How Lyndon Poskitt left everyday life in search of serious adventure
Meet the rally racer and global adventure rider who turned rally raid race coverage on its head
If you think you’ve had it tough on a bike, you need to meet Lyndon Poskitt. The exaerospace engineer gave up the corporate life back in 2014 and has spent the last five years travelling around the world, covering 146,000 miles, riding through 74 countries and even competing in two unsupported Dakar rallies along the way. Now on the eve of starting his own racing team, we look back at on a life filled with adventure.
“I didn’t actually get into the whole adventure thing until 2007 when I moved to the US with my job,” says Lyndon. “I bought a KTM 950 Adventure and started exploring and met a friend who convinced me to race the Baja 1000. He then went off and did Dakar in 2012 and rang me from the finish line. He said ‘you have to do it’ and from then I set my sights on it.”
Lyndon’s first Dakar was a huge success but upon returning to the UK he was deflated by normal life and set himself a new challenge: race the Red Bull Romainiacs. However, a problem during training changed everything. “I was running a marathon with a colleague for training and I completely overdid it,” says Lyndon. “I felt terrible but I was too competitive to stop. I became dehydrated and collapsed. I was in hospital for nine days and very nearly lost my life, which made me rethink my whole outlook. I always wanted to travel more, so I quit my job, sold all my things and decided to ride around the world.
“When I was preparing I spoke to Dave Lomax at Adventure Spec who suggested that instead of just riding, I race as well, so I had this idea of riding around the world and entering a race on every continent and that’s where Races 2 Places was born. I knew it would need a special bike to handle it but I thought ‘I’m an aerospace engineer - if anyone can do it, I can’. I originally planned to spend 18 months doing it and to write a small blog along the way. But that turned into five years, and hundreds of episodes on YouTube with millions of people following the trip.” While Lyndon was riding through
Australia, a cursory glance at the route revealed that the only real rally he could enter in the Americas would be the Dakar. He planned a route to ride to the start line, becoming the only person to ride from the edge of the Arctic Circle to the start line of the race. As his riding had been entirely self-sufficient until then, he decided to enter the even tougher Malle Moto class. He filmed the adventure but it ended up taking a year to produce the film and Lyndon knew he could do better. “Traditional coverage of Dakar is just the top guys blasting along to music,” he adds. “I thought we could improve on that, so I came up
‘I quit my job, sold my things and decided to ride around the world’ ‘When I set out I just wanted to do something interesting’
with the idea of doing a daily video series from the race, with some guys editing the video each day from the car. No-one had done anything like before and it was much harder than we expected but it gave a new insight into what the race is actually like. “After that it was just a case of riding back up through Africa, making it back home this year just five years and two months after I set out. What I should have done then was sat down for a year and written a book, but I’ve always wanted to race to Dakar, Senegal. There’s a race that does the old route and I thought about entering myself but then I realised this wouldn’t be anything new. So I’ve set up my own race team now, I’ve got together a group of people I’ve raced with along my round the world trip and we’re all going to go compete in the Africa Eco Race in January.
“When I set out I just wanted to do something interesting, engaging and ultimately sustainable – and I think I’ve achieved that.”