zealand at the time to see if this would help with increased ability due to the rotational weight, after this I added the heaviest pair of tubes into these wheels, to increase the weight of these wheels and this is not helped at all. I also removed all the gears and turn it back to a single speed mountain bike like I first road in 1992 which restricted me from riding too fast.
The next option, I looked at was to fit a sidecar onto the side of the mountain bike I had, but having ridden numerous motorcycle sidecars over the years as a motorcycle mechanic I realised that took more Balance and Brain capacity, to ride a mountain bike with a side car especially in narrow tracks that we have in New Zealand. Here is a video link below of the same bike as I had but entertain him with a sidechair on it.
I have spoken to a number of bicycle engineers and experts, in regards to other options that I had not thought of?
One suggestion was, to build up a custom front wheel with a “fat bike” rim and run a heavy duty fat bike front tyre to increase the gyroscopic with a 4.5″x 27.5″ knobbly tyre and a heavy duty fat bike tube, or even a extremely heavy duty motorcycle tube, that we could fit into this tyre to add more weight to the front wheel, to increase stability with the mass and weight.
But this unfortunately would mean (yes may be able to ride off-road with it) but it’ll be too slow to be able to ride with friends and ride in short weekend bikepacking events, like those run out of Rotorua, NZ
So I think I’ve tried everything when trying to ride two wheeled mountain bikes.
Part two is coming shortly….. with the other alternative, that has come up after speaking to more experienced people who have experience dealing with people with injuries like mine and a solution. I have found something that I think will work for me, but I am unable to purchase due to shortage of funds, having not been able to work due to my Brain Injury for many years.