Simplicity vs. Modern Life
*Written by Andrew’s uncle, Bryan, derived from a detailed phone conversation.
One of the most interesting parts of talking with Andrew as he rides across Europe and into Turkey has been hearing how his thinking and perspective shifts and evolves the further he gets.
I asked him recently to rate his mental state on a scale of 1 to 10.
"Honestly? Pretty calm. Probably an 8.5."
That surprised me. Not because I thought the trip looked easy — it clearly isn't. In the past month alone, he's crashed into a concrete embankment after being attacked by dogs outside Istanbul, slept on a freezing bathroom floor in Poland, dealt with repeated mechanical failures, hitchhiked through rural Turkey with a broken bike, camped beside roads and forests, and ridden through cold rain and relentless climbs. From the outside, you'd assume that kind of experience creates stress. And I'm sure it does sometimes. But the word Andrew kept coming back to, directly and indirectly, was: Simplicity.
"Your life just gets boiled down," he told me.
On the road, there isn't much to think about beyond the immediate: keep your eye on the road, find food, manage the weather, fix the bike, find somewhere to sleep, meet people, repeat. The hundreds of things modern life imposes — messages, schedules, finances, obligations, news, comparison, constant planning — it seems that most of that falls away. And he knows that even when things go wrong, he'll figure it out. Not perfectly always, but well enough to proceed. And he knows that he’ll improvise and pivot again as needed. It’s a real trust that things will be ok and that he’ll figure it out, no matter what.
It's one of those things that probably only becomes palpable through the contrast. For example, we don't notice the weight we're carrying until it's gone. Humans are good at adapting.
What's also interesting is that the hardships out there are real and definitely hectic, but they tend to be fleeting and then finished. He deals with something difficult, gets through it, and moves on. Each time he does, he comes out a little more sure of his abilities. There's discomfort, sure — but there's also a kind of reward that seems to come with getting through it.
Andrew is pretty quick to push back on the romantic version of this, though. He doesn't complain — that’s not his style — but when I ask directly, he's honest about it.
"I think this kind of travel is overly romanticized sometimes," he told me.
For every beautiful moment, there are brutal climbs, long stretches of real loneliness, exhaustion, fear, uncertainty, boredom, and mechanical problems that show up at the worst possible times. He also said that he finds himself questioning the trip, interrupting his career path and normal macro fears. But maybe that's exactly why the good moments feel so rewarding. When you've been riding cold and tired for hours in (literally) the middle of nowhere and someone invites you in for a meal, it means something different than it would otherwise.
One night along the Black Sea coast exemplified this. Andrew cycled past a group of local mechanics having a roadside (right by the beach) gathering when they waved him over and essentially told him to sit down. They were cooking local fare over a fire and drinking plenty of whiskey. Nobody spoke English but it didn’t matter. Andrw didn’t have to explain what he was doing. It was obvious and the locals figured he was hungry. After everyone went home, Andrew pitched his tent overlooking the ocean, climbed a nearby ridge, and sat alone under the stars with the last of the Johnny Walker Black they'd shared with him earlier.
He described that moment with genuine appreciation. It was something so brief, relatively, but it had meaningful implications – like so many unplanned interactions and experiences on the trip.
The contrast of the trip became much clearer: Back home, we are forced to focus on profession, income, status, productivity, what you own, what you've achieved. None of that really matters on a bicycle crossing countries alone. You're just a person seeing amazing parts of the world, slowly. And oddly, people seem to respond to that. Strangers have invited him to dinner, (attempted to) repaired his bike, offered rides, helped him after crashes, shared drinks, welcomed him into their lives. This has nothing to do with ulterior motives or wanting anything in exchange — but because there's something about genuine vulnerability and that kind of open-road spirit that seems to connect with people across languages and cultures.
Watching all of this from a distance has genuinely made me think about how much of mental noise we live with and just accepted as normal. Andrew, on the other hand, is just noticing, experiencing and feeling things as they happen.
