From England to Australia: son recreates, step by step, his father’s epic bicycle trip

Forty years after his father crossed continents by bicycle to Australia, Jamie Hargreaves decided to retrace the same route — recreating, photograph by photograph, the moments recorded in the 1980s. The trip became not only an extreme physical challenge, but also an intimate bond between two generations separated only by time

At first glance, the two photographs almost appear to be duplicates: a young cyclist beneath the glaciers near Everest Base Camp, bicycle raised on his shoulders, face set in determination.

The images could have been taken seconds apart — same location, same light, same shadows.

However, they were captured 40 years apart.

The first shows Phil Hargreaves, a cycling enthusiast who left England in 1984, at the age of 22, accompanied for part of the trip by two friends, on an adventure that took him across Europe, Asia and, finally, to Sydney.

In the second, Jamie Hargreaves, Phil’s son, recreates his father’s pose nearly four decades later — one of many images Jamie has painstakingly reenacted while cycling to the same exact locations.

“I’ve been inspired by my dad all my life,” Jamie tells CNN a few weeks after returning from his own 25,000-kilometer — or 15,500-mile — trip over 19 months from central England to Sydney.

“My brother and I grew up with our father’s stories, and adventure was always calling me. I always wanted to do something similar, but I didn’t want to copy his journey, I wanted to follow my own path.

“Then I had an idea…”

The idea, first formed eight years ago, wasn’t simply to follow in his father’s tire tracks — he says he still has a bigger ambition up his sleeve. But retracing the 1980s expedition, and along the way, seemed like a useful step.

So, in May 2024, also at the age of 22, a week after handing in his university dissertation on product design, he left the English city of Stockport and started cycling.

“It was just the perfect time to do it, because I was finishing university, everything was more or less lining up, and I had some money saved, so I thought, that’s it, I’m actually going to get on with it.”

Same place, same face

Finding the right bike was not a problem. His father had ridden a King of Mercia, a touring bike with a steel frame, manufactured by the British company Mercian since the 1950s. Jamie had already found a vintage one for sale on Facebook for 600 pounds — about 685 euros — a bargain for a classic that can cost double or triple that.

Then came the task of identifying the exact locations where the father’s photos were taken. Once again, it turned out to be easier than expected.

“My dad basically documented every photo he took and knew exactly where he took them,” reveals Jamie. “So it wasn’t that difficult to find some of them.”

For the most difficult places, he turned to artificial intelligence.

“I used ChatGPT a lot, because we can put in the photo and ask. I said, for example, this was in Malaysia, or wherever it was, 40 years ago — where was this photo taken? And it gave me an exact location.

“I almost always got it right. There were a few times I didn’t, but it was always very close.”

The result is a stunning set of images — the same places, the same poses, sometimes even the same faces.

One photograph, taken in Belgium, shows Phil and one of his traveling companions with a young boy and the parents of someone they met along the way who offered them accommodation. Jamie found the place, and even though his parents and friend had passed away, he was able to meet and pose with the man this boy became.

In another, captured in Dikili, Turkey, the only recognizable element in an otherwise barren landscape is the shape of hills in the distance. More distinct scenes—like the volcanic slopes of Mount Bromo in Indonesia—were easier to identify, even if they proved more difficult to traverse by bike.

Not everything coincided. Geopolitical realities had changed and part of Phil’s original route through Iran was no longer safe. Instead, Jamie detoured through Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, before rejoining his father’s route in Pakistan.

Risking your life to help

He faced setbacks. In Georgia, a serious fall destroyed the frame of his precious bicycle. But by then, he had already built a following on social media and says he was pleased to discover that Mercian was willing to send him a replacement. Fighting constant winds in the deserts of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan was among the hardest parts. The camaraderie on the road with other long-distance cyclists helped him get through the lowest moments.

In Russia, after facing border bureaucracy and intense surveillance, he found what he describes as the surreal contrast of a heavily militarized country where everyday kindness remained commonplace. In Afghanistan — while missing his college graduation back home — loosening roads pushed his retro bike’s thin tires to the limit, but he says he was greeted with warmth despite the hardships people face under Taliban rule.

“Obviously, I had the perspective of a man crossing Afghanistan and it can be completely different for a woman, but the hospitality I received as a man was incredible,” he says. “People were literally willing to risk their lives to take me in.”

“It’s a true connection to my father. The only thing that separated us was time.”
— Jamie Hargreaves

In Nepal, where Phil and Dave transported their bikes to Everest Base Camp, at an altitude of 5,364 meters — among the first known cyclists to do so — Jamie repeated the feat and added what he believes could be another milestone: taking a bike to Annapurna Base Camp, at 4,130 meters.

The photo recreated on Everest, with the bike on his back and the glacier in the background, says Jamie, is one of his favorites.

“Those are really spectacular. Pretty much all of the ones on Everest are really good. And some in Turkey and Georgia were pretty good too — there were some where the landscape changed quite dramatically.”

While Phil these days mostly rides his motorcycle, now retired from his job as a property maintenance manager in the UK, Jamie’s social media posts have transported him back to his golden era of cycling.

“He definitely felt a little jealous at first,” Jamie reveals. “He watched my videos and said that it brought back all the memories of when he left, and the pleasure of the road, and life on the road, and living kind of marginally, sleeping at bus stops and things like that.”

But as he recreated the images, Jamie says he also felt a deeper connection to the young man who stood in those places 40 years earlier.

“Every time I identified a place and stood exactly where he would have been, it was very strange because, you know, it’s a very real connection to my father. The only thing that separated us was time. It’s really strange. I’ve heard stories from my father my whole life and suddenly I’m in the places where those stories happened. It’s really, really special.”