"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

Good one Einstein but what if you stop, how the hell do you get moving again? 
Should you just get back on the bike? 
What if you're a cooked chook and you've passed your prime?
Well, I guess there's only one way to find out…

I affectionately refer to my winter in Buenos Aires as my 'hibernation'. After cycling through 3 continents and 11 countries I figured I deserved some time out in the 'Paris of Latin America'.

So, I gorged myself on the 3 M's: Medialunas, Milanesas and Malbec.

But what started as a reward, soon became a routine and while I was cycling up to 200km a week around the city, my Indiana June persona was well hidden under layers of wobble and winter clothing.

To recap, when I was first voted to cycle through South America in December 2011, two life-changing events occurred in one week. (And that doesn't even include the electrocution on a bicycle story.) I went to a closed-door restaurant and met the darling of San Telmo, Meghan Lewis, who is a chef, yoga studio owner and probably the nicest person you could meet, when your life is being decided by the voting public. Meghan took me under her wing, showed me the incredible possibilities of expat & business life in BA, and introduced me to the Firestarters, a group of 10 insanely talented and inspirational women who gave me the energy I needed to scale metaphorical mountains. Secondly, I randomly met the infamous travel-nerd, Kunal Kalro at a hostel, went for one cup of coffee and now a year later we're co-founders of OutTrippin.com 

So that brings us to today, in Santiago, Chile where Kunal and I are bootstrapping entrepreneurs, which is really just a nice way of saying we're broke, with an empty fridge but an inspired business plan.

If successful, our venture will help travel bloggers like me, earn an income to sustain their travels, which would be pretty bloody awesome.

But as you can probably imagine, I miss the road, I miss the cycling and I miss having you guys (in all your wisdom) voting where I go and what I do in my adventure story.

Hot tip: If you want to look like a pro, put on fingerless bicycle gloves, works every time.

So, it's time to FIRE UP the Indiana June story, reinvent the pick-a-path adventure and keep the story alive, in new and potentially crazy ways. However, there's one small issue, I need to burn off the 3 aforementioned M's and get back into peak physical and mental shape. I've just completed 5 weeks of Insanity workouts, i.e. jump around like a fool in your living room until you're swimming a pool of your own sweat. (A kind Christmas gift from the Globetrotter Girls, Dani & Jess.) That's the cardio sorted but what about endurance? Guess I've gotta hit the road and rack up a few kms. 

I made a plan to cycle from Santiago to Valparaiso and recruited some new friends to join me. With 3 days to go we had 7 confirmed and 9 maybes, with 1 day to go we were down to 3 people who were definite and 2 maybes. You can probably see where this is going.

At midnight, 7 hours before our early morning departure, I learned everyone had pulled out which sent me into a wobble. 

What if Meg (my bicycle) and I weren't up to a 100km+ ride? One of the guys who was coming had done the route twice before and so I hadn't done enough map research, I hadn't prepared any food, it was supposed to be 33 degrees HOT and there were 2 tunnels that bicycles can't pass through so I had to use my dodgy spanish to hitchhike through them alone. I finally got to sleep about 2am, full of worry and when the alarm went off at 6.30am I was in two minds.

Should I do it and possibly fail or stay in bed and kick myself for the rest of the day?

Enjoying the fact that only crazy gringos get up this early on a Saturday in Chile.

Well of course I went, otherwise this would be a pretty crappy story! About 30km into the ride I hit the first tunnel. I saw a small building about 200m before it so I stopped and chatted to a guy. He arranged for a truck to take me and Meg 3km through the mountain tunnel. I'm glad I didn't attempt it as there was no ventilation or shoulder to ride in. When I hit the second tunnel at 50km there was no one around so I stopped, ready to stick out my thumb when another little truck pulled up and offered to drive me the 1km to the other side. So far, so good.

Tunnels out of the way I hit wine country, where some delicious Chilean wines are grown and produced. My favorite is the Sauvignon Blanc from Matetic and it took all of my willpower not to detour for a tasting. 

At about 90km, powering up another hill I had a strong, stabbing pain in my gut, what was happening?

Then it occurred to me I'd been cycling for 4 hours without eating and it was in fact hunger pains, good one Indi!? I saw a sign for a cafeteria and stopped at Peñuelas Lago Ecotourism Park for lunch. They waved the park entrance fee for me and I cycled 5km off road to the lakeside cafeteria where I hung out with llamas and literally thousands of birds.

It was at this point I let out the huge sigh of relief I'd been holding as worry, in my gut. I was actually going to make it, and even better I was loving it. I had forgotten how much of a kick I get out of the physical exertion and mental meditation of long distance cycling. So why had it taken me so long to get back on the bike?

I think when you have success at something and then you stop for a period of time it can be pretty daunting to go back to it. 

Things that normally wouldn't phase you become giant obstacles, like companions pulling out, 4 hours sleep, no maps, no food and the uncertainty of hitching through tunnels. But with every pedal rotation, these doubts and insecurities fell to the curb and I started to notice the good stuff, like a wide shoulder to ride in, the gentle tail wind behind me and the stunning mountain scenery.

Plus, the Insanity workouts had reduced my body weight and increased my power, so instead of cycling being all about the legs, I was driving power from my core. The next 20km tested my hill-willpower but when I saw the 'downhill truck' sign with 10km to go I let out a 'whoop' as I dropped back to sea level and arrived at the port town of Valparaíso.

Meg and I may have knocked out 120km in 5 hours but the real win was finding my mojo again. 

If I waited for perfect conditions, for people to join me or to feel ready, I never would have hit the road. Don't wait people! I find I'm more inclined to go through with something when I start telling people what it is I'm going to do. I dare you to go on a little adventure date with yourself this week, tell me what you plan to do below and then report back about how good it felt afterwards. 

The only adventure you'll ever regret, is the one you didn't take.

(Unless of course your idea of adventure is making toast in the bathtub or some other equally mad idea.)