Worms To Catch by Guy Martin
Martin to a normal eye, is a typical bike racer, the champion of Isle of Man TT, a daredevil attempting life-threatening feat, someone who lives his life on the edge, and always in the fast lane. Reader would be surprised to find so little about the precedent life of Martin in this book as this book is rather about what his life is after he climbs down the race bike and out of the racetrack? What drives him in life?
Martin, before all is just as normal a human as anyone is, an everyday truck mechanic in his life, working for an amazing boss-cum-friend. A loving husband and a typical family man. Just another face in Grimsby, Lincolnshire among other pupils. The one thing that differentiates him is, his drive to challenge himself at every possible stage of life, be it attempting a life-threatening Wall of Death race, be it racing a modified Ford Transit van in Nevada, USA, or trying to break a world record in Bonneville, Utah or simply just testing his frail human body in terms of endurance by cycling 2,700+miles.
The book begins with him being on a hospital bed after an accident, injuring his spine and a hand, questioning the choices, he as a racer has been making. Although at no point in life he seems regretting the same choices but such incidents in life can flip a switch in anyone. Martin’s flipped switch leads him to recover quickly or according to him striving to get back on his feet, to prepare for a Wall of Death race with his custom-built bike, but at the end the bike and the outcome being total contradictory of what he had expected. The hide and seek of his aims and outcomes continue throughout his book. Martin takes the readers on a try-out cycle race of around 750 miles from Grimsby to Scotland to Ireland, which leads to the unfolding of his desire to have a go at one of biggest human endurance tests.
This desire of his lands him at the feet of mountain range of Banff, Alberta Canada in June 2016, there began the 2,745-mile cycling race Tour Divide, to Antelope Wells at the Mexican Border. Martin takes the readers on a journey of once in a lifetime throughout the forests and muddy trails of Northern America, while sleeping on the sides of trail with minimal supplies and keeping a whistle and spray to avoid being in direct conflict with bears. The difficulties he faces in this adventure expedition, change his perspective of life as he struggles with hunger, isolation, and sleep. Once he reaches the other side of this exceptional race something changed in him. Back at work, he could not focus and felt an itch, to search for the next inspiration. This craving to challenge himself takes him to Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, in a bid to break the two-wheel world record held by Ack Attack at 376.363mph.
Things do not end up favourably for Martin in salt flats, but I believe his no give-up attitude will bring him back to it. During his sleep outs in Tour Divide, Martin recalls that nothing can prevent a person from achieving his ambitions, but negative thoughts bore by his own mind. If one can cycle with blistered feet, rashed up back, and ever losing health, then even we can learn to be resilient in our lives. One thing I learnt from Guy Martin as a fellow human is, whatever life throws at you, be ready with a harder knock to the problem and just keep challenging yourself, as it is the best way to self-test your limits. I am sure that whatever Martin does next in his life, it would be significant in its own way, as someone who can race a Ford Transit in Nevada against Mustangs, Ferraris and Corvettes, can be anything but an underdog.
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