| | Jupiter's Travels |  | Author: Ted Simon
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
Buy Used: £2.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 1750586
Pages: 424
ISBN: 0385155719
EAN: 9780385155717
ASIN: 0385155719
Publication Date: February 1980
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Publisher: PenguinDate of Publication: 1980Binding: Soft CoverCondition: Very GoodDescription: 0140054101 softback. some writing on front endpaper otherwise fine.
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| Customer Reviews:
The Benchmark April 24, 2007
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Comparing this book with Ewan and Charley's is unavoidable. McGregor and Boorman have had all the hype and the star treatment however so maybe it's unfair. Did Ted have a support crew and 2 full sets of custom tools to fall back on? No he didn't. Neither did he have enough cash to buy a new bike and new four wheel drive wagon when the going got tough. Ted did it on his own and with a bike from a factory unable to spring to his aid if needed. Ewan changed some spark plugs, Ted rebuilt his whole engine. If you want a book that started it and all tells you how to with the minimum of resources then this is for you. As Ewan and Charley point out, he's the one who led and all the others follow.
 I'm just not sure... March 22, 2007
7 out of 17 found this review helpful
I was inspired to buy this book by the exploits of Ewan and Charley in Long Way Round and expected that Ted would have been an early pioneer of the 'lets travel round the world by bike' clan. However, much as I enjoyed the trip, I felt that the inner workings of Ted's brain were concerned with surviving the trip rather than enjoying it. He is quite intense, often saw problems in everything and to some degree this set the tone to the whole book. 400,000 copies later you have to give the guy massive respect for taking on such a journey - its a pity it wasn't seen through the eyes of someone who could have bought it to light more...
The Ultimate February 17, 2007
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Ted's account of his 1973 world tour on a Triumph 500 can now be regarded as a record of history as much as a travelogue.
Ted, in 1973 at least, was a complex character, but he writes candidly with the educated eye of a traveller rather than a tourist. The book opens with "......I let the bike roll off the asphalt onto the grass under a shade tree. I tucked my gloves into my helmet and stood by the bike looking up and down the country road and across the field of green wheat wondering who was going to help me this time, and what it would lead to". And it goes on, Ted relishing chance, master of the art of communication and invoking the sympathy of the secure and settled.
London, France, Italy....Zambia....Brazil....Sri Lanka....Afghanistan and on. You are travelling not with some blue eyed all English super hero of popular fiction but with a person much more real and closer to his reader. Unsure, sometimes ill at ease, occasionally supremely confident as you follow the peaks and troughs of solitary travel. All justified as in 1973, in different ways from today the world was no safe place. The book is an unbiased testament to an age, all the better for being on a triumph of course, whose fortunes came and went en route. And today Ted is back on the road. As he travelled Pinnochet was imprisoned in Weybridge. Back in the 70's Ted faced a firing squad in Chile. How things change. The world population has exploded; there has been mass urbanization, the growth of the global economy and the collapse of communism. Are those green fields of wheat that wafted in the breeze in the opening of the book now an industrial estate? We shall have to wait and see.
Gone are the days of telegrams back to England and probably the feeling of remoteness. Something's haven't changed since the early 70's when Ted's saddlebags were stitched by one Delio Quiroz of Villaguay Argentina. Then his mature face peered up from his craft to be immortalised by a black and white photograph now pressed between the hundreds of thousands of copies of Jupiter's Travels sold worldwide. And who should Ted bump into on his return journey, now in his nineties and still stitching? Ted points out that he didn't make this journey to meet up with Delio all these years later and neither did Delio live his life to await Ted's unscheduled return, but it makes you think.
A fascinating and inspiring read July 24, 2006
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
This book is addictive. Ted's account of his amazing journey will have you gripped from the off. He has a real feel for the people and places he encounters and inspires adventure with every word. Buy this book!
Awe inspiring real life adventure June 5, 2005
26 out of 27 found this review helpful
I first read this book way back in 1981 and have just re-read it all these years later. It's every bit as inspirational and remarkable as it was then. Simon's writing style is superb and kept me riveted throughout. I give the guy top marks, not just for his writing skills but also for sheer endurance in completing a journey that took him through so many ups and downs over a staggering period of four years. If you want adventure, humour, deep insights and moving experiences buy and read it now. It's not aged one jot in the 24 years since I first read it. Top read!
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