Jupiter's Travels (unabridged)

Audio Sample

Ted Simon

Jupiter’s Travels

Read by Rupert Degas with Ted Simon

unabridged

On 6 October 1973 Ted Simon knew there was no going back. He loaded up his 500cc Triumph Tiger in the pouring rain and said goodbye to London. Over four years he rode 64,000 miles round the world. Breakdowns, revolutions, war, a spell in prison, and a Californian commune were all part of his experience, which was coloured variously by utter despair and unimaginable joy. He was treated as a spy, a god, a welcome stranger and a curiosity. The extraordinary trip became a journey into his own soul, and for many others – including the bikers Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor – it is a pure inspiration. Rupert Degas, ‘the most versatile of narrators’ (The Times), captures all the thrills and spills of Simon’s experience and the timeless charm of his writing. With an introduction written and read by Ted Simon.

Audiofile – Earphones Award
  • 14 CDs

    Running Time: 16 h 52 m

    Download PDF booklet

    More product details
    ISBN:978-1-84379-990-0
    Digital ISBN:978-1-84379-991-7
    Cat. no.:NA0239
    Download size:259 MB
    BISAC:TRV010000
    Released:October 2015
  • Listen to this title at Audible.com

    Buy on CD at Downpour.com

    Listen to this title at the Naxos Spoken Word Library

Due to copyright, this title is not currently available in your region.

You May Also Enjoy
Reviews

On 6 October 1973 Ted Simon packed his bags, loaded up his 500cc Triumph Tiger and set off on a four-year, 64,000-mile journey around the world. Fast forward to the present day and that trip has inspired many others (including the likes of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman) to take a similar journey of their own.

As many of you will know, that tale was documented in Jupiter’s Travels, a book that is widely credited with bringing adventure motorcycling into the mainstream. Well now, all of Simon’s extraordinary experiences are being brought to life even further thanks to an audio version of the book. Read by versatile narrator Rupert Degas, the audiobook delivers almost 17 hours of inspiring and enthralling experiences as it follows Simon’s journey through Africa, the Americas, Australia and then from Singapore back to the UK.

Rob Slade, Adventure Bike Rider


The most bizarre fact about Ted Simon’s four-year mid-1970s motorbike journey round the world is that he was 42 when he undertook it; even more remarkable is that he repeated his journey, aged 70, eight years ago. Listening to his upfront and personal account of his first trip, I’d assumed he was in his early twenties. He is engagingly honest about his own shortcomings as he is unseated time and again on Africa’s all but non-existent roads, panics during two weeks of being held by Brazilian police, falls in love in California (to which he returned as an organic farmer in later years), and learns just a little wisdom among Indian gurus. All praise to Rupert Degas for making this over-egoistic but fascinating tale compulsive listening.

Christina Hardyment, The Times


Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award

In 1973, Ted Simon embarked upon an epic journey that would take him 64,000 miles around the world on a Triumph Tiger motorcycle. Four years later, he would return to London a changed man with many a colourful tale, recounted here. Simon himself provides the introduction for his epic motorcycle journey, and hearing his voice sets a good tone for the rest of the audiobook; in fact, he quips, ‘Rupert Degas […] sounds much more like me than I do’. Narrator Rupert Degas then takes over for the remainder, with delightful results. His British-accented diction is clear, and his speech follows natural patterns, appropriate for a memoir. Degas’s accents for the various people Simon encounters add an extra dimension to the work, creating a vivid listening experience.

S.E.G., AudioFile


Booklet Notes
Ted Simon

Ted Simon photo: Lisa Keating

Ted Simon

Education: Sloane School, Chelsea and Imperial College

Date of Birth: 1 May 1931

Place of Birth: Harburg, Germany

Current Home: Northern California

When my mother was due to give birth to me, her first and only child, she insisted on going home to her mother in Germany, and so I was born there and brought home to London at the age of three months. Thus I acquired the habit of travel at an early age.

While I was at school two important things happened. In 1948, at the age of 17, I made my first solitary journey, by bicycle, from London through a ravaged France to the Mediterranean. It was a great success. Later I caught polio, which knocked me out for six weeks but left no visible permanent after-effects. Our doctor, who had always considered me a weakling, began to believe that I might survive after all.

I got a good scholarship to Imperial College, but after two years I decided this was not how I wanted to spend my life (aside from anything else I wasn’t meeting any girls) so I dropped out. I should have gone straight into the army for two years – it was compulsory at that time – but I thought it would be better, first, to find out who I was, so I escaped to Paris.

In those days I played jazz clarinet, and a famous jazz musician gave me a note to a friend of his in Paris who ran a newspaper office. The friend gave me a job as a messenger boy, and that was how I became a journalist.

I came back after two years, went into the RAF, and eventually got permission to start a magazine for recruits. It caught the eye of an important editor in Fleet Street, so when I was released by Her Majesty, I got a job on the Daily Express. I was fired three times, but managed to hang on. Five years later I became features editor of another national daily (the Daily Sketch) but became disenchanted with the newspaper business, bought a 13th-century ruin in the south of France, sold everything, and went to live in it and restore it. I did stone-masonry and writing for several years before I decided it was time I saw the rest of the world. I thought I would do it on a motorcycle. The Sunday Times agreed to support me. It took four years. The journey was incredible and the book was a great success.

I married, moved to Northern California, wrote more books and did organic vegetable farming. Then I discovered that Jupiter’s Travels was in demand in the USA as well, so I published it myself and this brought me into contact with the motorcycling community for the first time. My publishing efforts were quite successful, and eventually I hit on the idea of doing the journey again. The rest is even more history.


 

AUDIO

Listen to free samples of Jupiter’s Travels, plus our exclusive interview with Ted Simon!

Jupiter’s Travels – Africa (excerpt)

 

Jupiter’s Travels – America (excerpt 1)

 

Jupiter’s Travels – America (excerpt 2)

 

Ted Simon – Interview with Genevieve Helsby

 


 

Q & A

What was your favourite childhood book?

Captain Blood

 

Which book has made you laugh?

I first remember cracking my ribs over James Thurber’s Let Your Mind Alone

 

Which book has made you cry?

Too long ago to remember

 

Which book would you never have on your bookshelf?

Ancillary Observations on the Refurbishment of Defective Drains in Madya Pradesh

 

Which book are you reading at the moment?

Ulysses

 

Which book would you give to a friend as a present?

Saturday by Ian McEwan

 

Which other writers do you admire?

Far too many to mention

 

Which classic have you always meant to read and never got round to?

Well, the Bible, for one

 

What are your top five books of all time, in order or otherwise?

Some books that have meant the most to me, though not necessarily the best, are Catch 22, All the King’s Men, The Gutenberg Galaxy, The Sun Also Rises, and Ford Madox Ford’s WWI trilogy, Parade’s End.

 

What is the worst book you have ever read?

Can’t remember its title.

 

Is there a particular book or author that inspired you to be a writer?

No

 

What is your favourite time of day to write?

Midday, after exhausting all other possibilities.

 

And favourite place?

Facing the wall

 

Longhand or word processor?

Both

 

Which fictional character would you most like to have met?

Milo Minderbender

 

Which book have you found yourself unable to finish?

Zen and the Art of

 

What is your favourite word?

Ridiculous

 

Other than writing, what other jobs or professions have you undertaken or considered?

Publishing, engineering, farming, stonemasonry

 

What was the first piece you ever had in print?

A melodramatic tale in my college magazine

 

What are you working on at the moment?

The upstairs bedroom


Recently viewed

See more Non-Fiction

NAB Articles