Extreme saving followed by extreme ER

[jacob]

It's really weird the things you focus on, but my immediate thought was that anyone who spent that much time on the bike would have the physique of Lance Armstrong and I'm not seeing it in the pictures.

It depends on how fast and far you go each day. And how much you eat.
My bet would be 25 miles at 10mph for the touring, whereas Lance belongs to the 80 miles at 25mph class.

 

[Sam]

I think they do 40-50 miles a day when they are riding and probably at 8-9mph. They carry a lot of stuff with them, relatively speaking of course.

 

[ronocnikral]

they don't cover much ground. it's more of a pack up your life, move 40-50 miles down the road, unpack, repeat. (not that this doesn't sound interesting to me).

This man (and i'm reading his books), could cover some serious ground at his peak. in his book he cites putting in a couple of centuries, implying sometimes they were back to back. 4 years and he did it all on 7000 GBP (not that he didn't have to plead to the masses for money at times).

 

[Sam]

That young man is one of my heroes.

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/moods-of-future-joys-alastair-humphreys-25175.html

I read both of his books as soon as they came out.

 

[Sam]

... 4 years and he did it all on 7000 GBP (not that he didn't have to plead to the masses for money at times).

Where did you get that info? When did he ask for money from the masses?

Yes, he raised money, BUT NOT FOR HIMSELF!!! He did it for the UNFORTUNATE children of the world. Geez!

 

[walkinwood]

Thanks for the travel blogs. Here's another bike travel blog - this travel is in the US so far
The Path Less Pedaled

An interesting side effect of saving a very large percentage of your income is that it reduces your living expenses to a point where you can save enough to support it very quickly. (Jacob speaks of this in his blog).

If you save 75% of your take home salary (constant in real $), you'll need under 8 years (4% real return) to save enough to live on a 4% withdrawal rate.

 

[ronocnikral]

Where did you get that info? When did he ask for money from the masses?

Yes, he raised money, BUT NOT FOR HIMSELF!!! He did it for the UNFORTUNATE children of the world. Geez!

he went on the news in arizona to plead for a new bike. well, it was more of a shameless plug looking for sponsorship.

i'm not trying to take away what he did, i'm just saying that it may not have been exactly 7000 gbp. that's all. it was amazing, i'm super jealous and i'm sure i would have asked for more than he even was tempted in doing.

can't wait to finish, he just got to canada.

 

[FUEGO]

If you save 75% of your take home salary (constant in real $), you'll need under 8 years (4% real return) to save enough to live on a 4% withdrawal rate.

This is certainly true. As your savings rate increases, your "years of work required" decreases rapidly. If things turn out like we are projecting, we will have accomplished FIRE in around 11 years in two not particularly highly compensated fields.