A Kerryman's solo cycle home from the other side of the world
Tomás Mac an t-Saoir cycling near Mount Taranaki, New Zealand's highest mountain
Tomás Mac an t-Saoir is meant to be on the final leg of a mammoth cycle from New Zealand to Ballyferriter in West Kerry — but instead, his epic transglobal cycle is only just beginning.
If your plan to cycle across the world was delayed for two-and-a-half years because of a pandemic, you'd probably consider scrapping it entirely. But 28-year old Tomás is as determined as ever to saddle up and get going.
His love of ultra-long-distance cycling began back in 2016, when having just finished his college course in Galway, Tomás was at a crossroads in his life.
He had been considering taking a year out when a friend told him of his plan to cycle across the United States. Though he had only got into serious cycling a few years beforehand, Tomás decided to join.
Somewhere along the 5,000km journey between San Diego to Florida, he felt something spark inside him.
"When I went to the States, I think I began to realise that this was a lifestyle I could definitely enjoy and live for a while," he said.
After crossing the US, he arrived home to the Dingle Peninsula, and told himself that for his next trip, he would go as far out of his comfort zone as he could. To him, Africa seemed like the best place in the world to do that.
For geographical, political, and infrastructural reasons, Africa is considered to be the most difficult continent to traverse by bike.
And so, in November 2018, he set off from Cairo.
There were tense moments at border crossings, long, isolated stretches through roads half-buried by desert sands, and a couple of close calls with predatory animals, but Tomás said his experiences in Africa opened his eyes to the world. After he arrived at his destination of Cape Town, he wanted to do more.
"After that, I was fully hooked."
In May 2019, Tomás was welcomed back from Africa with a raucous reception outside the Tigh an t-Saorsaigh pub in Ballyferriter, which his family own and operate.
In his head, he already had the outline of another, even longer trip: he was going to go to the other side of the world and cycle all the way back.
Boarding a flight to Auckland in late January 2020, he hoped this latest adventure might be straightforward. As straightforward as a 25,000km cycle can be, anyway. New Zealand, Australia, southeast Asia, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, home.
But when the pandemic hit, and New Zealand imposed one of the world's strictest lockdowns, Tomás was stuck.
"I'm pretty bad at planning, but whatever schedule I might have had in my head of when I went in was gone out the window," he told the .
It's one thing to make up your mind about cycling from one end of the earth to the other. It's another to come to terms with not being able to move on from your starting point.
There were a handful of false restarts, times when it looked like he might be able to hit the road. But one month became six, and that then became over two years.
Once New Zealand re-opened for domestic travel, Tomás hopped on his bike and hit the road.
He racked up 4,000km cycling the length and breadth of New Zealand, taking odd jobs here and there to support himself.
When asked whether he was going up the walls waiting for countries to open their borders again, if he was frustrated with being forced to wait so long to get started, he said:
"But then I'd think, If I give up on this, what else would I give up on in life if there was an obstacle or hurdle in front of me?"
This past April, the road ahead was finally clear. Tomás relocated to Queensland, Australia. Instead of going straight back into cycling, he worked and saved money for a few months.
He could have stayed longer and saved more, but with the world edging back to something resembling normality, he just wanted to get up and go somewhere new.
On the last day of July, he boarded a flight from Sydney to Hanoi. His trusty Vitus off-road adventure bike was shipped over a couple of days later.
Now, he has a fairly flexible travel plan: cycle down through Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia, and get to Ho Chi Minh City late next month.
Tomás says he is hesitant to plan things too far in advance; once he has a destination chosen, he tries to stay flexible and open to potential changes on any given day.
However, he has rearranged his itinerary and added one extra stop: On September 25, he flies back to Ireland for a few weeks.
Were he to press ahead with the rest of his trip now, it would be five years since he last saw friends and family back in Ballyferriter.
"With Covid and everything, god knows what'll happen next," he said.
"I want to just recharge and see everybody. And there are people at home who wouldn't be there if I waited two more years.”
That said, with the world still recalibrating post-pandemic, he reckons now is a great time to be travelling.
"We all know how short life can be and I think Covid has reaffirmed that. Because of it a lot of people lost their livelihoods in an instant.
"I just want to travel and travel on my bicycle again."
Come October, Tomás will head Australia to pick up where he left off.
"I'm just cycling around Australia and taking as much time as I need. Then it's back to Asia and deciding where to go after that then again.
"I'll just hit the road and see where that takes me."
- You can follow Tomás Mac an t-Saoir's progress on his Facebook page: Tomás' World Cycle
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