Don't know if anyone still reading this, but you guys should do a book on your trip with the drawings and pictures & of course commentary of your trip, I would buy it. Really cool trip, thanks for sharing.
Thanks Peter! The film is just a tiny part of it all and we’ve been hoping to write an unabridged book / do an exhibition for years. One day.. For now the whole thing remains rather underground and to this day it only captures the attention of the few that stumble upon it. We are passionate about getting the story out there because it does seem to resonate with those that find it. Perhaps one day it will be unearthed by someone of influence, but for now it remains in obscurity. And actually, given the non-commercial nature of it all, maybe that is how it is supposed to be! All the very best, Ben
This video/ documentary WAS AMAZING im lost for words it was just so FREE!!! thank you guys so much for living your lives and making an impact on mine. :)
Wow, and you guys are so lucky to have done this before the cellphone/cerebral death era. no hashtag or social media to ruin your trip,,,i miss those days.
This remarkable achievement from the pre-youtube era looks like it'll hold up against anything created by modern youtube adventurers all doing the same trips as each other, running multiple cameras 2, 4 or even 6 hours PER DAY. Some of which adventures by the way, will garner hundreds of thousands of views in just a few short weeks. It's hard to figure. Even as viewers on youtube, I guess some people don't want to risk straying too far from some kind of norm, let alone consider doing that in real life. Congrats on a great documentary!
Dear JB, we are so grateful for your reaction. Thank you. Entirely agree and hopefully FWE will stand the test of time and maybe even send some on real adventures that come from the soul rather than with viewing figures in mind.. Ben
Thanks for watching Dave! courage is a very generous word. It was an adventure and we lived and breathed it and it may have come across that we had courage but it took no more courage than anyone else has. As young men we lived in the moment and didn't dwell on consequences, but I'll take courage! Ben
This is a straight up insane journey. Seriously how cool to hitch those rides on the ships. Navigating routes and language barriers. No smartphones. Wildly cool. To not get a single puncture is also so bitchen, your cousin getting them all for ya, what a guy. Thanks for piecing this together. Should have 10 million views.
Haha - brilliant. Def took one for the team with all those punctures.. I think someone said a few years ago ‘how can this only have 43k views? and now at 169k.. 10 million is the new target. So it’s simple: if everyone who has commented just gets 30k people to watch, we’d be there in no time.. or if an individual with a billion followers posts it once, we’re also there! Simple.
Beautiful story! I plan to do my own bike tour very soon, in the USA with my 2 wolfdogs. But we wont be ever going 'back' to anyone or anywhere, because we dont really have a home anymore. Been homeless for 5 years already, but with my dad and I'm 32. It's time I've set out on my own. I'll probably visit my parents and siblings from time to time. Maybe at some point I'll find my home, and maybe not and I'll just keep pedaling.
Thanks for your kind words and for sharing your story. I read a book called Ghost Riders by Richard Grant. It might be right up your street! It’s about American nomads. I used to tell my family when I was younger that I wanted to be a wanderer when I grow up. I never really grew up, but I do have a young family now, so am more sedentary than I have ever been. Keep on journeying and you may or may not settle one day when the time is right!
Archangel Brilliant, enjoy, I would like to do the same. I have 2 dogs also, one a wolf dog. The trouble is, I can't do such a trip in my own country (UK) due to the dogs making it difficult & dangerous off their leads. A country of freedom roads & quietness away from traffic would be ideal. Have a great journey
Ride on my biking brothers. Great video and story. Well done. Loved the small celebration at the end. I know the feeling of the end of a tour very well. Never had even THAT much fanfare at the end of one of mine, lol.
Thanks Kraig! Hard to watch that small celebration without it rocking the soul. Just family, and with our late Granny being there to welcome us, is too much! Ride on brother.
FWE has become a philosophy for us and that almost 20 years later it still has an impact is something we never foresaw. Thank you for taking the time to type this.
on the 14th of December 2022. am cycling around Ireland and my plan is to complete the Scottish isles and cycle seven continents. I enjoy watching your documentary, yes am 60 years old,
Thanks for saying so, Stephen! Best of luck! You are a spring chicken! Once cycled cork to Galway and loved it. Also my loop of the outer Hebrides is the ride that got me into bikepacking in the first place - there is nowhere more beautiful on earth..
The willpower is amazing to witness. I just started bikepacking, in a much more comfortable setup so your story gave me inspiration in a very broad sense. What I am planning for the next phases look much more doable for me now. Inspiration is the ultimate takeaway for me these days from people like you. Hey, you stopped pedaling may be I don’t know, but your journey goes on, at least with me, I am gonna carry it with me, probably gonna remember from time to time on the road, under the sun, pushing through the head wind, trying to stay focused on an uphill. Cheers 🎉
Great to hear these words - thank you for taking the time to share them. The ability of human beings is mind-blowing. Look at the limit of what you think is possible and then times it by 100 and you have a real idea of how far you could go. It's only the limitations of the mind, and those around us who have an opinion of what is we are doing and what is possible that can limit us. Sometimes the body says no too.. 😅 - may you have the very best adventures. Do spare us a thought, tailwinds to you! Ride on for us!
Great video :-D I'm happy to see these videos because I cycled many places that you did since 2001 to present, and I don't really have any videos at all... This brings back pleasant memories, thanks.
Thank you and great to hear. Sounds like you have cycled long and far! We have 24hrs of footage we mean to go through one day to show more of it all so that we can all be absorbed in more than 90 mins of memories. Tailwinds!
This was awesome to watch. Such an inspirational adventure and a big achievement if you consider it was all kind of pre-internet / google maps / social media era. And the narration voice made it even more adventurous!
Thanks for the kind words Roland. The age pre-phones with the internet in them feels rosier and rosier as the years roll by. Just lucky to live that. And here’s to Peter! Cheers and tailwinds, Ben
@@benwylson3089 Thanks for the reply Ben! And you're right; as I'm nearing 51 now, I more and more feel like moving away from internet and social media and just live life without it. I guess that's because we now realize (and also by seeing documentaries like yours) that those times where much more impressive. I'm going cycling in Denmark this august and take your film as an inspiration to cycle as 'offline' as possible. And yes hopefully with tailwind :)
The Contrast between high anxiety, concrete London and the Great Outdoors is startling!. Men were born to be free. Excellent documentary, makes me want to live a simpler life and live in the moment.
The feeling of living only once and of not being ok with following the traditional, expected path, got so intense that we had to DO something to alter our future for the better. FWE was the result. Life can be complicated. Glimpses of freedom / simplicity.. moments of clarity.. seem to come around so rarely within the fog of sedentary life. But if the opening words of the film helped to open up one of these far-between portals to another way of life, and if the intensity of feeling is there and you are able and truly want to, jump through before it closes. Who knows when it might open again?!
@@benwylson3089 "Feeling trapped for a very long time." "I couldn't see myself living the rest of my life in a fixed situation or lifestyle." "When you realize that you don't have to live your life based on what society tells you." Society, parents all predetermine what and how we as individuals should live our lives. Yes, there is probable success in following what society tells us to do and live. However, it depends on what we as individuals define as success. Working like a dog for someone else for years and years, acquiring a bunch of stuff that either ends up being sold for less money than we bought it for, giving it away or throwing it away. Doesn't make a lot of sense. Yet the majority of people fall into this mindset. We don't have a U-Haul truck following us to the grave site. I like new things just like everyone else, but everything wears out eventually (2nd law of thermodynamics. Matter wears down and out, it doesn't evolve stronger, better, like the lie of evolution tells us). My parents are in the last stages of their lives. They have acquired so much stuff. Three separate homes and everything that goes along with that. After they die, I don't want to deal with all their stuff....what a burden! I don't want any of it either. Then their stuff becomes my stuff. No, not me. I want to be unencumbered from stuff. Especially from other people's opinions of how I should live. I tend to separate myself from those types of people.
Thanks for sharing this - I fully understand. I like to have very few things but to make all of the things I do have both vital and a sort of old friend. It would be devastating if anything ever happened to my old leatherman for example. So, have less things, less things that are vital and are for the sake of. Materialism and the need to show off, to be seen as a success in the eyes of others, is destroying the planet and our minds - it’s a tonic to be burden free. I’m living within sedentary life now, but am very wary of its trappings so am constantly reminding myself of everything I do not want for me. But I can fully understand the draw of ‘things’ and am careful never to be sucked into the whirlpool of wanting more. If I can be around the natural world and maintain sustenance for myself and my family, then I have it all. Success is here and now, not somewhere in the future and I am very very lucky. Most things on the open road are unnecessary, so riding bikes seems to be the ultimate antidote to the madnesses of the modern, mobile phone wielding human. Good luck with it all and here’s to simmering away the unnecessary!
I think this is the best pice of content over ever seen. Can’t remember last time I actually teared up from a video this is amazing , incredible and sooo inspiring.❤❤❤❤
Thank you so much for sharing this experience with us and creating such a wonderful documentary!! Some thoughts while watching: - interesting map of Europe - very good that you spare all of us and skip any footage of actually being in Berlin, the first milestone ;D - it is so nice to see some pre-instagram/youtube/smartphone era bike world trip. Raw, shaky and authentic footage - I am impressed with what nice and robust bicycles you got nearly 20 years ago. Except for the lights and maybe the brakes I would travel with the same setup today - For me, your free ship journeys are legendary and so are the book sales in Melbourne, cycling next to penguins and how the two of you (mostly Ben!?) survived some terrible things!
Hi @jenssen97 - what a brilliant message - thank you for taking the time to send this and for your points. - We drew and painted the maps ourselves on my old drawing board and my sister made them digital. There are some BTS images of this on of this on the Free Wheels East Film facebook page, buried somewhere.. Can't guarantee they are to scale. - think we have some archive from Berlin, but it was not filmed well enough / relevant enough to make the cut.. Nothing to do with Berlin!! One of the best cities there is. - I believe strongly the world was better for the mind and soul then. I hope the film reminds people of that. - ah.. the Thorn Raven tour - the best bikes in the world. Would buy the same thing today. But I still have one! - Thanks so much once again, great to know what resonated with you!! All the very best, Ben
in 2022 with all these 4k content around this footage looks very authentic and nostalgic. feels like modern day super quality videos killed the vibe. thank you for this story. it's inspiring! felt like a wes anderson road trip movie, just like "the darjeeling limited", especially the goofing around with hand made horn in a ship to Morocco.
You couldn’t have given our egos a bigger massage. Thank you! As complete armatures with a camera, we actually filmed 4:3 because we didn’t know there was a 16:9 setting. Also, we only filmed when nothing much was going on / when we thought of it… so in the edit we had almost nothing to work with. It’s all entirely random and as you can see, we rarely took the filmmaking especially seriously, hence the moments like the Morocco trumpet.. A great compliment to hear that it felt a little Wes Anderson. For the unabridged adventure, we have literally a few million words in our diaries. Hoping to publish these one day. They are diligently written and comprehensive, but actually probably even more whacky. I concur about some of the modern filmmaking. A little too much emphasis is placed on beauty in general these days. What happened to the grit and substance?! Happy you enjoyed the film and thanks again - Ben & Jamie
Dear Paul, these are exceptionally kind words. Our aim when making the film was to pass on our experience so that others might be inspired to believe they could do it too. You saying this makes 12 years of not many people seeing it ever so worth while. Thank you.
In a few days I begin a bike tour around the US--from Cincinnati, OH to Fort Benning, GA, then on to Seattle, WA. I'm an athlete but by no means a bicyclist. I've been intimidated by this trip for months now. Seeing this strengthened my resolve. You two are badasses and I'm really, really grateful to you for sharing your adventures!!!! Thank you :-)
Firstly, massively envious of your upcoming trip. Like many things in life, the mental chewing that goes on before doing something significant is more of an ordeal than doing the thing itself. The hardest part of our journey was surely the departure and arriving back in England. As for the bit in between, there is nothing more right, wholesome, meditative.. life changing than riding bikes over long distances. You even have the advantage of being an athlete! FWE continues to reward us every single day and the life-lessons we we learned will never be forgotten. Hoping very much that your adventures have the same impact on your life as ours had on us and our futures. Really enjoyed being called badass btw!! Thanks so much for your day-making comment.
What a remarkable experience of human spirit and indomitable courage. Your will to survive and overcome hardships proves the reliances of the human spirit to continue to accomplish anything you put your mind to
@@benwylson3089 Your welcome and I am glad my words made such a positive impact. My dad traveled the world with my grandpa and I hope one day to do the same. You deffiently put a voice to your story and the many stories I have herd from my family.
What a ride it was, both your adventure and this film. cried my eyes out on the last scene, as someone that wants to do that sometime soon before too much life passes by and at the same time someone that has already been away from family and living across continents. Thank you for creating such an amazing masterpiece from such a wonderful adventure! love from a Chilean dude living in Italy and still trying to figure where in the world do I wanna be.
Dear Matias, your message was very special to read. The last scene always makes us emotional too. Thanks for sharing and for the exceptionally kind words. Hoping you discover where you want to be. Maybe the true joy in life comes from just being - a human being. To following the winding road - you never know what lies around the next corner! Tailwinds, Ben & Jamie
@@timallenphotogram Oh yes.. I don't think we had hit that time in life when one thinks about the consequence of one's actions. Not sure whether that time ever kicked in actually.
it was a very good decision doing things that you like to do while you are still young and able to do the world tour by bike! more power to both of you Ben and Jamie!
@@Mark8v29 A very good point, Mark! I once saw this.. which is absolutely a motivator: www.imdb.com/title/tt1505354/ - glad you enjoyed the film and here's to many more years of keeping those wheels turning!
@@Mark8v29 thanks for your philosophy, Mark! The more Clark Kent, the less ego, and as long as you plod, step over step, without focusing too much on the finish line, I truly believe you can achieve the impossible!
This looked tremendous, can't imagine how difficult transitioning back into "normal life" was for you both afterward. If this film taught me anything, it's to travel with someone who acts as the accident magnet! When you get the work and the kids out of the way, I hope you both have more travels. All the best :)
Thanks for taking the time to type this special message. Normal life will always be an enigma.. always a shock to the system! Here’s to finding our way back to the road again one day! Maybe we’ll take the kids with us?
@@benwylson3089 Hah! Take the kids, maybe they'll enjoy it Or, at least when they're still young enough to be pliable. Teens are such a faff! The most I ever did was 5.5 months from home at a time, during the pandemic when my flight kept being cancelled. Remember how it was to be stuck in the same 4 shirts, day after day? It was alright though, was in Australia at the time and they were *open* - it was such a shock coming from the UK where we'd simply been closed more or less since March. Gosh, it was odd. Hope you have a lovely weekend.
Fuck hope Fuck life. All of this is unreachable. You work till the day you die after being wasted to death after globalist regime disposes of you after being treated as a number.
well, when I was young (about 13-14 years old) I was dreaming about a journey with my bicycle somewhere in Europe, nowadays and after 20 years I have the same feeling, and I think its the right time to do something like that...promise to myself, ''I must do that...''
Hello friends, great film which inspired us to go away for a good time too. I'm thinking of making a documentary in the genre, do you remember what you were filming with, I love the style. 4k gives me a headache
Hello Oli, So amazing to hear that you were inspired to go on your own trip! How long and where to?! Our state of the art camera (for 2005) was a Sony PDX 10p. We shot 4:3 because we didn’t really know how to work it and so didn’t even realise there was actually a 16:9 setting. Another FWE twist of serendipity.. Best of luck with your adventures and filmmaking. Let us know how you get along! Cheers, Ben & Jamie
To all the dreamers out there, you have proven that anything is possible if you set your mind to it. Amazing inspiring to a soul that just wants to be free 👍🏼
Well done guys, you did complete a dream without all the crap and Hollywood dramatics of Instagram people these days. You did it without phones etc, perfect. Imagine what they would have thought if someone told the the correct name for the "blugening stick" was a priest
Well I never! A ‘priest’.. I have also - after a quick google - seen them called ‘bonkers’. Thanks for getting the exact essence of it all. The world has gone mad and these were simple times about real, personal exploration, rather than exploration for the ego or to make money or to provide dopamine hits for money. Cheers and tailwinds! Ben & Jamie
On a whim, I figured I’d take a peek at this, maybe skip through it, though immediately I was drawn in to each and every moment. My focus glued to this telling of such an adventurous tale. What an awesome experience! Congratulations and thanks for sharing it.
Thank you for your kind words here! I guess the film is a bit random as we only filmed when at a loose end or when we thought of filming which wasn't very often... We didn't have any finance, training or resources to make it a blockbuster, but it was certainly sculpted upon return with all the deepest of our thoughts and feelings. I think our naivete as filmmakers and humans at least should hopefully come across as genuine. It's a huge compliment to think that you were drawn in and it held your attention. Thanks again - comments like yours are so very rewarding. All the best!!
@@benwylson3089 it’s truly an inspiring tale & documentary. If this was created on a whim, one can only imagine how incredible it must be if you give even just 20% more intention behind the next one. 😉 Again, great job! I sincerely hope you can find the time to make another someday.
In 19 days from now: I'll begin my kick pro scooter around from Bristol to Glasgow and if i do reach there less then 30 days i'll go further more into Scotland, I've been excited for this trip for the last few year and preparing for this big journey.
Cheers Scott! We were inspired by the beat writers and it was all about escaping and exploring and not about telling others about what we were doing as we did it. We didn’t have phones - social media was non existent, but when we got into towns we updated our website. A real adventure it was!
Cheers Pete! Jamie is now a wood sculptor - search Jamie Gaunt Designs. He has a stall on Broadway Market in London each Saturday. I started a production company called The Big Sky with Jack and old friend - off the back of the film. We actually just made a doc for Nat Geo, out this summer! Both Jamie and I live in Kent, have wives - whom we met on FWE - and 2 kids each. There you go, life story!
I actually can’t watch the end without getting emotional. Our granny died a few years ago and she remains a hero. The family is ever growing and her legacy lives on! Thanks for the kind thoughts, John.
It was just exhilarating knowing that we were so far from the rest of the world, 14 days voyage from the nearest town! I certainly don't think I will ever feel that lucky ever again. Thank you and happy to hear you enjoyed the story!
The best thing I've ever watched I was already inspired to go on a world journy on a bicycle and this video will give me the most courage to do that Thank you both for this video
i'm going to watch this again soon. same as another great YT video..."from cape to cairo by bike", it gets better every time you watch it. thnx so much for sharing this. really really really good entertainment.
So amazing to finally see this! I went to uni with your cousin Emma, and Jack stayed with us in NZ before joining you guys. Incredible journey! Kate & Matt x
No way! I’m actually at Emma’s house right now!! She sends her love. Jack often talks fondly of his stay with you both and says what super people you are. Thanks for watching the film and for the kind words. I hope to get to NZ one day! Emms says she’ll be in touch soon! X
Loving this and What an adventure. Glad to see you went to my Country Malaysia and is not so bad even though is very hot but you did not experience the monsoon season where by heavy rain/thunder .
Hello Apa! Very happy you enjoyed the adventure. We loved Malaysia. Such kind people and lots of happy memories. Most poignantly, I remember being taken in by the scouts at one point and also stepping on a sea urchin in Penang… That part wasn’t as much fun..! Ben & Jamie
Don't know if anyone still reading this, but you guys should do a book on your trip with the drawings and pictures & of course commentary of your trip, I would buy it. Really cool trip, thanks for sharing.
Have replied in one in my previous comment!
Just found this, easily one of the best bike travel vids/stories I've seen on UA-cam. Awesome.
Thanks Peter! The film is just a tiny part of it all and we’ve been hoping to write an unabridged book / do an exhibition for years. One day.. For now the whole thing remains rather underground and to this day it only captures the attention of the few that stumble upon it. We are passionate about getting the story out there because it does seem to resonate with those that find it. Perhaps one day it will be unearthed by someone of influence, but for now it remains in obscurity. And actually, given the non-commercial nature of it all, maybe that is how it is supposed to be! All the very best, Ben
its videos like this that giv me motivation im 48 years old and i think on my 49th birthday i will take off from new york to arizona on my bike
Great to hear and here’s to your trip. Hoping you do it and it’s the experience of a lifetime!
here here , im 44 and would love to do something like this
Pero no uses GPS ni celular!
This video/ documentary WAS AMAZING im lost for words it was just so FREE!!! thank you guys so much for living your lives and making an impact on mine. :)
Such special words to read! Can’t tell you what comments like this mean to us. Thank you 🙏
Cannot believe this only has 2.2k likes, it's an absolute masterpiece
You are far too kind - thank you.
Wow, and you guys are so lucky to have done this before the cellphone/cerebral death era. no hashtag or social media to ruin your trip,,,i miss those days.
Couldn’t agree more!! If the world could only hit an I’m Spartacus moment at which we all destroy our phones at once..
@@benwylson3089 hahahaa! i dream of this. if social media would implode, i think we humans would have a chance.
This remarkable achievement from the pre-youtube era looks like it'll hold up against anything created by modern youtube adventurers all doing the same trips as each other, running multiple cameras 2, 4 or even 6 hours PER DAY. Some of which adventures by the way, will garner hundreds of thousands of views in just a few short weeks. It's hard to figure. Even as viewers on youtube, I guess some people don't want to risk straying too far from some kind of norm, let alone consider doing that in real life. Congrats on a great documentary!
Dear JB, we are so grateful for your reaction. Thank you. Entirely agree and hopefully FWE will stand the test of time and maybe even send some on real adventures that come from the soul rather than with viewing figures in mind.. Ben
This was amazing 90mins to watch... Lads unbelievable courage
Thanks for watching Dave! courage is a very generous word. It was an adventure and we lived and breathed it and it may have come across that we had courage but it took no more courage than anyone else has. As young men we lived in the moment and didn't dwell on consequences, but I'll take courage! Ben
I was stuck to the screen watching you guys travel the world. Absolute legends
🙏🙏
Well done, men. Looking forward to your next high-aspirations installment. Thank you for encouraging mine.
Thank you Manfred! It might take a lifetime to work out the next instalment. But watch this space!
This is a straight up insane journey. Seriously how cool to hitch those rides on the ships. Navigating routes and language barriers. No smartphones. Wildly cool. To not get a single puncture is also so bitchen, your cousin getting them all for ya, what a guy. Thanks for piecing this together. Should have 10 million views.
Haha - brilliant. Def took one for the team with all those punctures.. I think someone said a few years ago ‘how can this only have 43k views? and now at 169k.. 10 million is the new target. So it’s simple: if everyone who has commented just gets 30k people to watch, we’d be there in no time.. or if an individual with a billion followers posts it once, we’re also there! Simple.
Glory to god! What a wonderful story
Started watching out of curiosity and then watched it all the way through. Great story.
Thanks Bob, glad to hear you enjoyed it. All the best, Ben
How does this only have 43k views after 2 years.
they botched the beginning of the movie a bit. you want to start with a hook to keep the audience's attention, they started with too much dialogue.
Beautiful story! I plan to do my own bike tour very soon, in the USA with my 2 wolfdogs. But we wont be ever going 'back' to anyone or anywhere, because we dont really have a home anymore. Been homeless for 5 years already, but with my dad and I'm 32. It's time I've set out on my own. I'll probably visit my parents and siblings from time to time. Maybe at some point I'll find my home, and maybe not and I'll just keep pedaling.
Thanks for your kind words and for sharing your story. I read a book called Ghost Riders by Richard Grant. It might be right up your street! It’s about American nomads. I used to tell my family when I was younger that I wanted to be a wanderer when I grow up. I never really grew up, but I do have a young family now, so am more sedentary than
I have ever been. Keep on journeying and you may or may not settle one day when the time is right!
P.s best of luck with your adventure! Ben
@@TheBigSky Thanks! God bless Ben! ✝️💕
Archangel
Brilliant, enjoy, I would like to do the same. I have 2 dogs also, one a wolf dog.
The trouble is, I can't do such a trip in my own country (UK) due to the dogs making it difficult & dangerous off their leads.
A country of freedom roads & quietness away from traffic would be ideal.
Have a great journey
Let's go on a bike adventure. .I'll pedal with you
Ride on my biking brothers. Great video and story. Well done. Loved the small celebration at the end. I know the feeling of the end of a tour very well. Never had even THAT much fanfare at the end of one of mine, lol.
Thanks Kraig! Hard to watch that small celebration without it rocking the soul. Just family, and with our late Granny being there to welcome us, is too much! Ride on brother.
Absolutely amazing!
Best 90 minutes I've had in a long time.
thank you!
FWE has become a philosophy for us and that almost 20 years later it still has an impact is something we never foresaw. Thank you for taking the time to type this.
on the 14th of December 2022. am cycling around Ireland and my plan is to complete the Scottish isles and cycle seven continents. I enjoy watching your documentary, yes am 60 years old,
Thanks for saying so, Stephen! Best of luck! You are a spring chicken! Once cycled cork to Galway and loved it. Also my loop of the outer Hebrides is the ride that got me into bikepacking in the first place - there is nowhere more beautiful on earth..
Wow truly epic journey!!! So raw and fresh and inspiring 🚴🤓🙏
Thank you!! Always so grateful for comments like this 😊😊 🙏
Popped up on my feed....great story loved it as a bike rider myself!
Thank you! Pleased to hear, from two fellow bike riders!
The most impressive thing is... No punctures!
Indeed - we’ll done Jamie… 😅
The willpower is amazing to witness. I just started bikepacking, in a much more comfortable setup so your story gave me inspiration in a very broad sense. What I am planning for the next phases look much more doable for me now. Inspiration is the ultimate takeaway for me these days from people like you. Hey, you stopped pedaling may be I don’t know, but your journey goes on, at least with me, I am gonna carry it with me, probably gonna remember from time to time on the road, under the sun, pushing through the head wind, trying to stay focused on an uphill. Cheers 🎉
Great to hear these words - thank you for taking the time to share them. The ability of human beings is mind-blowing. Look at the limit of what you think is possible and then times it by 100 and you have a real idea of how far you could go. It's only the limitations of the mind, and those around us who have an opinion of what is we are doing and what is possible that can limit us. Sometimes the body says no too.. 😅 - may you have the very best adventures. Do spare us a thought, tailwinds to you! Ride on for us!
What a beautiful journey ❤
❤
Great video :-D I'm happy to see these videos because I cycled many places that you did since 2001 to present, and I don't really have any videos at all... This brings back pleasant memories, thanks.
Thank you and great to hear. Sounds like you have cycled long and far! We have 24hrs of footage we mean to go through one day to show more of it all so that we can all be absorbed in more than 90 mins of memories. Tailwinds!
Amazing adventure! Well done and very well made documentary, enjoyed it a alot!
Thanks Martin!!
Absolutely loved this, enjoyed every minute of it.
Big thanks from us, Chris!
This was awesome to watch. Such an inspirational adventure and a big achievement if you consider it was all kind of pre-internet / google maps / social media era. And the narration voice made it even more adventurous!
Thanks for the kind words Roland. The age pre-phones with the internet in them feels rosier and rosier as the years roll by. Just lucky to live that. And here’s to Peter! Cheers and tailwinds, Ben
@@benwylson3089 Thanks for the reply Ben! And you're right; as I'm nearing 51 now, I more and more feel like moving away from internet and social media and just live life without it. I guess that's because we now realize (and also by seeing documentaries like yours) that those times where much more impressive. I'm going cycling in Denmark this august and take your film as an inspiration to cycle as 'offline' as possible. And yes hopefully with tailwind :)
@@rolandmd73 Here's to your direction! I'll aim to follow your lead. Thanks again and have a great ride offline in Denmark! Cheers!
The Contrast between high anxiety, concrete London and the Great Outdoors is startling!. Men were born to be free. Excellent documentary, makes me want to live a simpler life and live in the moment.
Powerful words and hear hear, Arthur! To living a simple life in the moment. Cheers and thanks for the kind thoughts.
Onya boys , a good reminder for me to up it.
I'm leading the kind of life they describe at the beginning of the video. Time to change! Thank you for this.
The feeling of living only once and of not being ok with following the traditional, expected path, got so intense that we had to DO something to alter our future for the better. FWE was the result. Life can be complicated. Glimpses of freedom / simplicity.. moments of clarity.. seem to come around so rarely within the fog of sedentary life. But if the opening words of the film helped to open up one of these far-between portals to another way of life, and if the intensity of feeling is there and you are able and truly want to, jump through before it closes. Who knows when it might open again?!
WOW! Fantastic trip 😊❤
Great film.
This was amazing! love from Norway
Thank you Bee Keeper! Love back to Norway!
Far out and fascinating!!!
Watching Again!
Great Quotes!!!!! in the beginning of this video.
Thanks for the encouragement and hope you enjoyed the second viewing! Would love to know the quotes that resonated!
@@benwylson3089
"Feeling trapped for a very long time."
"I couldn't see myself living the rest of my life in a fixed situation or lifestyle."
"When you realize that you don't have to live your life based on what society tells you."
Society, parents all predetermine what and how we as individuals should live our lives.
Yes, there is probable success in following what society tells us to do and live. However, it depends on what we as individuals define as success.
Working like a dog for someone else for years and years, acquiring a bunch of stuff that either ends up being sold for less money than we bought it for, giving it away or throwing it away. Doesn't make a lot of sense. Yet the majority of people fall into this mindset.
We don't have a U-Haul truck following us to the grave site.
I like new things just like everyone else, but everything wears out eventually (2nd law of thermodynamics. Matter wears down and out, it doesn't evolve stronger, better, like the lie of evolution tells us).
My parents are in the last stages of their lives. They have acquired so much stuff. Three separate homes and everything that goes along with that. After they die, I don't want to deal with all their stuff....what a burden!
I don't want any of it either. Then their stuff becomes my stuff.
No, not me.
I want to be unencumbered from stuff.
Especially from other people's opinions of how I should live.
I tend to separate myself from those types of people.
Thanks for sharing this - I fully understand. I like to have very few things but to make all of the things I do have both vital and a sort of old friend. It would be devastating if anything ever happened to my old leatherman for example. So, have less things, less things that are vital and are for the sake of. Materialism and the need to show off, to be seen as a success in the eyes of others, is destroying the planet and our minds - it’s a tonic to be burden free. I’m living within sedentary life now, but am very wary of its trappings so am constantly reminding myself of everything I do not want for me. But I can fully understand the draw of ‘things’ and am careful never to be sucked into the whirlpool of wanting more. If I can be around the natural world and maintain sustenance for myself and my family, then I have it all. Success is here and now, not somewhere in the future and I am very very lucky. Most things on the open road are unnecessary, so riding bikes seems to be the ultimate antidote to the madnesses of the modern, mobile phone wielding human. Good luck with it all and here’s to simmering away the unnecessary!
I think this is the best pice of content over ever seen. Can’t remember last time I actually teared up from a video this is amazing , incredible and sooo inspiring.❤❤❤❤
entirely undeserved- thank you for taking a moment to type this ❤️❤️ - so happy to hear it resonated.
Beautiful and inspirational organic travel documentary
Congratulations. Truly remarkable. Great to see the Rolhoff!!
Thank you steve! Ah yes, our Rohloffs - no greater bit of bike!
the penguins are talking about the two wheel transport to this day !
Moreover they have spent the years masterminding new b-icicle technologies to wander the frozen continent, in search of new colonies and freedom..
So awesome, you gave me hope. For the no airplane traveling with bicycle.. thank you, thank you, thank you
Hey Natema! Loved reading your message. Thank YOU!
Thank you so much for sharing this experience with us and creating such a wonderful documentary!!
Some thoughts while watching:
- interesting map of Europe
- very good that you spare all of us and skip any footage of actually being in Berlin, the first milestone ;D
- it is so nice to see some pre-instagram/youtube/smartphone era bike world trip. Raw, shaky and authentic footage
- I am impressed with what nice and robust bicycles you got nearly 20 years ago. Except for the lights and maybe the brakes I would travel with the same setup today
- For me, your free ship journeys are legendary and so are the book sales in Melbourne, cycling next to penguins and how the two of you (mostly Ben!?) survived some terrible things!
Hi @jenssen97 - what a brilliant message - thank you for taking the time to send this and for your points.
- We drew and painted the maps ourselves on my old drawing board and my sister made them digital. There are some BTS images of this on of this on the Free Wheels East Film facebook page, buried somewhere.. Can't guarantee they are to scale.
- think we have some archive from Berlin, but it was not filmed well enough / relevant enough to make the cut.. Nothing to do with Berlin!! One of the best cities there is.
- I believe strongly the world was better for the mind and soul then. I hope the film reminds people of that.
- ah.. the Thorn Raven tour - the best bikes in the world. Would buy the same thing today. But I still have one!
- Thanks so much once again, great to know what resonated with you!!
All the very best, Ben
Thank you for the wideo. I wish you all good luck
Very belated congratulations Ben & Jamie what a journey. Thanks for a great video.
Thanks so much for your kind words - they mean a lot!
I'd like to thank 'The Big Sky' for uploading this AMAZING adventure.
Truly inspiring to many.
Thanks for your very wonderful message - passing on gratitude to The Big Sky
Thanks
in 2022 with all these 4k content around this footage looks very authentic and nostalgic. feels like modern day super quality videos killed the vibe. thank you for this story. it's inspiring!
felt like a wes anderson road trip movie, just like "the darjeeling limited", especially the goofing around with hand made horn in a ship to Morocco.
You couldn’t have given our egos a bigger massage. Thank you! As complete armatures with a camera, we actually filmed 4:3 because we didn’t know there was a 16:9 setting. Also, we only filmed when nothing much was going on / when we thought of it… so in the edit we had almost nothing to work with. It’s all entirely random and as you can see, we rarely took the filmmaking especially seriously, hence the moments like the Morocco trumpet.. A great compliment to hear that it felt a little Wes Anderson. For the unabridged adventure, we have literally a few million words in our diaries. Hoping to publish these one day. They are diligently written and comprehensive, but actually probably even more whacky. I concur about some of the modern filmmaking. A little too much emphasis is placed on beauty in general these days. What happened to the grit and substance?! Happy you enjoyed the film and thanks again - Ben & Jamie
What a amazing story. This is one of the best things I have ever watched and will inspire so many people to go on adventures.
Dear Paul, these are exceptionally kind words. Our aim when making the film was to pass on our experience so that others might be inspired to believe they could do it too. You saying this makes 12 years of not many people seeing it ever so worth while. Thank you.
In a few days I begin a bike tour around the US--from Cincinnati, OH to Fort Benning, GA, then on to Seattle, WA. I'm an athlete but by no means a bicyclist. I've been intimidated by this trip for months now.
Seeing this strengthened my resolve.
You two are badasses and I'm really, really grateful to you for sharing your adventures!!!! Thank you :-)
Firstly, massively envious of your upcoming trip. Like many things in life, the mental chewing that goes on before doing something significant is more of an ordeal than doing the thing itself. The hardest part of our journey was surely the departure and arriving back in England. As for the bit in between, there is nothing more right, wholesome, meditative.. life changing than riding bikes over long distances. You even have the advantage of being an athlete! FWE continues to reward us every single day and the life-lessons we we learned will never be forgotten. Hoping very much that your adventures have the same impact on your life as ours had on us and our futures. Really enjoyed being called badass btw!! Thanks so much for your day-making comment.
Good luck and happy cycling
Have a blast 🙂🤘🏻👊🏻
A perfect Saturday afternoon matinee. Very, very enjoyable. Thank you for sharing your wonderful experiences.
Thanks Phillys - so happy to hear. Tailwinds!
What a remarkable experience of human spirit and indomitable courage. Your will to survive and overcome hardships proves the reliances of the human spirit to continue to accomplish anything you put your mind to
Thank you, Joseph - your words mean a great deal to me and Jamie.
@@benwylson3089 Your welcome and I am glad my words made such a positive impact. My dad traveled the world with my grandpa and I hope one day to do the same. You deffiently put a voice to your story and the many stories I have herd from my family.
@@Hobomountainwander wonderful - sounds like the adventure is in your blood! Enjoy your turn.
@@benwylson3089 Thank you and I truly feel that way.
It’s a crazy world where crazy riders ride! Thank you for sharing your freedom.
Our pleasure! Liking the name crazy rider, and possibly being one.. Here's to freedom!
All 3 of you are so humble, down to earth and very respectful of he locals. Your family has raised you well.
Such a kind thing to say - thank you. I have passed these words on to our parents!
What a ride it was, both your adventure and this film. cried my eyes out on the last scene, as someone that wants to do that sometime soon before too much life passes by and at the same time someone that has already been away from family and living across continents. Thank you for creating such an amazing masterpiece from such a wonderful adventure! love from a Chilean dude living in Italy and still trying to figure where in the world do I wanna be.
Dear Matias, your message was very special to read. The last scene always makes us emotional too. Thanks for sharing and for the exceptionally kind words. Hoping you discover where you want to be. Maybe the true joy in life comes from just being - a human being. To following the winding road - you never know what lies around the next corner! Tailwinds, Ben & Jamie
very inspiring story.. it was awesome.. different time back then..
It absolutely was a different time. I spend a lot of time now harking back to it! Thanks for your saying these things, means a lot.
An amazing achievement in every sense, whether it's the cycling, the money-raising through the booklets or getting Peter Coyote to narrate it. Bravo.
Thanks Tim. Peter Coyote was / is an absolute hero - a very wonderful fellow, to whom we will be forever grateful, for narrating Free Wheels East.
@@TheBigSky Oh and the whole flip flops thing was insane!
@@timallenphotogram Oh yes.. I don't think we had hit that time in life when one thinks about the consequence of one's actions. Not sure whether that time ever kicked in actually.
to see you from England to china then the Ant arctic is epic.
it was a very good decision doing things that you like to do while you are still young and able to do the world tour by bike! more power to both of you Ben and Jamie!
Thanks so much Danilo! Not a day goes by without being grateful that we took the decision to go when we did!
@@Mark8v29 A very good point, Mark! I once saw this.. which is absolutely a motivator: www.imdb.com/title/tt1505354/ - glad you enjoyed the film and here's to many more years of keeping those wheels turning!
@@Mark8v29 thanks for your philosophy, Mark! The more Clark Kent, the less ego, and as long as you plod, step over step, without focusing too much on the finish line, I truly believe you can achieve the impossible!
It touched my heart in a way notthing does,,what a life experience!!!
Thanks for saying so CJ! Means a lot to us.
I love this narrator
From E.T to The War in Vietnam, Peter Coyote is a living legend and we are ever grateful he gave his voice to FWE.
@@benwylson3089 Was pleasantly surprised to hear Peter narrating this brilliant film. He was a bit of a biker in his day too.
Like Marco Polo, a free spirit that I wish I could indulge.
Thank you, William. We feel very grateful to have had the opportunity. Never say never!
This looked tremendous, can't imagine how difficult transitioning back into "normal life" was for you both afterward. If this film taught me anything, it's to travel with someone who acts as the accident magnet!
When you get the work and the kids out of the way, I hope you both have more travels.
All the best :)
Thanks for taking the time to type this special message. Normal life will always be an enigma.. always a shock to the system! Here’s to finding our way back to the road again one day! Maybe we’ll take the kids with us?
@@benwylson3089 Hah! Take the kids, maybe they'll enjoy it Or, at least when they're still young enough to be pliable. Teens are such a faff!
The most I ever did was 5.5 months from home at a time, during the pandemic when my flight kept being cancelled. Remember how it was to be stuck in the same 4 shirts, day after day? It was alright though, was in Australia at the time and they were *open* - it was such a shock coming from the UK where we'd simply been closed more or less since March. Gosh, it was odd.
Hope you have a lovely weekend.
@@Jablicek haha! Hoping you have a good weekend too!
Fuck hope Fuck life. All of this is unreachable. You work till the day you die after being wasted to death after globalist regime disposes of you after being treated as a number.
well, when I was young (about 13-14 years old) I was dreaming about a journey with my bicycle somewhere in Europe, nowadays and after 20 years I have the same feeling, and I think its the right time to do something like that...promise to myself, ''I must do that...''
You must do that! You’ll never look back.. Tailwinds!
@@benwylson3089 thanks dude!
Hello friends, great film which inspired us to go away for a good time too. I'm thinking of making a documentary in the genre, do you remember what you were filming with, I love the style. 4k gives me a headache
Hello Oli, So amazing to hear that you were inspired to go on your own trip! How long and where to?! Our state of the art camera (for 2005) was a Sony PDX 10p. We shot 4:3 because we didn’t really know how to work it and so didn’t even realise there was actually a 16:9 setting. Another FWE twist of serendipity.. Best of luck with your adventures and filmmaking.
Let us know how you get along! Cheers, Ben & Jamie
To all the dreamers out there, you have proven that anything is possible if you set your mind to it. Amazing inspiring to a soul that just wants to be free 👍🏼
Here’s to that!!!
Well done guys, you did complete a dream without all the crap and Hollywood dramatics of Instagram people these days. You did it without phones etc, perfect. Imagine what they would have thought if someone told the the correct name for the "blugening stick" was a priest
Well I never! A ‘priest’.. I have also - after a quick google - seen them called ‘bonkers’. Thanks for getting the exact essence of it all. The world has gone mad and these were simple times about real, personal exploration, rather than exploration for the ego or to make money or to provide dopamine hits for money. Cheers and tailwinds! Ben & Jamie
Wow.. Huge Respect!!🤘
🙏
Thanks for this wonderful film on your adventure. It was so heart warming to listen.
Thanks so much for the special words. Means a lot to us. Ben & Jamie
What an amazing adventure! I really enjoyed this film.
Thank you Suzanne!
On a whim, I figured I’d take a peek at this, maybe skip through it, though immediately I was drawn in to each and every moment. My focus glued to this telling of such an adventurous tale.
What an awesome experience!
Congratulations and thanks for sharing it.
Thank you for your kind words here! I guess the film is a bit random as we only filmed when at a loose end or when we thought of filming which wasn't very often... We didn't have any finance, training or resources to make it a blockbuster, but it was certainly sculpted upon return with all the deepest of our thoughts and feelings. I think our naivete as filmmakers and humans at least should hopefully come across as genuine. It's a huge compliment to think that you were drawn in and it held your attention. Thanks again - comments like yours are so very rewarding. All the best!!
@@benwylson3089 it’s truly an inspiring tale & documentary. If this was created on a whim, one can only imagine how incredible it must be if you give even just 20% more intention behind the next one. 😉
Again, great job! I sincerely hope you can find the time to make another someday.
@@BaronvonMoorland Here's to that and I do hope so too!!
Prayers of your grandmother were answered!
Thanks for this
Thanks for watching ashutosh!! Ben
Wow...just, wow!
I’m totally amazed in a joyous way!❤
🙏
In 19 days from now: I'll begin my kick pro scooter around from Bristol to Glasgow and if i do reach there less then 30 days i'll go further more into Scotland, I've been excited for this trip for the last few year and preparing for this big journey.
Sounds amazing - good luck!!
Fantastic! Reminds me a bit of Mondo Enduro/Terra Circa, except on push bikes! Real adventures are hard to find these days but this looks incredible
Cheers Scott! We were inspired by the beat writers and it was all about escaping and exploring and not about telling others about what we were doing as we did it. We didn’t have phones - social media was non existent, but when we got into towns we updated our website. A real adventure it was!
Great review
Wonderful!
Awesome adventure and very nicely put together. My question is though - what are you guys doing now?
Cheers Pete! Jamie is now a wood sculptor - search Jamie Gaunt Designs. He has a stall on Broadway Market in London each Saturday. I started a production company called The Big Sky with Jack and old friend - off the back of the film. We actually just made a doc for Nat Geo, out this summer! Both Jamie and I live in Kent, have wives - whom we met on FWE - and 2 kids each. There you go, life story!
@@benwylson3089 👍
I really enjoyed this. I just shared it to a few biking sites I belong to.
Thank you, Melissa! So much appreciated!!
Ok this is one of the most epic adventures ever!
Thanks for sharing. Heart touching to see the family welcome you back to your motherland. Hope you both have big families of your own now in 2022.
I actually can’t watch the end without getting emotional. Our granny died a few years ago and she remains a hero. The family is ever growing and her legacy lives on! Thanks for the kind thoughts, John.
Totally amazing...well done...what a trip!
just one word : AMAZING !! what an incredible journey!
Amazing
What a fantastic film, well done lads.
Cheers!!
I have watched many videos on bike touring and this is by far the most amazing, interesting and heartwarming bike tour I’ve watched.
One of the kindest and most encouraging comments we’ve had. Thank you so much, Julie. You truly made our day with your words.
good job,
Thanks 🙏
Amazing.
God bless you both
You got it done....🙂👊🏻
💥 👊
The dungeon and the trip to Antarctica looked very scary ,but what a trip what an adventure, just incredible and well done 👍 👏🏻🙏
It was just exhilarating knowing that we were so far from the rest of the world, 14 days voyage from the nearest town! I certainly don't think I will ever feel that lucky ever again. Thank you and happy to hear you enjoyed the story!
Incredible !!!!
An incredible experience !!!
Thanks Felix!!
Bloody good on you both. Cracking story and really enjoyed it. What an incredible journey to partake and managing to complete!
Great to hear - cheers Josh!!
Legends.
A truly great adventure. Well done.
🙏🙏
The best thing I've ever watched I was already inspired to go on a world journy on a bicycle and this video will give me the most courage to do that
Thank you both for this video
Thank you Luee!! This is so great to hear. Hoping you have the journey of your life too. Tailwinds! Ben & Jamie
Epic! ❤
AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i'm going to watch this again soon.
same as another great YT video..."from cape to cairo by bike", it gets better every time you watch it.
thnx so much for sharing this. really really really good entertainment.
So amazing to finally see this! I went to uni with your cousin Emma, and Jack stayed with us in NZ before joining you guys. Incredible journey! Kate & Matt x
No way! I’m actually at Emma’s house right now!! She sends her love. Jack often talks fondly of his stay with you both and says what super people you are. Thanks for watching the film and for the kind words. I hope to get to NZ one day! Emms says she’ll be in touch soon! X
Loving this and What an adventure. Glad to see you went to my Country Malaysia and is not so bad even though is very hot but you did not experience the monsoon season where by heavy rain/thunder .
Hello Apa! Very happy you enjoyed the adventure. We loved Malaysia. Such kind people and lots of happy memories. Most poignantly, I remember being taken in by the scouts at one point and also stepping on a sea urchin in Penang… That part wasn’t as much fun..! Ben & Jamie