Bob Pickett reports…
From 2017 to 2019, Matt Bishop and Reece Gilkes (known as ‘The Sidecar Guys’) circumnavigated the globe on a Honda SH300i scooter with a specially-built sidecar – setting a Guinness World Record in the process – with two main aims: to show the world is filled with good people and to highlight the terrifying scale of modern slavery
In 455 days, the pair racked up 1361 hours on the road, travelling 34,000 miles as they visited 35 countries across five continents. Since arriving back in the UK, the pair founded the Armchair Festival, a celebration of adventure travel, and established The Sidecar Guys Experience Centre where they host sidecar days (you can learn to ride one or have a day out as a passenger). They also became point-of-sale agents for Ural in the UK.
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In the middle of this they found time to write a book about their record-setting world tour (‘Our Ridiculous World (Trip)’). I caught up with Matt at a bike show where they were promoting the book… in-between hitting the stage throughout the day to take part in interviews and talks! Matt invited us to take part in an Experience Day (more on that later), after which I sat down with Reece (Matt had to head off to run a Passenger Experience) to talk about their round-the-world ride and all that has come after.
What led you to highlight the horrors of modern slavery?
When we decided to do this big trip, obviously we wanted to support a worthy cause. Looking at options, what attracted us to highlighting modern slavery was it being a borderless issue; one that is happening in every country on earth. The statistics piqued our interest as we looked further into it. We were like, ‘Oh my God, it doesn’t matter where you are in the world it’s a problem’, and the symptoms of it are often the same: human exploitation, trafficking and so on.
But there’re still good people in the world…?
We often refer to Sudan; when we were going into it all we really knew about was the war-torn South Sudan. When we arrived, we struggled to buy a meal as the people were so friendly, offering us places to camp, places to stay. It was amazing to stay in a country that has so little, yet they were offering us so much.
I’m not sure who said it, but I listened to an interview with another round-the-world traveller who said wherever they went people would offer them a place to stay, and wondered would they do it if positions were reversed? I like to think I would, but there are so many countries around the world that are so welcoming, we can most certainly learn from them.
Genuinely, if not for the people we met around the route we would not have made it, which was kind of the main reason for the trip. In Russia that was most certainly the case.
For anyone else planning on taking off on a life-changing adventure, what advice would you give?
Honestly, there’re loads of things you could potentially learn. Of course, it would be good to do a mechanics course, and researching the areas you’re planning to visit, but the best advice I could give you is: Just go! You’ll learn things en route. We spent two years planning our trip; 90 per cent of the things we planned for we didn’t need. Getting out on the road was the best preparation in many ways. So, I wouldn’t point to one thing in particular. Pick a date when it is going to happen and don’t over-complicate things, just do it.
Do you ever sit still?
When we got back from the trip, a lot of people would say: “Do you miss it?” We were just glad to be back; not because we didn’t want to be on the road, but the last ride was Russia… it was so intense. Frankly, we were rolling the dice every day we went on the road because of the conditions. That was probably the only time we took a breather. But generally speaking, everything we do is fun, and we really enjoy what we’re doing so we’re happy to just crack on.
What’s the Armchair Adventure Festival?
We call it ‘The UK’s Best Celebration of Adventure Travel’. We have loads of amazing speakers, not only motorcycle riders but people who have done kayaking, paddleboarding, that sort of stuff. It really is all about encouraging people to do adventurous things. It started as a lockdown project, hence the Armchair Adventure Festival, with people sat in their armchairs, watching the whole thing on a screen.
The original idea was for a three-day event. We were booking people like Charley Boorman. We’d never interviewed anyone. We’d been back from the trip less than a year, so we felt a bit out of our depth, but before we knew it, we had 20,000 people watching on YouTube! We kept rolling and once the world returned to some kind of normality, we knew we wanted to do an in-person festival and where we wanted to do it (Mount Edgcumbe Country Park in Cornwall, where we did some survival training before our trip).
So now it sits on a Cornish hilltop surrounded by the Tamar Estuary. In my opinion, you can listen to talks from some of the world’s best adventurers but also some people you would never know had done adventurous things. When we did the first one, we didn’t know if there would be another, so we decided there had to be great music. This set a precedent, as each year there are great bands. It costs us a fortune to put on, but it’s a great party as well as hopefully being inspiring.
How did you end up getting involved with Ural?
When we did the original sidecar and scooter trip, the idea was that once we were back, we’d return to normal life, get jobs, and that was it. Then Covid happened, we started the Armchair and that set us on the path to do adventurous stuff and the lifestyle we have.
We had always liked Urals – the look of them, the heritage and history – then learned they planned to return to the UK having re-engineered the two-wheeled drive to fit left as well as right-side sidecars. We contacted Ural to say we would like to ride their sidecars once they came back to the UK. They said: “Why don’t you come and visit the Experience Centre in Portugal?” We went out, rode Urals, which went really well, and off the back of that decided we’d help bring them to the UK. This led to us to become Ural agents, establishing a Sidecar Experience where you can learn to ride sidecars, be it Urals or Watsonians. It’s a lot of fun and going really well. We’re all but booked up for the rest of the year in our third year of running it, so yes there is plenty going on.
Is there anything new in the pipeline?
We always had plans to do more adventures. It’s a bit hard at the moment, as Matt has a two-year old and I have an eight-month-old child, but there will definitely be more sidecar trips at some point.
The important thing we really want to do, now we’ve been running the sidecar experience for a few years, is grow it and develop our own destination (what we’re referring to as ‘Sidecar Paradise’). We want to create a community hub for adventure travellers, motorcyclists and so on in the north-east of the UK where we will continue to do the sidecar experiences, have an expedition planning room, run a bar/café; a hub where people can meet. To fund this, we have launched a Crowdfunder, the culmination of which will be giving away a £25,000 Ural outfit.
To learn more about Matt and Reece’s adventures, buy the book, and also learn about the horrors of modern slavery, how to recognise the signs, and what you can do to assist, by visiting: www.asseenfromthesidecar.org / www.thesidecarguys.com
£1 from each sale goes to Unseen UK for the fight against modern slavery
For information on the Armchair Adventure Festival, visit: www.armchairadventurefestival.com
To learn more about, and book, a sidecar experience, visit: www.sidecarexperience.co.uk
Matt and Reece want to create a sidecar-themed biker café/hang-out and event space, a multifunctional area serving as a home to all things sidecars as well as a community hub for adventure travellers and bikers in the north-east.
They are looking to raise £100,000 to do this. To help achieve this they are offering the chance to win a brand-new Ural motorcycle and sidecar (I’ve seen it, it looks amazing) worth over £25,000. You can enter the prize draw and support the crowdfunder from as little as £10. For more information, visit: www.sidecarexperience.co.uk
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