Time flies. It’s exactly 30 years since my first book The Wind in my Wheels was published in 1992. Thirty years sounds like several thousand blue moons ago yet I remember all the cycling missions I wrote about in that book as if they were yesterday. That’s one of the many boons about going off on a long-winded cycling jaunt, especially alone – the clarity and intensity of the experience carves itself into your memory like stone.

It was also 30 years ago that I cycled around Hawaii and across America – a total of over 6000 miles. So here are some of my USA snapshots from yesteryear.

When people ask me are my lengthy bike-touring days behind me I reply, ‘Not on your Nelly!’ because I like to think I’ve got a lot of wind in my wheels to get under my belt yet. It’s just that I’m currently in the midst of a child-rearing phase (interspersed with regular doses of school-holiday-length voyages by bike and by foot).  But once my young threesome are older and the restraints of school no longer apply the wider world beckons. Daisy has expressed keenness to join me cycling from Alaska to Patagonia. Then there’s the appeal of riding up through Africa and cycling home from Australia (via Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Island – I fancy re-cycling around those fair and wind-blown Nordic lands again). Last year even Gary expressed interest in cycling across Russia with me though frankly I think he would rather go in his 64-year old Morris Minor. There again, he’ll probably rather be in his workshop making more things like go-carts powered by old electric drills.

Hello from an upside down Faroe Islands 1992.

The Mittens of Monument Valley. Utah, USA.

Cycling through a drive-through giant redwood in Northern California.

A Buddha and a bicycle. Maui, Hawaii.

Splat onto the volcanic black sands of Waipio Valley, Hawaii.

Top of Waimea Canyon, Kauai.

After 2 days of cycling up hill I arrived at the top of Haleakala’s House of the Sun volcano, Maui.

High up and out-for-the- count.

Riding to Kauai’s spectacularly mountainous coast.

Oh, storm coming!

Not the most reassuring sign to see when you stop for a roadside wee.

Canyon country, Utah.

Dwarfed by the massive sandstone hulks of Zion Canyon, Utah.

The sun beats down on a lonesome desert highway.

Cooling off in Colorado.

Crossing the Continental Divide in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.

I’d rather not, thanks.

Gary’s 1958 Morris Minor with Jack doing a fly-past on his go-cart made by Gary out of a few lumps of steel.

The Makita cordless combi drill which provides Jack with 2 gears.

Look out, here comes the Drillmobile.