Motorcycle Travel and Life Lessons

Ron 0:06

Well , here on the Peace Love Moto podcast . Again , our theme is peace peace of mind that we often find from the seat of a motorcycle , but as importantly , or I would say even more importantly , is the love piece . Of course , you've got to know how to love yourself , protect yourself , take care of yourself in order to be able to effectively love other people . But effectively loving other people can come in all sorts of forms , but it's something that we have to do . I'm absolutely convinced of that . We have to do it and I'm so privileged today to be in touch with someone who does that , who demonstrates love for other people in a very unique way , and it's tied to motorcycles as well , but it's in a unique and a huge way . So , neil Bailey , thank you so much for being on the podcast with me today .

Neale 0:54

Well , thanks for having me , Ron .

Ron 0:55

This is going to be fun . Yeah , absolutely , and you are in North Carolina , if I'm not mistaken .

Neale 1:00

I am in Charlotte , North Carolina .

Ron 1:02

Yeah , and we have snowstorms going across the us right now are you involved in that it's pretty cold and I think we've got snow caught .

Neale 1:12

They're calling for snow in a few days , I think . I think we're going to drop down to the 20s tonight . We're in the about 30s now . It's been it actually is quite nice all week sunny and probably 40s but it's dropping , so yeah , we're going to get some weather .

Ron 1:27

Yeah , well , that's , that's life around here , but we've we've always got spring to look forward to .

Neale 1:31

We do , we do .

Ron 1:33

Speaking of that . So you're described to me and I asked everybody kind of the same thing , the motorcycle thing , that's . That's our thread , right Right , motorcycling . How did that come into your life ?

Neale 1:48

I was a kid in school in Scotland when I was probably 13 , 14 years old , I got very interested in motorcycles . They just were kind of a cultural thing growing up in England . I mean , there was plenty of motorcycles on the streets and there was plenty of motorcycles on the streets and there was plenty of culture around it . So I suppose for the when we were 16 we were allowed to have a moped 50 cc . So we really probably spent myself and other guys that got into motorcycles , we probably spent sort of 14 and 15 years of age just lusting out the days we could get on something with an engine and then had a moped at 16 and then we could ride a motorcycle at 17 and back in those days you could have up to a 250 cc machine

Neale 2:31

and then you'd take a test to get anything bigger and so I had a moped . I was 16 . I had a honda yamaha 125 . That didn't work out . Then I had a honda 250k4 and , uh , I moved around and traveled a bit so that that went . A suzuki 125k that went , that a honda 125 came and went xt 500 and slowly started moving up to the bigger bike . So once I got on the bikes probably I was 17 and never other than for traveling , never really got off them . If that makes sense and that now would be who . I hate to say this . Is that about what ? 40 , 45 , 47 years . So it adds up . Yeah , you don't realize how long you've been at it , right ?

Ron 3:18

and the travel thing . So that's the subject we're going to be getting into . But where did the whole travel connection come in for you ?

Neale 3:27

So as a kid , you know , I grew up in a single parent household . On welfare , things were pretty threadbare growing up , so my mother would take in guests during the summer . We lived in a seaside town and so we often had au pair girls , we had exchange students and I think growing up in england we were much more exposed to a culture of world travel and travelers and you know nature shows , travel shows and stuff of that nature . So when I was about 13 , my mother won some little like lottery ticket thing it was called a premium bond , that you buy these little bonds in the post office and occasionally you would win a penny . And she won 50 quid on this premium bond and used all of it to send me on a school trip to Italy . And I got to go to Venice and Florence and the Uffizi and got to see the Leaning Tower of Peter and we rode there on a train and I distinctly remember throwing buckets of pasta out of the windows , kids , because we didn't know what pasta was right . We grew up in England on beans and potatoes . We're like what's this curly crap in this metal container ? So you know , um , but I think that that stuck with me and then the books that we were reading .

Neale 4:57

At the time I I started , I did my first trip out of scotland . I was 15 . I hitchhiked down to england , I left school and left home when I was 15 and I was in europe . At the time I was a teenager backpacking around europe cutting grapes , picking grapes in france , and then I stumbled into ted simon jupiter's travels oh yes , oh yes .

Neale 5:18

And that was like because I was in and out of motorcycling at the time if I had the money , and sometimes I sold the bikes and went hitchhiking around Europe and sometimes I didn't have a job , and I think that really cemented the idea of motorcycle travel if I could afford it , which at the time I couldn't . And also there was a really good book Helga Pedersen had written 10 years on two wheels . But I think you , fundamentally at that time , a lot of the reading I was doing was very much travel focused To the ends of the earth . Sir Arnoff Fiancio happens to be the world's greatest living explorer . I would imagine 99 out of 100 people wouldn't even know who he was . He's the only man in history to actually walk by his own devices on and off both poles north and south pole in one circuitous journey .

Neale 6:03

It'll probably never be done again , and you so . This book was a great inspiration to me and it was constantly crazy english people proving theories . You know there was a guy called tim sever and wanted to prove this and brendan , an irish monk , had actually found newfoundland before the vikings and before the , the brits or the English went across , or the English , it would say , went across there . So he built a leather-hulled coracle and they sailed and paddled across to Newfoundland to prove that St Brendan the Irish monk had done it . And actually , what's interesting is I was in a church in Stockholm one time and some of the myths and legends of St Brandon are on the walls , on the ceilings of the church . Oh wow , this was the sort of stuff that I was getting influenced by constantly as a kid . That was what I was reading , it's what I was interested in watching , and I think you know . So one thing led to the other and it just grew into a life of travel and motorcycling .

Ron 7:08

Yeah , and this turned into a career as a journalist and photographer .

Neale 7:12

right , it did yeah , there's a couple of key points back into when I was young One I'll come back to later in the trip that I just took to Ukraine a couple of weeks ago , in the trip that I just took to Ukraine a couple of weeks ago . And then the second thing was when I was 18 , I left home scratched around with a bit of education , didn't really know what we were doing . Britain had horrendous unemployment . Back at that time the famous pop group UB40 , you all know the Red Red Wine song . Well , they also had a very famous song called One in Ten and what that was about was one in ten people in england was unemployed and unemployment never cuts neatly . So my home area we probably had 30 or 40 percent unemployment , seaside town with no industry . So most of us we would be kicking around with their critical chance of a job . So that really shaped a lot of what I did .

Neale 8:02

And to that end I went to , went to just outside London when I was 18 , and I did seven months full-time voluntary work at a school for essentially orphaned , maladjusted and abandoned children and I worked as a volunteer house parent . So they gave me a little studio and my food about 10 bucks a week and was very involved with the um , the day-to-day you know living for the kids , getting to school , getting the meals , playing soccer with them , doing games , homework . So I had this real immersion of doing voluntary work . I worked for seven months , essentially not for money and not to be disrespectful about your country , but very few people here . The only reason people work here is for money .

Neale 8:46

They don't not all , but it's such a focus . You know you build a business so you can sell it to get the money . You get a job to get the money . So I think it definitely changed my thinking about work and life and what we should do . And especially , I think , the books that I was reading and I think if you read 10 years on two worlds helga pedersen , ted simons jupiter's travel to the ends of the earth by sir ranulph fiennes each of those three books is about tremendous human endeavor and achievement and insight to the world we live in . And sure you know , maybe helga made some money on the book at the end and maybe ted made some money on the book at the end . He sells them now but and and so ranulf managed to get his on and off the polls and maybe he made a bit of money at the end .

Neale 9:31

But none of the books were about taking off to go make some money . They were going to see the world or do an exploration and , and I think that was a big influence and I ended up meeting a gentleman by the name of Shelby Tucker , met him in Nicaragua in 1985 . And it was during the Sunday Secondary War , so it was an interesting time to be traveling through Central and South America , and he was just this real minimalist who spent his life hitchhiking around the world and writing books . He's written some amazing books in his later life . He's the only guy to cross Burma , northern Burma , and live to tell the tale , because no one else has ever done it . He's written books about Africa , hitchhiking to India , and he was just a really big influence in my life on living frugally , not wasting a lot of money , hitchhiking when you could , traveling utilizing a small , cheap motorcycle . See more , do more . It was not . One ounce of his persona was let's go make some money . It was all that . Heck .

Neale 10:30

We travel more , write more and do more so I think I was very , very lucky to have these influences as a younger man yeah

Philanthropy and Global Service

Neale 10:39

you .

Ron 10:39

I think you mentioned that you were raised by a single parent yeah , yeah , my dad had a geography problem .

Neale 10:45

He kept ending up with this little fellow in the wrong woman , so off he went okay , well , you know , I I was trying to remember .

Ron 10:53

I believe it was mark hawa , the founder of the distinguished gentleman's ride , who was explaining to me his , um , his need to support such a thing as the DGR in support of men's health , for example .

Ron 11:09

And I asked Mark , where did that come from ? Went on to explain it came from his parents and , uh , I believe he he said he had a disabled brother too and his parents instilled in him and his brother that you should be the one to go open the door for someone who can't . And so is that an influence that you had , that you maybe from growing up , or was it just something that came along as you did your own self-study and exploration ?

Neale 11:41

I think , growing up in England at the time , that I did and I don't know that it's the same now I can't speak for it because I've been gone so long , but we definitely were . Uh , philanthropy was , it was a , it was definitely very much in my mind . I mean , I watched my mother even what I watched her 88 years of age doing having a coffee morning with all the little old ladies from where she lived . She would go , drive and bring them around for coffee and they would all put money in a little tin that she would take to the lifeboat men . Because the coast of england where I'm from is got a particularly violent ocean . This thing was channeled and all of the volunteer , all of the lifeboat men in that area are volunteers and all the funding and everything is done by fundraising . And here's my 88 year old mother . She's still what she was still fundraising for these various causes . And you know , I don't know if those little old ladies came up with 30 quid or 50 quid for the coffee morning , but it it helps launch lifeboats and so it's been ingrained in me since I was very young . Um , and I think that I watched a lot of people . You know they would run tv personalities would go run a marathon for charity or they would would cycle from John O'Groves to Land's End for charity .

Neale 13:08

And again , these books I was reading were very much travel-focused . And I think you know when I came out of the home for the kids when I was 18 , you know I went through a very selfish phase of drugs and crime and you know we were all unemployed , so we were just a right bunch of little bastards , you know . I mean , if you could think we were just a right bunch of little bastards , you know , I mean if you could think we were doing it , you know , because we had no jobs , we had no money and we had all this time on our hands and we were all quite bright kids and , of course , we just got into a whole lot of trouble . So it took a while into my adult life for it to come back again . I think I was pretty selfish . I travelled a lot , did my own thing , but I think all of that ingraining was in me when I was young and it leads me to a story .

Neale 13:47

In 2023 , I was doing my second motorcycle trip around ukraine since the war broke out and I had ridden around ukraine in 2022 with an award-winning photographer in just a few months after the war broke out and we rode about 3 000 miles um from western ukraine to kiev down to the black sea and of course , we had some , you know , very challenging days with missile strikes and cruise missiles and uh , just explosions and front lines and troops and you know it was a very , very , very , very tense time in ukraine in 2022 . So when I went back in 2023 , I went back alone and the country was a lot calmer People I hate to say calm because there's a war going on . It's not calm when shit's going wrong , but people were a lot more used to the idea that we were at war . There was less block posts on the road , less people . It wasn't such a tinderbox .

Neale 14:46

And I had all of this time alone and I was in Kharkiv to see a Lady , olena . She was the very first lady to be blown up in the war and my counterpart in 2022 had gone to photograph her as a refugee in Poland . She had done the exclusive with the Daily Mirror or the Daily Mail , I think , and if you go back into the early historical photographs of what is now a lengthy war , you will see Olena's face Just about every newspaper in the world was carrying her image of her bloodied face and bandaged with her apartment , so I had kept in touch with her apartment was blowing up , so I had kept in touch with her . After we visited with her in 2022 . She was back in Hakeem .

Neale 15:29

She came to see me and as I was sitting in my hotel , I looked out the window and I saw a Land Rover , actually a Land Rover Freelander . It was all NATO green camouflage and there was a gentleman standing by , a well-built guy , fatigues , goatee , trimmed hair . He was standing kind of you know , across um next to the the vehicle and there's a lot of air alerts in haki . It's very , very close to the russian border . It's a it's extremely sketchy city to be in . So these military guys pulled in and I watched them hug and shake hands and open the vehicle and I went out hey , what's going on ? And this car was full of boxes .

Neale 16:11

And what happened was I got introduced to a gentleman by the name of Gordon Jackson Hopps . He's an English guy and he has a small entity called Operation Freelander , where he takes old Land Rover Freelanders that people either donate or he buys them cheap works with a company called Freelander Specialists who completely go through these things . If they need an engine , he gets an engine . If he needs a driveshaft , he gets a driveshaft . They get new alloy wheels , bigger tires , spare spare wheels , belts , hoses , plugs , you name it . That car is as perfect as it's going to be sprayed , native green , filthless supplies , and gordon drives them to the front lines . And suddenly when I looked out the window I saw that car and I heard gordon talk .

Neale 17:00

It took me right back to being a kid in england and this actually does come to your part about how did I get into philanthropy . Yeah , we had a television show called blue peter and blue peter's an enzyme on a on a ship and it was a kid's program twice a week and it was a really great program . I mean they there was a couple of guys in a gal and they had pets , because a lot of people in the cities in london there were kids in kids in the cities in London that didn't know what a pet was a cat or a dog , they just didn't see this type of stuff . So they would do all sorts of things . I mean maybe some guy would bring a baby elephant from the zoo or they'd cook an apple pie or they'd build a container for you to put your homework in .

Neale 17:49

You know , they would go on a trip and one of them would ride a speedway bike . It was always adventure and really good things , and they would have a holiday every year or vacation as you , you guys would call it and they would go to some exotic part of the world and they would engage in the local activities . I remember one time , pre-bungie jumping , they had jumped out of a tree with a vine wrapped around their ankles because there was some native somewhere , born here or something .

Ron 18:08

I think I've seen that . Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah . So this was what… .

Neale 18:11

Brief segue

Childhood Philanthropy and Lifelong Impact

Neale 18:12

.

Ron 18:12

My daughter served in the United States Peace Corps in the island of Vanuatu and I think that's where they do that .

Neale 18:19

Oh , one of my board members . My foundation works in Vanuatu . Really one of my board members . Uh , my foundation works in Vanuatu . Really , we haven't launched it yet , but we will be in the next . Probably in the next year to 18 months , we'll be launching a program in support of um some work in Vanuatu , oh wonderful .

Ron 18:35

I'm sorry to interrupt , but that yeah so .

Neale 18:37

So here's this young kid . You know we're living in a house with no heat , there's no car , you know dad's gone , mom's going to men to try to raise two kids on welfare , and every sort of tuesday and thursday we turn on the old black and white tv and you wait for it to warm up . It was only about a year and a half . That's good but , and once a year they would go to africa , mostly biafra um , ethiopia was called in those days and they would identify a product in need of food or water , and they would come back to the studio and say all right , kids , this year you're going to collect knives , forks and spoons and this is pre the word recycling and as kids we would scamp around the neighborhood and we would knock on all the neighbors doors which of course you can't do today because no one would ever see you again and we would collect knives , forks and spoons and teaspoons that people didn't want , old cutlery , and I'm thinking the post office they must have to deal with the post office that the post office would ship our packages for free because there's no way my mother could afford it , and we would sort of come up with five or ten pounds of what is essentially recyclable metal and send it off to blue peter . Well , every week , after a week or two of the the appeal going , there's a big thermometer in the studio and there was the goal , you know , million dollars or a million pounds or whatever it was . But the money went to buy Land Rovers and grain and tools and pumps and implements for farming . And every week we'd be scampering around collecting stuff and the greatest joy of my childhood was to turn the old black and white TV on and see where we were with this appeal . And every year we overachieved and suddenly the studio would be full of Land Rovers and tools and sacks of rice and grain and knowledgeable people would be chatting about everything and it would all get loaded on a ship . And of course , as kids we didn't realize how you would film stuff in advance . And then next week well , next week we're off to Africa and then there'd be an Africa and all the Land Rovers would be coming off the ships and going to the project . They'd be building wells and doing things . And you know I've said this many times to many people that you know our efforts probably barely bought some lug nuts or maybe a spare tire but you couldn't knock that out of a seven , eight , nine-year-old kid that we weren't buying Land Rovers for Africa .

Neale 21:09

Suddenly , here I am , 50-something years later , sitting in Kharkiv looking at Gordon Jackson Hopps , who just woke up one day and was just fucking angry about the war and said I need to do something . And he drove his own Freelander into ukraine full of boots and tactical vests and stuff and anything he could find . Initially started with insulin for diabetics for the refugee camps , and then he transitioned into gear for the soldiers who weren't well equipped . And I'm like this is my childhood , right here , and it was just the most amazing moment for me to reconnect . And sorry for a long story , but it kind of answers back to you how did I start in philanthropy and why is it so important to me ?

Neale 21:52

Yeah , well , it was in me as a kid from that television show and I've been scratching around all these years . And here it is sort of full circle , 50 years later . Now I'm actually helping operation freeland . I've gone with him twice . We've delivered four Freelanders to the front lines . Less than three weeks ago I was selling five miles in Russian positions , dropping off a car full of tourniquets to a frontline medic at a stabilization point for the soldiers . So it was just an amazing connection for me to put my life together . This was the joy of my childhood was raising this money , sorry for a long answer .

Ron 22:35

That's beautiful , you know . I'll just reflect a little bit . We were talking before we started recording . I've spent the great majority of my career in corporate America .

Neale 22:46

It's a self a sensitive and caring place .

Ron 22:51

Sometimes it's heartless . Yeah , as a manager , these days I try to turn that around . I tell my employees I care more about them than I care about the business , and it's the absolute truth . But anyway , growing up , just briefly a little bit about my background . Growing up , my dad worked in a machine shop full-time , but he also worked in ministry full-time . So among many things he worked at the local jail and so he was the jail chaplain there and eventually was in charge of all the programs that come in to help people that are incarcerated and who are most likely going to get out . So let's make them a little bit better person now and prepared to go out to this real world to make a change in their life . Anyway , all that being said here , I've spent my life in front of a computer doing I'm not sure what I've accomplished , honestly , in 30 years of doing it . I don't know what I've accomplished , but I'm trying to accomplish it now .

Neale 23:50

And it has raised kids and took care of business right .

Ron 23:53

Yeah , yeah . I'm trying to accomplish that now through this little podcast and in interviewing , talking about peace of mind , the importance of that and love for other people and love for yourself . And then I'm lucky enough to run into people like you and Kiki , kirsten Madura , so many others , who see a real need out there and that , and then they have the heart for it too , the heart to step out into a dangerous world that is a risk to your life , a risk to your finances , a risk to everything .

Neale 24:32

But you do it anyway . The bigger risk is not doing it .

Ron 24:38

You know , that's what I keep hearing as well from people like you .

Neale 24:42

Yeah , yeah , and I think that I just feel very privileged to do what I do . I mean , like I said , meeting Gordon and I just love his can-do attitude and how many people get to physically see the joy of their childhood in front of them in Ukraine in the middle of a war , and go , yeah , now I know what I'm about . You know this is I'd kind of come to a decision in 2022 . You know about my purpose . I've been , I've been running my own foundation for about 15 or 16 years and it just really came home to me and I think everything that you just said there a minute ago strikes a chord with me is like it

The Power of Positive Impact

Neale 25:26

. It's like if you tune your radio to 99.7 , right , you get country and western music . If you put it to 103 , you get classical . If you put it to 88.8 , you get a latino channel . I mean , if you put it to 90 , you get politics .

Neale 25:42

They , we select where we put our bandwidth of attention in life , inputting frequency . Why can we not select the bandwidth of what we output ? Let's put our radio station on philanthropy , peace and love and , oh my , now suddenly we're attracting people that are into that . What's because we're transmitting that , we're receiving that I think that's . Yeah . That's helpful for me to think of it in those terms . Yeah , what you're fighting is a massive machine that doesn't give a shit about anybody , but making money . It just wants to divide you . It wants you to look at me and say you're the wrong race , you're the wrong color , you're the wrong religion , you're the , you're interested in the wrong politics . I'm going to feel good about myself , thrashing , trashing or bashing you , and that self-righteous indignation is going to drive me and fuel me to feel good about myself because I'm not you . As opposed to going hey , I don't know who you are . What are you doing in life ? What do you think ? What can we do ? Can we help ? Is there something good here ?

Ron 26:48

That's exactly it . We're turning into an isolated society , getting our thrills from watching other people suffer . I know that sounds terrible , but that seems to be the way it is . I try to tell a number of people whenever I get the chance that let's be really careful about what we watch , because the good news doesn't make the news , it's all the bad news , and if we are just constantly bombarded with all of that , oh this is just a terrible world . It's all falling apart and I just give up If we're of that mindset .

Neale 27:23

Yeah , yeah , it's easy to give up . I mean , if you never took your radio station off country and Western music you would think that there was no other music in the world . Yeah , right , and it's so , not true . I mean , clearly there is more good in the world than bad , right , and something enters your body , for whatever it is . Just be really glad that somebody took the time to design something small enough and innocuous enough that it doesn't hurt like hell when it happens . That's a good part of the world . I mean , if you suddenly something , you suddenly broke out some mad rash , right , and you suddenly started vomiting , you can be in an intensive care unit in a number of hours with the best medical attention in the world , right , that's a good world . That's what is kind .

Neale 28:15

People and good people are thinking how to improve the quality of health care . They're not just going out fucking let's just chop their limbs off . They don't need us to rebuild this thing or I'll just let them die . You know they don't need pain medication or they don't need treatment . I mean , the world is full . It's more good than bad . It's just the good doesn't make the news because it doesn't sell . What's the oldest question for the newspapers and bleed .

Neale 28:38

It doesn't lead , you know exactly , exactly and it's chronic , it's not , it's not mild . I mean , I was um introduced through social media to a lady and elizabeth sampy is her name and she is a medical doctor . She's an ultra athlete and she's a health coach and trainer for cyclists and ultra athletes and she undertook an expedition into pakistan , afghanistan , I think , into maybe northern india , kashmir , where they took small like kayak type boats that would break down and attach to their bicycles and they went basically off the grid through these countries with their mountain bikes and their bicycles . So when they got to a river , they would canoe down with all their staff and when they got to a road they would pedal . And she has 7,500 followers on social media . She lives in a van because she's constantly , you know , using her money for what she does .

Neale 29:54

And then you take somebody like Kim Kardashian right , who I don't know too much about her other than somebody said there's a porn movie , she's famous for being famous .

Neale 30:06

I guess she used to look like a human before they did all these operations and she can stand there in a pair of designer knickers that somebody paid a quarter of a million dollars to wear and millions of people are interacting with that on social media . And so to say that we've got a problem with what people look at and what people are interested in it's chronic . Yeah , I mean if you had . Yeah , I mean if you had a daughter , if you had a classroom full of girls , I mean a state full of girls in school . Who , what parents would want their children to be kim kardashian , as opposed to a medical doctor who's an ultra athlete and and one of the most adventurous people I've ever come across in my whole life ? Yet she has no attention for that . Because what I mean to answer that question , maybe we've solved the problem right . I mean , I don't even know what to say about it . It is , it's chronic .

Ron 31:04

Well again . That's why I'm so grateful to run into people like you , because you've got a story to tell really well and , like a few of the others that I've interviewed thus far , too , that you get it . You get it . Yes , it's hard work , it's risky , both physically and financially to do what you do , but there's joy , I would assume . Yes , joy , I would assume yes , yes , great deal of joy that comes away from what you have done and what you want to continue to do . Is that fair to say ?

Neale 31:36

yeah , I mean I think you know I I'd done an article for a big bicycling magazine or they did an article about my some of my best I'd written . I wrote a bicycle around kiev , hosta malerpin . I had a big , big road bike ride around ukraine in the summer . I just it's something I wanted to do is ride a bicycle there and and I'd done another mad bicycle challenge in peru and they felt that this would be worth doing a story about . You know , they said .

Neale 32:04

You know , one of the things about what we do in these places is the high notes are higher , the low notes are lower . You know , when you are , when you're experiencing joy , it's real joy , and when you experience suffering and pain , it's really painful . Yeah , and and so there is that part of it it's a lot more neutral being at home , it's a lot easier to be at home at times , but then you don't get that reward either . It's hard to explain . There's so many moments .

Neale 32:35

There's a young lad called Nazar I did a story with and he had lost his lower leg in an explosion in the fairly early part of the war leg in an explosion in the fairly early part of the war . And just going through this insane journey from the battlefield to when I met him not discounting the journey that he took from the day that the missiles started exploding in his country and signing up in the war and what he went through . And he went through 17 surgeries and nearly died numerous times with infections , and I was there the day he walked on his new prosthesis wow , and I've actually got a video of us just hooting and hollering . We were just so over the moon and hugging and taking pictures and it was just you know , this was months and months and months since the day he blew up that he was back on two feet , and so you can't replace those moments of joy . It is so incredible , even out of such tragedy , you can still find that level of joy . Yeah , yeah .

Ron 33:43

I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about Wellspring International Outreach yeah , would you mind sharing with the listening audience what that's all about and the association with Ukraine and Peru and so forth .

Neale 33:57

So I think you know I'd said earlier on , I kind of went into my selfish space when I was young .

Neale 34:03

And then I got into traveling and then I eventually got into motorcycle journalism and it kicked off when I did a charity ride in India . I rode across the Himalayas of northern India on rural landfills raising money for cancer , global cancer concern , and my children's mother my wife at the time treated cancer patients , and I was always an adventure traveler . I'd ridden around the world on motorcycles , or some of the world as much as I could anyway , and so it made sense that we would go to India , ride motorcycles , have an adventure and do some good for the planet . And that kicked off my motorcycle journalism career .

Adventure Motorcycling for Global Philanthropy

Neale 34:45

And it went really fast and really hectic um , marriage , young kids went from writing a story that went into rider to suddenly flying around the world testing brand new motorcycles everywhere , to starting a tv show with a famous car personality and , you know , writing for magazines , creating video for manufacturers , making television , even being recognized for being on TV from just being some kid out of nowhere .

Ron 35:19

you know you're standing there and people are like hey you're Neil Bailey , and love your TV show and love your stories .

Neale 35:24

So there's a lot of really exciting things coming out of it . And I had met father giovanni in 1995 and this was when I went to peru the first time I'd ridden from guatemala to peru an old gpc 550 , back in the days of dirt roads and paper maps and all that stuff , and he'd made a profound impact on my life and I learned that he died in the early 2000s . So for a number of years I was thinking I want to go to peru , I want to go to peru and wasn't something that my now eights wife was at all interested in . I did get to go to india , but that was the end of it and so so found myself divorced , doing television , writing for magazines .

Neale 36:11

I thought , well , look , I've got a voice , I've got a platform here . So I went down to Peru , to an orphanage that he used to support with his sister , and we did a medical mission and I fell in love with a little girl called Kathleen , a little disabled girl , and the lady who looked after us , sister Giovanna , who's still a very dear friend of mine to this day . And it just put a hook in my lip that I needed to do something . And so I came home and I started a North Carolina charity that turned into a 501c3 . And I started fundraising for the kids down at the orphanage in peru .

Neale 36:51

And then I came to this crossroads in my life where I was really enjoying the tv show I was doing , but I felt like it wasn't deep enough . It was great , it was a good family entertainment , but it was just a bit foo-foo , you know . It was like I don't know that it wasn't going deep enough for me and I felt like the way I was going with the fundraising , I was going to be 185 years of age before I ever made any decent type of money .

Neale 37:15

So I had this brainwave that I would create a television show about riding adventure bikes around the developing world and raising money for kids , and that was in 2009 . So Wellspring had now become a 5.1c3 . I was still raising money for kids , and that was in 2009 . So wellspring had now become a 5-1-c-3 . I was still raising money for it . But then , from the spring of 2009 until the summer 2013 , I just worked like a madman to get a tv show on a big national network and I ended up doing it in 2013 . It was called neil bailey rides peru and the whole focus was taking average riders on the journey of a lifetime to the developing world , peru , to show them the beauty of the country . But then , at the end of it , there was a purpose to it . They went into an orphanage , they had to do some work and I hope the payoff for the the audience wasn't just you know , oh great , we went to Peru . Ticket off the bucket list . Here's the pictures . Here's the kitsch . You know we actually did something . We helped lives and we impacted lives . So the viewer , hopefully , I was hoping would get an impact of what we were doing , and that ended up becoming the Old Baby Rides .

Neale 38:25

That was 2013 . And the money we raised , of course , obviously went through Wellspring , and after the show I opened up a new project in South Africa , then I opened up a new project in Kenya and then COVID came along . We shut both those projects down and then obviously the war kicked off in Ukraine . In 2022 I went in . So then we started to support ukraine injured children mostly and now we're supporting an orphanage in ukraine . So that's the kind of snapshot version of what wellspring has been about . So it's been running since really started with that medical mission when I decided I needed to do something in 2008 . I think we were 501c3 by late 09 , 010 . So all of these adventures always keep coming back essentially to the idea that we're raising money for kids in the developing world .

Ron 39:19

Yeah , you know , what came to mind for me , neil , was I really enjoyed Charlie Borman and Ewan McGregor's series on Long Way Round , long Way Down . I enjoyed that a lot . But what was most significant to my wife and I was to watch was their connection with UNICEF . Yeah , it's one thing to go to various places and , oh , let's get a picture of this , let's get a picture of that , or whatever . But it was another very significant thing for us to watch that they had the UNICEF stickers or wherever it was , on their bikes and then they showed up and then watching their very what I felt like was very genuine responses to what they were seeing of these , these children

Ukrainian Suffering and Healing Journeys

Ron 40:02

.

Ron 40:02

You know , I mean , it's one thing for us as adults to lose , you know , lose a loved one , but but a child , I just can't imagine , just can't imagine . And especially then reflecting on a war , torn area without a mom and dad or a loved one to hold on to , and then all this destruction all around , I can't imagine what they must be feeling . And for the caregivers , such as yourself , to go and know that you've got a free ride home . I mean , hopefully you get home safely , but you've still got a free ride home , yeah , I mean .

Neale 40:40

And that does weigh on you somewhat , because you do understand hey , I can leave here , but I think you know if I just was to focus on Ukraine .

Neale 40:49

I mean , that's kind of a Reader's Digest version of 15 years of doing Wellspring and the twists and turns that have brought it to here and the money that we've raised and the things that we've done . Well , ukraine has been very similar in ways as well , because I've actually been there five times since the late spring early summer of 2022 . And it's taken multiple visits to know what I know now , or to be able to figure out what I know now , and I think one of the biggest things takeaways for me at the moment , or things that I that I've come to realize , is that not so much for the children , because I don't interact in the same way and we support injured children , but I haven't really had the conversations more the conversations with the adults is that everybody in ukraine is suffering at an incredible level . Um , every person , every ukrainian outside of ukraine , is suffering at an internal level and I don't think it's for me to judge or for us to judge . You know , a guy who lives in Western Ukraine , still has a job and his wife and child are refugees in Poland , that he doesn't get to see other than FaceTime . That he doesn't get to see other than FaceTime because of the war , as opposed to another friend of mine , alex , who has one arm left , both legs gone , not even any stumps . I mean , he's just sitting on his bottom end with one arm and it's not my job to say that his suffering is different . I can't . It's you just do your head in if you try to degrade everybody's level of suffering and how you should impact . But the truth of the matter is everybody is suffering and I was with a teacher called irina just a few weeks ago and she told the most incredible story about the battle of kiev and where they lived .

Neale 42:48

They got caught in the middle of it . So the Russians were on one side , the Ukrainians on the other . They were out in the forest and the Russians had cut the electric , the water , the internet , the phone , which is what they do . They blind . That's the first thing they do is cut communication and for weeks and weeks on end , during all this bombing and all of this , this crazy stuff , that they had no , no knowledge of what was happening in their world . If the whole of ukraine was on fire , if the russians were , they just didn't , they just didn't know and eventually they ran out of food and she had to get out . And she managed to get out because that was a whole thing in itself when she realized that the whole of Ukraine was not exploding the way things were near her . And then she loaded up a van and went back in with food to help disabled people in the village and it was one of the most compelling stories . And this beautiful teacher she just teaches little kids in school and they've got a house and a husband and a dog and kids . And here she is with this sort of superhuman story of what she had done during the early days of the war . And when she finished I said you haven't told that story to anybody , have you ? And she looked at me and said no , and then it's like it completely the light went on and stayed on . For me that Ukrainians can't tell each other the story of suffering because they're all suffering and they have no outlet to tell that story . And that's where I feel part of my job is , is to be there for them for that story .

Neale 44:16

And about a week or so later I was with dr zoriana in the children's hospital and they've been very kind to us . They always invite us in for a tour , even though we're a tiny donor . They've had to build a new children's department , they've had to put a kidney to analysis center in rehab . I mean that the the the things that you have to do as a children's hospital to gear up to deal with the injuries of war and children . Who deals with the injuries of war ? I mean all the doctors , all the pediatricians . They're not trained to deal with burns , amputations , shrapnel , nerve damage , all of them . They're just not trained for limbs blown off with missiles . That's not what you learn as a pediatrician .

Neale 45:00

She kindly gave us a tour for a couple of hours and she showed me a couple of rooms . She said , well , this is where the psychologists are going to go for the children . I said where will they come from , meaning you know ? And she said ukraine . I said , well , yeah , I , I . I didn't mean now I say the local people or the ukraine , because obviously for the children to have a decent psycho , the right psychologist , it has to be someone that understands war and it has to be someone that speaks ukrainian , because those children are victims of this war , what they've gone through .

Neale 45:33

And so then I just turned around and said , well , who are you talking to ? And she just looked at me and she's like , and I said you're not talking to me , are you ? She said no . I said you're not telling your story , are you ? She said no . She said no . She said I just have to keep going . I can't stop and think and it just rips your heart out . I mean it just tears your heart out .

Neale 45:55

And we went back to our office and we did some photographs and we said our goodbyes . And she's a petite little thing and she's married later with a couple of kids and alive before the war came on . And I said we've got to go say just come here . I just gave her a hug and that little girl hung on like she was like a limper on the bottom of an ocean line . I think she's going to let go and they just need a hug , they just need someone to listen , because for nearly three years that woman's been showing up in that place every single day fighting for respirators , fighting for dialysis machines , fighting to keep children that are burned and one little girl , sophia , that kieran had shot .

Neale 46:34

You know she took shrapnel . It blew the top of her head off , right through the top of her head , straight through her brain , hit the back of her skull , bounce down the back bang . All the motor functions are gone , the brain's gone . She's still there . They've got to put her head back together . You know , little romana guy we support , you know , burned over 50 of his body , even his airways , all the muscles in his legs through the bone , and this is what she's dealing with every day , you know , and they've got no one to talk to .

Neale 47:00

So that's been a big revelation for me is that I've just got to go back and let these people tell me their story and my goal for Ukraine . Maybe I should speak it into existence if I could find the right . No , I should say when I find the right TV network or show or whatever

Women at War

Neale 47:19

. I want to do a series , women at War , and I want to go and focus on these ladies Irina Zoriana , zorina Zabriskie , the journalist who lives in Kassan . Victoria , my friend , who builds drones and bombs and gets death threats and gets bombed by the Russians . Anna , who is a world traveler on a KTM going on a second trip around the world . She's a soldier fighting on the front lines . You know , rebecca , she's American , she just went to the beginning of the war . She's a medic , five miles from Russian positions no-transcript .

Ron 48:13

Neil , my hope , just like when we first started talking before we started recording , my hope is that at least one person will hear this story and feel I've got to do something . Yeah , and I want to provide on the show notes links , whatever you'd like me to provide . We as a podcast , we my wife and I as a podcast want to make a donation . We will as well , but how can our listeners help ?

Neale 48:41

Well , I mean , obviously the easy and the straightforward thing is monetarily through Wellspring , because we have donation links . Monthly donations are better because I've got more budget to work with to take on more kids , um , and I know that a lot of people are very committed to other projects . It's not like there's so much need in the world . I mean , there's so many people sitting there going . You know , this project needs money , that project needs money and I get that , you know .

Neale 49:09

I don't know that people should necessarily feel that they need to help my foundation do what we do , I think , as long as we all do something , and if that something is a kind comment on a website , or maybe he said look , I can't financially support neil and what he's doing with his children , but hey , I have an elderly lady at my gym or my church or my complex or whatever . Maybe I'll just go have a chat with her and let her talk to me . I mean , I think it's the energy of what we're doing that helps . I mean because in an ideal world , I'd love all the listeners to go on to Wellspring , click the donate button , send me a shit ton of money and I've got plenty of places I can give it away . Believe me , that would be my deal . But I think realistically . I don't know that it happens like that .

Ron 50:00

Well , I'm really good here . I work in the IT industry full time and I bash technology more often than I really really should because it's made me a living . But , that being said , that's how I found you . We found each other through Instagram and through this little podcast that's on Spotify and podcasts , I think you're 100% right .

Neale 50:21

I mean , you know it's easy to bash social media . I mean , there's a lot of really bad things about social media . There's a lot of really bad things about media . There's a lot of really bad things about media . But there's also , you know , the majority is that the world is good or we wouldn't be here . And it does give us an amazing opportunity to connect . I mean , you and I would never have connected were it not for social media . And you know we can change the world . I mean , imagine the world we can change .

Neale 50:47

Imagine there's a mother somewhere who lost her husband on the front lines and she's got a child with a missing limb and she needs a prosthesis .

Neale 50:53

And one of your listeners goes well , shit , I can , I can throw a few thousand bucks at that . Or I can do this , or I I'll step up and say , hey , I want to do X amount of dollars a month to support a single mother who's raising a disabled child in Ukraine . I had run into a gentleman recently , a month to support a single mother who's raising a disabled child in ukraine . You know , I mean I had run into a gentleman recently , um , at a rotary meeting , and his daughter has adopted nine children , four of them from ukraine , and all four of them are disabled . I was just like , what am I doing ? You know , I've set aside the alarm for about noon so I can get up every day . Yeah , I mean , this is adopted nine kids , and four of them are disabled and four from ukraine . I'm like , oh , I gotta , I gotta get my skates on here and do something you know , yeah , yeah , anybody wants to help .

Neale 51:40

I'm super easy to find . You know , I'm the only neil bailey on the internet . The way I spell it , like tigger , I'm the only one wellspring . I can send you a link too , and uh and I think it's just it's , it's .

Neale 51:51

Thanks for letting me , you know , run my mouth here , because I think this is this is how we do it one at a time . We meet somebody . Hopefully everybody who's watching the podcast feels that we're you know , we're a community . They're obviously watching you because they like what you're saying , what you you're doing , and hoping that they can feel connected to our conversation today .

Ron 52:11

Yeah , that's exactly why I'm doing this , exactly Because I can really get bogged down , I can really feel sorry for myself , I can get pissed off at the world because the copy machine is not working . You know , I really had stuff like that .

Neale 52:33

And then I sit back back , shut my yeah , you know you .

Ron 52:37

Just you just take a hard look at at the whole . The vast majority of the world doesn't have a fraction of what I have in front of me right now . What have I ?

Neale 52:45

got I think it's easy . Yeah , I mean we , it is easy to , you know , get upset about stuff and and we do have our problems . I mean it's not like because we live here and we have all the stuff , we don't have problems . I mean like I mean we started this thing talking about mental health . I mean this stuff is very real , you , but I think , if you're in a position to help , there is an enormous amount of suffering in the world and we all do have it pretty good , and I think that , hopefully , is the frame of reference for people when they're giving to what we do or supporting what we do is not that I'm taking something from you . I want to feel like I'm giving you something . I'm giving you the opportunity to improve a life and you can feel good about that , and I'm also giving you a lens back into your life that you have enough right , yeah , you know we've got enough . I mean , do we really ? Why are we working and striving for more , more , more , more ?

Ron 53:45

we already have enough , yeah yeah , I'm just reflecting again on something that Kirsten Madura said in a recent interview . She said for those to paraphrase a lot , for those who are just not really feeling good about themselves or whatever depression , whatever , go volunteer , go out there and just share your hands , hands , your heart , your voice with somebody who's not who , who really needs it right now , whether that's a homeless person on the street where you shake your , shake their hand it's hello , my name is , and do whatever you do , but that I think turning outward , at least for me , that really helps . That really helps .

Neale 54:30

Yeah , and you imagine the good that could be done if everybody took that opportunity . Yeah , Because it is in the small actions I mean it's . You know , BMW very kindly made a magazine for me out of some of my blog posts . I did four individual stories or columns for one of the BMW publications I work for and the editor , who's a very good friend and does a lot of work for Wellspring , said , hey , what if we put them together and made a book ? And then he said , well , that would cost X amount of dollars . And he said , well , let me talk to BMW . And they kindly decided to print the book for me so I can put it in dealerships . And one of the things I do is I'm able to speak in bmw dealerships . I'm a bmw brand ambassador and I have a .

Neale 55:15

I didn't know that I didn't know if you have a bmw dealership , they'd like me to come out and talk , and maybe that's how somebody listening today works at bmw dealership or owns a dealership . I can come to them . On the travels it's not just ukraine , it's peru , and I've ridden in 50 plus countries around the world with the bank robbers and done a few crazy things in my life . So I have a few things to chat about . So , but anyway , I I got the ability to send the books and I took them down to the ynca where I , where I work at , and they're very kind people and I like it . I say you , you know , guys , this is some of what I do .

Neale 55:55

And out of all of those magazines and all the things I put , I've had one connection . There was one young girl that works at the gym who I've spoken to peripherally about hiking right . She comes up to me and she says I spent five years working in Uganda . My degree is in business and not-for-profit management and I just burned out in Africa it was so much , you know after five straight years with a few vacations . So I've come back , I've got a corporate job , but I'm looking to get into something Now .

Neale 56:27

I have a tremendous volunteer , wellspring , who understands not-for-profit , understands business , pretty type A , pretty driven , keeps me on track . We meet every Friday and I've got a really great volunteer . She put out a newsletter when I went to Peru with my other project and one of my very kind donors dropped a check for $10,000 . Oh goodness , wow , that's wonderful . I mean , my friend Teresa said I should talk about this more and I don't , but I have actually raised over $400,000 for Ukraine so far Wow , that's wonderful Since the spring of 2022 . And , of course , I never know if I'm going to raise another dollar , but I'm always hopeful .

Ron 57:13

Well , my hope is that I can reach one person . At least . You've reached me .

Neale 57:20

You've reached me for sure I remember listening to a gentleman by the name of Giles Dooley in 2022 . And I was sitting next to a little girl called Izzy Sassata , and Izzy was brilliant . She was 19 , 20 years of age , she was a photo assistant for some famous photographer and she had to show up to Clexus Award at this huge international photography festival . She was like a fish out of water . So me and my buddy Mike took her under our wing and Giles Dooley is a triple amputee from stepping on an IED in Afghanistan and for 46 days he was completely comatose . He was still alive in there but no one saw any movement . So he lost two legs and an arm . And he said , for those 46 days he laid there working on how to take better photographs until he was able to communicate , because he couldn't communicate with the outside world . And he now has started a foundation called the Legacy of War and he still photographs war with his one hand . And he gave and he's actually got footage of him in the helicopter after he'd been blown up . I mean , it looked like a bowl of spaghetti bolognese with a head on it . You know , this guy was fucked up and jamming things in his throat and heart and somehow he lives through all of this stuff and I just remember listening to this man going wow , this is wild , like what am I doing with my life , basically . And one of the things that he said was people have asked him Giles , do you think your photography can change the world , do you think your photography can make change ? And he said I don't know that it can . He said , but it possibly could change one person and that person could change the world .

Neale 59:13

I looked around and little Izzy was sat there like this . She was in the prone position to staring at this guy . You could have popped a balloon next to her , she wouldn't have heard it . She was hanging on to every word he said . You could have popped a balloon next to her , she wouldn't have heard it . She was hanging on to every word he said . And now I get the pleasure of watching Izzy's social media feed and she's in Africa doing projects with animals . She's over here doing this and I don't know that it was Giles' talk that got her . Maybe she was on that path anyway , but she is on fire for this world and for doing good and for amazing things . And , and you know , maybe giles spoke to two people in that room out there . Maybe I was one of them . So I I think you're 100 right . If we just reach one person , that person can change the world .

Ron 1:00:00

Yeah that's the goal . That's the goal .

Neale 1:00:03

Well , my new friend , I , what a person I haven't been waffling on too long and I've got a ton of stories .

Ron 1:00:08

Oh man , what a privilege it is to have met you and somehow somewhere we're going to connect on motorcycles and a cup of coffee .

Neale 1:00:21

Are you a coffee drinker , by the way ?

Ron 1:00:22

Yes , If you want to go ride around Peru and raise money for orphans .

Neale 1:00:31

I've got a tour going May , the 4th , this coming . Yep , yep , the S's 12 days Machu Picchu , titicaca , the Andes , atacama Desert , beautiful ride , lovely hotels . I'm going to Peru and we end up at the orphanage for a day .

Ron 1:00:46

That sounds fabulous . Honestly , I don't think it would work for me this year , for various reasons all you're gonna do is quit your job .

Neale 1:00:55

That's true too . You know my , my dear friend , shelby tucker , and and he passed away recently and he's the guy that wrote the book about Burma . It's called Among Insurgents . He's the only person who crossed northern Burma by insane means , walking an elephant and being smuggled between the Kerins , the Kachins , and dodging the Burmese North Star and one thing after another

Global Adventure and Philanthropy Call

Neale 1:01:24

.

Neale 1:01:24

It's incredible world travel , and Shelby Tucker's line was could you live with yourself if you didn't go ? So I'm going to leave you with that . Could you live with yourself if you didn't go to Peru ?

Ron 1:01:42

This is going to be a long conversation with that .

Neale 1:01:46

You're going to be like I wish I'd never had that guy on . Well , you know . I mean , there's a few simple truths in life . We're just gonna wake up dead one day .

Ron 1:01:54

So this is true , right , very , very true and I'll even send you the itinerary okay , all right , do that . Do that , neil's a pleasure man is . It was so such a pleasure to meet you and I do look forward to shaking your hand , giving you a hug and let's go for it .

Neale 1:02:13

Yeah , I mean , come to Charlotte if you want . We'll do dirt bike riding here .

Ron 1:02:18

I'll see you out there at some point we've got extended family out there , so I bet I can make that happen , yeah yeah , well , thank you for having me on .

Neale 1:02:24

I'm really pleased to join the podcast and hope that we did get a bit of peace and love and then not too much war and bad things it was perfect .

Ron 1:02:32

It was perfect . Thank you so much thank you I will stop the recording now okay , yeah .