Today we speak with Lawrence Bransby, an award winning author, motorcycle adventurer, and a retired teacher. He emigrated from South Africa to the UK, and rode a motorcycle there across Africa with his 17-year-old son.
Lawrence wrote twenty books, including novels, novels for young adults, and many travelogues chronicling his numerous motorcycle journeys across Africa, Europe, Central Asia, and North America.
His favorite of his books is Two Fingers On The Jugular: A Motorcycle Journey Across Russia, an intimate account of a 20,000 km track on the Road of Bones.
We interview Lawrence and read his story A Short-Cut Across the Kazakh Steppe Becomes An Endurance Test For Riders And Bikes. (the story is abridged to fit the podcast length limitations).
From the show:
“… Q: You rode to the UK across Africa with your then 17-year-old son.
A: Yeah, Trans-Africa with a 17-year-old who didn't have a driving license.
Q: Was it your first long trip together? How did it go?
A: No, no. Well, it was the first really long trip. But we did another trip when he just finished primary school at the age of 12. We did a motorbike ride around the mountain kingdom of Lesotho together. And that was, you know, he'd been riding motorbikes since he was about eight years. And he was a very good rider…”
“… I was thinking to myself, you know what? I, at that stage, what was I? I was probably close to 70 years old. And my son was maybe 38. And I thought to myself, you know what? I'm a father and I'm riding with my son. And we're riding together, not as father and son, but as mates. And it was just the most incredible experience. And I was thinking to myself, I wonder how long this can last. Because we'd been riding each year. We'd been going on a long trip each year for the past four years. And we'd rode together for five years together. And I'm experiencing it now. And it was just so exciting…”
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