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Tasmania's newspaper The Advocate |
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Newspaper interview in Finland |
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The Daily Mail |
Attempting a world record is something special. Starting a mammoth event of riding your own motorcycle around the world is too. Doing both when you’re just 16 years old is unique and a story worth telling. Especially so as Mike doesn’t want to race around the world but properly travel around, showing others what a beautiful place it is. He wants to truly experience it and has given himself 3 years or so to do it. As we didn’t know if we could pull it off, we left pretty low key. Only a handful of people knew what we were doing. That has changed somewhat :-)
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Excited about this soon to be published 6 page article on Mike's record attempt in Hollands' biggest motorcycle magazine |
Mike suggested a blog to bring the story across, but non of us had ever set-up a blog. We had no idea how to do it. And anyway, who would want to read my scribbles? All in all it took about a year before we finally set it up. I was still sceptical but at the time of writing we’re just one year later and the blog has received over 90,000 page views… Google+ views are currently at a staggering 2 million… all in just one year! ‘Who are these people?’ I wondered. Looking at the statistics of our blog, provided by Google, they are from absolutely everywhere. From Alaska to Argentina and Spain to Mongolia. If anyone has doubts about the impact of a blog and social media; think again. The response has been quite overwhelming.
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Article in Finland's main newspaper |
We’ve received quite a bit of media exposure in news-papers and magazines too. The family aspect, each on our own bike and selling the house just to be able to do this, has triggered articles world wide. Once we made it public that Mike was attempting a world record, the attention ten folded. I have to be honest; we still think it’s strange to read about ourselves in newspapers and magazines! The Daily Mirror published the article you see on the left, which went to 960,000 homes in the UK…(!) In Norway we were recognised because of an article, as we had appeared on the front page…
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2-Page spread in Norway |
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Publication in Canada's RoadRUNNER |
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Frontpage news in Norway |
There have been articles published about us that we didn't even knew about too. We've been made aware of them by people we met. 'I read about you in magazine xyz!' Oh really? We didn't know they published anything about us'
In the background the family has been pestering me to write a book about it too. A book written from a different perspective to what we write on the blog of course. Mike’s personal story if you like. That will have to wait until we return of course, we also have to see if there is a publisher interested in it.
Meanwhile, on this page are a few samples of what has been published about us in the past. During our travels this might be expanded from time to time :-)
Motor Magazine has recently published a 6 page article on Mike’s trip around the world, during which he is also attempting to set a world record as the youngest person who has circumnavigated the globe on a motorcycle. The article is a well written interview by Jarno van Osch, editor at Motor Magazine, on the trip so far.
Mike has been on the road for two years when this article was written which describes his feelings, thoughts and the ups and downs he experienced, as well as what he thinks of living in a tent for two years, the cultures he experienced, the scary moments and why he is doing it. The
article is now available online, click on the button or the photo to read the publication. Like I said it's very well written and well worth a read.