Why Does a Grown Man Do This?

Let me ask the question properly, because it deserves to be asked properly.

Why would a healthy, functioning adult male — in possession of a job, a flat, a relationship, and a reasonable number of brain cells — make the decision to give up all of the above, get on a 40-year-old Italian scooter, and ride around the planet against the clock? And then do it again. And again. Over and over, every few years, each time starting from zero?

Midlife crisis? I was too young for that when it started. Eternal adolescent? Too old. Mental illness? The diagnosis is still pending.

The real answer is simpler and less flattering to the modern world: I did it to feel alive.

The Actual Reason

At the other end of a world circumnavigation — sweating, exhausted, filthy, standing on a mountain somewhere with an unknown horizon in front of me and adrenaline doing interesting things to my circulatory system — I felt something that no office, no salary review, and no carefully curated social media presence has ever produced. I felt like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. Exploring. Discovering. Pushing. Fighting the road and winning, or losing, but fighting.

It is not complicated. It is, in fact, embarrassingly simple. I did it because I could. No further justification required.

Why This Needs Explaining at All

Here is the part that genuinely puzzles me: why, in 2026, does this require explanation?

We have built a world of extraordinary comfort and safety. ABS, speed limiters, helmets, health and safety regulations, participation certificates so nobody has to feel like a loser. A world where the acceptable range of male behaviour has been narrowed to something approximately the width of a corporate handbook, and where expressing any instinct older than the industrial revolution requires a lengthy disclaimer.

I am not arguing against civilisation. Civilisation is fine. Running water is excellent. I use it regularly.

But somewhere between the invention of the safety belt and the current era, a significant number of men forgot that they have a biological operating system that was not designed for the open-plan office. It was designed for the steppe. For the unknown road. For problems that require improvisation rather than a ticket number and a three-day response window.

The Vespa is not the point. The Vespa is just the vehicle — in both the literal and the figurative sense. The point is the road that nobody has mapped yet, the border crossing at 2am, the engine that dies in the middle of Siberia and has to be fixed with whatever is in the bag.

The Objections

I can hear the responses forming before I finish typing.

"Not everyone can just leave." Fair. I am not asking everyone to leave. I am asking why so many people who theoretically could, don't.

"You have no responsibilities." I have fewer than some. I chose to keep it that way, deliberately, for this reason.

"This is irresponsible." Possibly. It is also the only period of my life during which I have been completely, unambiguously present.

"What about security?" Security is largely an illusion. The mortgage, the job title, the pension plan — all of it can disappear. The 27,113 km cannot. Nobody can take back the world circumnavigation. It happened. It is mine.

The Actual Point

I am not telling anyone to do what I do. I am not a life coach and this is not a manifesto.

I am simply answering the question that has been put to me, repeatedly, for twelve years: why?

Because one life. Because the road exists. Because standing still while you are still capable of moving is a choice, not a default. Because the horizon does not come to you.

Because I am a man and sometimes men are irrational and full of purpose and completely impossible to reason with, and occasionally that produces something worth reading about.

Sorry. Not sorry. My page. My rules.

P.S. This post may contain traces of irony, sarcasm, and at least one genuine point. If it costs me some followers — safe travels to them too.