Henry Gold

Henry Gold is the founder and director of TDA Global Cycling - a long distance cycling expedition company enabling people to undertake challenging adventures all over the world on supported group tours in over 80 countries.

proposals to actually implementing them and besides, my hands were full with my aid work in Africa and filming documentaries. But still, the die was cast. Years went by and that little gene, ‘AG’, waiting patiently beneath the surface became restless. ‘Hey remember me? You promised me a life adventure. Man, you are about to turn 50, so if not now, when? Soon, you will be in a rocking chair, besieged with regrets.’

What was I to do? Then, suddenly, I met another adventurous soul and the two of us thought, “Let’s do this. What have we got to lose?” Life is like that. The Tour d’afrique was now on. Mind you, with no money, with no idea how we will cycle though the Sahara, manage to obtain permits to bike through war zones and security corridors, convince anyone to join us, get water, feed ourselves, or deal with all the border crossings. Less than a year after this decision, there we were, a group of over 30 cyclists and support personnel, posing for pictures in front of the ageless Sphinx with the Great Pyramids looming behind her. She, who had watched over Cleopatra, Caesar and Napoleon, now looked over a suicidal - at least that is what many of my friends and acquaintances thought - group of adventure cyclists.

Exhausted from a lack of sleep, 20 pounds lighter than I had been a year ago on a frame that was considered slim even then and struggling with a cold, I cycled under the starting gate wondering if I would even make it to lunch. When finally I spotted the support truck parked on the side of the road, I thought that my anguish was over, that I could get into the truck. To my bewilderment, however, I saw dozens of cyclists loitering around, including the official tour leader who we hired to lead our group across the continent. There was only one problem; the tour leader has never guided anyone for more than two weeks at a time and never in a harsh environment such as Africa.

He did not look good and neither did the other cyclists. I had eaten my sandwich when there was a commotion. Running over to see

what was going on, I saw our leader unconscious on the ground. With some first aid and water, minutes later he was in the truck but now the riders looked like they were ready to hitch a ride to the airport and fly home. “You wanted adventure,’ I tell AG, ‘you got it. What now?’ It replied, ‘What’s the problem, declare lunch is over, tell them we have another 60 km to ride and that time is running out. Let’s get moving.’ I thought, ‘What, are you mad? I am exhausted? I have not cycled for six weeks after bringing this truck to Cairo and I will be next one on the ground. What then?’ My adventurous gene simply replied, ‘Do you have any better ideas? Congratulations, you have just become the tour leader, no matter what you think your role here is. You will lead from the back.’ ‘Damm you AG’ I murmured. And so my plans for cycling only when I felt like it, fell apart. Life is like that.

When you undertake something that has never been done before, with people you do not know, arriving in a place you have not been, every day is a revelation, an unknown challenge. Heat, cold, food, water, equipment breaking down, rain, dehydration, sunstrokes, exhaustion, borders, officials…and then there were the drivers. We were almost through Zimbabwe, our 8th country. There was a fuel shortage so we had the road almost all to ourselves. Almost! I was riding in my usual ‘sweeping’ spot, when I observed a couple of vehicles with bunch of people standing around.

Getting closer I recognized that one of the vehicles was ours with bicycles strewn around it. It turned out that a speeding driver on his way back from a wedding, hit four of our cyclists from behind. The first one hit and the most seriously injured was lying on top of the cracked windshield, his dented helmet to the side with blood coming out of his mouth. l thought that his neck was shattered and that he may never walk again. An ambulance took two of them to the nearest hospital. A few hours later, the doctor reported, “We x-rayed the whole body. Nothing broken. We will keep them here for the night but in the morning come and get them. They will be fine in a few days.

You will need new bikes for them,” he smiled. Life is like that.

We were almost there. Another day of cycling and we would be in Cape Town. A handful of cyclists were pedaling in the back, enjoying their accomplishment. We had done something that even our closest friends and family thought was completely nuts. “What’s next”, asked one of them. We were overdosing from the endorphins that the body produces in such endeavours and ‘AG’, who had now taken full control of my being, screams aggressively “say it man, just say it.” “The Silk Route, of course”, I respond.

Years go by and a cycling tour following the ancient silk roads between Istanbul to Beijing is in the can, as is an epic ride in South America from Rio de Janeiro to Quito via Buenos Aires and Santiago. I was riding my bike in a support role as the last cyclist in the group as usual, this time in India on our company’s first tour on this wondrous subcontinent. We were cycling on a single lane road in a forested region between two national parks when, abruptly, a wild elephant charged from between the luscious trees. Seconds later she was trampling me with her feet. When I heard the helmet on my head cracking from the power of her foot, I asked myself an innocent question, ‘this is interesting, what happens next?’ A year or so later, with a couple of operations behind me, I more or less fully recover. Life is like that.

There were more tours to be finished, more lifelong friends to be made, more enjoyable moments with strangers to be experienced, more to learn about the world. Year after year our little company adds more tours. Last year, I cycled Madagascar, then the Himalayas and Central America. The tours are filling up, with hundreds of adventure cyclists joining us, savouring the world at its best. This past March, I was preparing for our latest adventure, a journey to Korea and Japan. And then, Covidus Uninteruptus hit. Life is like that.

Nowadays, I meet with the team on Skype, read good books, go for long walks, work in my garden and plan more tours. The experts say that adventure travel will change, that people want to go more into nature, away from the crowds, so we designed new ‘guided’ bike-packing tours.

They are designed for people like me, who may need a bit of help on those isolated routes.

‘Talking heads’ in travel seminars tell us that 2021 will be all local tourism, so we designed local tours like the Great Lake Series in Canada and USA. The pundits tells us that e-bikes are selling out so we thought, why not try a cross USA e-bike friendly tour? It may even bring some new souls to adventure cycling. Politicians tells us that border crossing are out, so we designed unique, one country adventures such as the Tanzania triathlon - cycle, climb Kilimanjaro, take a Serengeti safari and, in between, spend some time on the beaches of Zanzibar.

Now, I am well past my retirement age, but alas colonized by ‘AG’, who seems to think life begins at 50.

I enjoy sailing, so we designed a wonderful combo of cycling, sailing and archaeology in Turkey. Who knows what will happen, what it will be like? But life is like that, sometimes. Carpe Diem.