In some countries such as Nepal he said there is a “very sparse coverage” with just one fire engine in a 200 mile (321km) radius.<\/p>\n
In Germany, he found “the fire service was well-funded and well run”.<\/p>\n
He stayed overnight at some of the fire stations on some occasions, including in Gospic, Croatia.<\/p>\n
“They were very welcoming,” he said. “There is a universal understanding about being a firefighter.”<\/p>\n
He told BBC London he gets up at 7am every morning and cycles for five to six hours each day.<\/p>\n
“I wake up every day and I’m glad to be alive. It’s been absolutely fantastic so far.”<\/p>\n
Stephen added: “I have to say people really are wonderful.”<\/p>\n
Apart from a stomach bug, he has had no major health problems so far. His bike is also wearing well albeit with the odd puncture.<\/p>\n
“I try and get my bike serviced regularly so I avoid any problems,” he said.<\/p>\n
So far his highlights include seeing a “magical” lunar eclipse on a beach in Turkey and visiting the Taj Mahal in India.<\/p>\n
“I also rode up on a high plain in Nepal and then suddenly saw a vista of the Himalayas in front of me – it was amazing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In some countries such as Nepal he said there is a “very sparse coverage” with just one fire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-405308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}