Earlier this month, we kicked off our seasonal 'evening with…' events at Flour Water Salt in Macclesfield.

We had the pleasure of having adventure cyclist and storyteller Chris Hall join us. He took us down memory lane, sharing how the outdoors reconnected him with his younger self and how that translated into a lifestyle of adventure! Chris gave us a true insight into what the outdoors means to him.

Days before the event, Chris returned from Badlands, his latest bike adventure across the deserts of Southern Spain. In this month's Journey into the Outdoors, we will be reflecting on our evening with Chris and sharing some snippets of our conversation.

Hello again Chris!

Thank you again for sharing your stories with us at the talk last week! I’d love to share a little of what came up in our conversation for those who weren’t there. We touched on how you first discovered the outdoors, and a big part of that was you travelling around London by bike. How did that evolve into what you do today?

I lived in London for about 12 years. I studied architecture there and I started cycling for two reasons. The first was that it was a way to help rehabilitate a knee injury and the second that I was a bit of a cheapskate and hated the idea of spending money on the underground!

I did love living in the city, I loved the social aspect and the community plus the wide variety of food, art and culture. But during lockdown, it really made me reassess things and realise I needed to connect more back with nature. I did a ride which was 107 miles every day during the 107th Men's Tour de France which went from London, to Land’s End, up to John O’Groats, East to Lowestoft and back into London and it subconsciously became an amazing opportunity to see the whole country and work out where I would like to live next. I settled on the Peak District! 

You spoke a lot about not only the time you spend on your bike but the connection you have to the places and nature around you. How much of a role does that play in your day to day life?

I grew up in the countryside between Kent and the Isle of Man. My grandparents ran an animal charity and so being outdoors and connected with nature was something I grew up with. For me cycling enhances that experience too. It’s about becoming reacquainted with your senses. Cycling allows you to cover distances but also be going slow enough that your senses get an overload of information. You can see, smell, hear, touch and even taste things. I’m a bit believer in reconnecting with a landscape and grounding yourself. There’s sometimes nothing better than walking along bare footed to really connect back to nature. Now my days are often spent with a mix of cycling, work, time in the gym and exploring the countryside with my dog, Marshall.

When we last spoke you had only just arrived back from your latest trip, Badlands. Now you’ve had time to reflect, how did it go?

So Badlands is an ultra bike packing race that travels into the deserts of Southern Spain. It’s just short of 800km and has over 16,000 meters of elevation. I’ve successfully completed the race in 2021, 2022 and 2023 and was back this year. Things really didn’t go to plan for 2024. I was originally supposed to be taking part as a pair (as every other year I have done it solo) but unfortunately my partner pulled out last minute. So that was a bit of a start to the bad luck.

I also got bad heatstroke this year, which meant I stopped around 280km. A friend in the SAS called me up and stressed how dangerous heatstroke is. I don’t think I truly realised and also, I think in the UK we maybe don’t appreciate how serious it is too. I was pretty pissed off, quite gutted to have not finished again but after a bit of time to reflect on it, I committed to start and that's one of the biggest challenges in ultra races. By committing to start you are committing to the hard work to get to the start. People often don’t appreciate that side of it and only look at the final event itself. This year for me has been tricky. I have had a few operations and bouts of bad illnesses so to have made it to the start feeling good was a massive success.

I just ran out of luck this time, which when on my 3 previous races I had no problems, not even a puncture. For things to go wrong this time, I guess it’s not a surprise in some ways. Ultras are like rolling a dice. Sometimes you get the right number but more often you don’t. Sometimes you’re good, sometimes you’re shit, and that's totally fine too.

Lastly, I think it’s fair to say your definition of adventure summed up our evening of conversation. Please can you share what your definition of adventure is? 

Adventure to me is that reconnection to nature and the countryside. It’s about allowing yourself to feel and realise how small we really are in this world. I remember standing at the top of Kegety Pass in Kyrgyzstan and just feeling beautifully overwhelmed by how small and insignificant I was. Those moments for me help define adventure. The journey to get to that point and reconnecting with what’s actually real and important is adventure for me.