Apart from the normal accessories – saddle-bag, bell, lamp and pump – she carried only pannier-bag holders on either side of the back wheel. The only preparation Roz needed was the removal of her three-speed derailleur gear, which I reckoned would be too sensitive to survive Asian roads. This was ideal we were by then a happy team, having already covered thousands of miles together, yet she was young enough to be dependable. By a coincidence I had bought her on 14 January 1961, so our journey started on her second birthday. I already possessed an admirable Armstrong Cadet man’s bicycle named Rozinante, but always known as ‘Roz’. The preparations had been simple one of the advantages of cycling is that it automatically prevents a journey from becoming an Expedition. That was at the beginning of December 1941, and on 14 January 1963, I started to cycle from Dunkirk towards Delhi. I did not want to be soothingly assured that this was a passing whim because I was quite confident that one day I would cycle to India.

However, I was a cunning child so I kept my ambition to myself, thus avoiding the tolerant amusement it would have provoked among my elders. I’ve never forgotten the exact spot on a hill near my home at Lismore, County Waterford, where the decision was made and it seemed to me then, as it still seems to me now, a logical decision, based on the discoveries that cycling was a most satisfactory method of transport and that (excluding the USSR for political reasons) the way to India offered fewer watery obstacles than any other destination at a similar distance. On my tenth birthday a bicycle and an atlas coincided as presents and a few days later I decided to cycle to India. Place: Ireland to India by bicycle, through Iran and Afghanistan Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a bicycle

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