Words and images by Ben Boxer

I’ve been loving the 'Wheels & Whales' life these past few years; uniting my love of pedal-powered adventure with my lifelong passion for marine wildlife. To keep this rolling, in early 2024 I decided to cycle the distance of the flight from London to Vancouver (a journey of 7,587km) on my home trails and roads around the south of the UK.

There are many motivations for setting myself this challenge but the most prominent one is to raise funds and awareness for the Sussex Dolphin Project; a local marine conservation non-profit that’s doing important work to protect and understand the marine mammals we’re lucky to see along our coastline here in Sussex.

The sheer volume of time in the saddle that was required to make a dent in this journey also afforded me the opportunity to explore a little deeper. To explore themes of connection to local nature and everyday adventure; indigeneity and what it means to really get to know the wildlife, lands and waters of your home; and the relationship between personal and planetary health. To explore what it means to connect play with purpose and to bridge gaps between seemingly disconnected passions. To me, this is what Wheels & Whales is all about…

The experience has also given me a newfound appreciation for how much damn ground a long-haul flight covers in just over 9 hours!

In terms of gear, I’ve split my time across my road (HUNT Race Aero Wide), enduro and largely, my rigid XC/gravel/go-anywhere adventure machine (HUNT XC Wide) that is my Cotic Cascade. All 3 rides rolled on HUNT wheels without fault and have been the perfect vehicles for this weird and wonderful voyage. Mixing it up between easy (when the wind wasn’t howling) coastal road miles, singletrack shredding and big day or multi-day who-knows-what-I’m-gonna-find kinda rides kept it interesting and made it easy to keep motivations high.

After 400+hrs of pedal-powered movement in (and for) nature, I finished the UK-based leg of the challenge just over a week ago. At times, dragging myself out onto the saddle to get worked by the wind for hours on end was pretty unappealing - but this was invariably balanced out with some great riding, chance encounters with the friendliest of folks and memorable, moving windows into the wild. I’ve never felt fitter, more satisfied and proud as I do right about now.

Shortly after finishing the final few miles, I hopped on a plane to head out to British Columbia for real, to experience the wilderness and wildlife of the Pacific Northwest. In a few weeks, I will be setting off on a bikepacking and whale watching trip around Vancouver Island. Whilst here, I hope to learn what we can apply from the research and conservation of some of the world’s most well-studied cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) to those in Sussex - which are some of the least-understood in the world.

Connecting passion with purpose in this way is something that’s been calling me for some time now, so it feels pretty rad to have scratched that itch! And there’s no worthier cause than the Sussex Dolphin Project in my mind. Community-driven marine conservation is hard to beat; and needs all the support it can get right about now.

When you work to protect species like whales and dolphins, you’re not only protecting them but the wider ecosystem and complex web of life (including our own) that depends on healthy seas. We really do have so much to gain by (re)connecting with the nature on our doorsteps and supporting the work of those tirelessly striving to ensure it’s here to stay, despite the challenges it faces. On that note, any support to the fundraiser that any readers are able to provide would be hugely appreciated by myself, the rest of the Sussex Dolphin Project team and of course, our wonderful dolphins!

See Ben’s progress and updates on his Instagram and Strava, and support the challenge by heading to the fundraising page.