Dr Simon McCarthy was born in London in 1963 before being brought up in Leeds. His astounding inability to hear accents is a constant annoyance, but has proved useful in understanding anyone with a smattering of English.

At the age of fifteen Simon chose to take a year’s course in Russian, because the alternative was to take History and extra Physical Education. At the time (1978 – in the depths of the Cold War) the possibility of visiting Russia was almost nil, so having mastered half of the Russian alphabet, Simon sought to mess around and make fun of the teacher. Since that time he has mastered the other 16 Cyrillic letters and can remember how to say “the elephant is in the tree” in Russian.

Simon’s passion for motorbikes started at school and always leaned towards ‘seeing places from a bike’ rather than ‘tearing around and being a biker’. He swears that his most stressful tours ever were around Yorkshire on a BSA C15 and around Germany on a BSA A50.

A month’s bike ride to Moscow in 1996 kindled his passion for former Soviet countries, planted the germ of an idea for this journey and indirectly led to him working in Eastern Europe for a few years (which helped to fund the trip described in this book). A solo journey around Morocco proved that Islamic countries could be even more fun than Soviet countries: so why not ride east to the end of the earth? All he had to do was to find the right travelling companion…

 

Georgie Simmonds was born in Woking, Surrey in 1968 and learnt from a very young age how to make her home anywhere, as her family moved several times before finally ‘settling’ in Lichfield.

In 1987, whilst taking a Languages degree at Essex University, Georgie’s anti-motorcycling mother shocked her by helping to finance a Honda Vision 50cc moped which was deemed safer than riding a bicycle on the Colchester bypass. The step-through survived some years before being stolen from outside an insalubrious student house in Manchester.

Georgie’s free spirit was nurtured during a summer hitch-hike to Spain with Cyril the Trucker, before freeloading off a friend in Ceuta. A year as a teaching Assistante in Clermont-Ferrand was followed by a stint as an au-pair in Madrid. Before the trip described in this book, Georgie’s biggest adventure was a year teaching in the University of Yucatán language school in south-east Mexico, punctuated with trips to Cuba and Guatemala.

One of Georgie’s daydreams was to put an advert in Private Eye where she would search for a biker who wanted a pillion with her language skills, and then travel the world with him. But this part-time procrastinator saved her small-ad money when she met Simon in a Chorlton pub and the rest they say is history. With Simon’s encouragement she learnt to ride a Yamaha Serow in the English Pennines and on various trips around Europe she mastered the art of minimal packing.

Following the trip and her subsequent marriage to Simon, she now calls herself Georgie McCarthy, but has used her maiden name for the book so that old friends can surf her up.