He followed his dad’s 1980s cycle ride to Australia — and recreated the photos frame by frame

By Barry Neild, CNN

(CNN) — At first glance, the two photos almost look like duplicates: A young cyclist beneath the glaciers near Everest Base Camp, bike hoisted on his shoulders, face fixed in determination.

The images could’ve been taken within seconds of each other — same spot, same light, same shadows.

Yet they were taken 40 years apart.

The first shows Phil Hargreaves, a cycling enthusiast who set out from England in 1984 at the age of 22, accompanied for part of the journey by two friends, on an adventure that took him across Europe, through Asia and eventually to Sydney.

In the second, Jamie Hargreaves, Phil’s son, recreates his father’s pose almost four decades later — one of many images Jamie meticulously restaged while riding to the exact same places.

“I’ve been inspired by my dad my entire life,” Jamie tells CNN a few weeks after returning from his own 25,000-kilometer, or 15,500-mile, 19-month ride from central England to Sydney.

“Me and my brother were both raised on our dad’s stories, and the adventure was always calling to me. I always wanted to do something similar, but I didn’t want to copy his journey, I wanted to make my own way.

“Then I came up with a plan…”

The idea, first formed eight years ago, wasn’t simply to follow in his father’s tire tracks — he says he has a bigger ambition still up his sleeve. But retracing the 1980s expedition, and building a social media following along the way, felt like a useful step.

And so, in May 2024, also at the age of 22, a week after handing in his university dissertation on product design, he set out from the English town of Stockport and began pedaling.

“It was just the perfect time to do it, because I was finishing uni, everything was sort of coming together, and I had a bit of money saved, so, you know what? I’m just gonna go for it.”

Same place, same face

Finding the right bicycle wasn’t a problem. His dad rode a King of Mercia, a steel-framed model of touring bike made by UK company Mercian since the 1950s. Jamie had already tracked a vintage one down for sale on Facebook for £600 — about $800 — a steal for a classic that can cost double or triple that.

Then there was the task of pinpointing the exact spots where his dad’s photos were taken. Again, it proved easier than expected.

“My dad basically documented every photo that he took and he knew exactly where he’d taken them,” says Jamie. “So, it wasn’t that hard to find some of them.”

For trickier locations, he turned to AI for help.

“I actually used ChatGPT quite a lot because you can put the photo in and ask it. I’d say, you know, this was Malaysia, or wherever, 40 years ago, where was this photo taken? And it would give me an exact pinpoint location.

“It almost always got it right. There were a couple of occasions it didn’t, but it always got it in the ballpark.”

The result is a striking set of images — the same places, the same poses, sometimes even the same faces.

One photo, taken in Belgium, shows Phil and one of his riding companions with a young boy and the parents of someone they’d befriended along the way who had offered them a place to stay. Jamie tracked down the location and, although the parents and the friend had since died, he was able to meet and pose with the man who the young boy became.

In another, shot in Dikili, in Turkey, the only recognizable marker in a sparse landscape is the shape of distant hills. More distinct settings — like the volcanic slopes of Mount Bromo in Indonesia — were easier to match, even if they proved harder to cycle over.

Not everything aligned. Geopolitical realities had changed and part of Phil’s original route, through Iran, was no longer safely accessible. Instead, Jamie detoured through Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan before rejoining his father’s route in Pakistan.

Risking their lives to help

He faced setbacks. In Georgia, a bad crash destroyed his prized bike frame. But by then, having built a following on social media, he says he was happy to find Mercian willing to send him a replacement. Battling constant headwinds in the deserts of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan were among the hardest sections. On-the-road camaraderie with other long-distance cyclists helped pull him through low moments.

In Russia, after navigating border bureaucracy and intense scrutiny, he encountered what he describes as the surreal contrast of a heavily militarized country where everyday kindness remained commonplace. In Afghanistan — while missing his university graduation ceremony back home — bolt-loosening roads pushed the thin tires of his retro bike setup to their limits, but he says he was met with warmth despite the hardships people face under Taliban rule.

“Obviously, I’ve had a guy’s perspective going through Afghanistan and it might be completely different for a woman, but the hospitality that I received as a man was incredible,” he says. “People were literally willing to risk their lives to host me.”

In Nepal, where Phil and Dave had carried their bikes to Everest Base Camp at an altitude of 5,364 meters — among the first known cyclists to do so — Jamie repeated the feat and added what he believes may be another first: taking a bike to Annapurna Base Camp, at 4,130 meters.

The recreated Everest photo, with his bike on his back and the glacier in the background, says Jamie, is among his favorites.

“Those ones are really cool. Pretty much all the Everest ones are really cool. And some of the ones in Turkey and Georgia were quite good too — there were a couple where the landscape has changed quite dramatically.”

While Phil now mostly rides a motorcycle back in retirement from work as an estate maintenance manager in the UK, Jamie’s social media posts have transported him back to his cycling heyday.

“He definitely got a bit of jealousy towards the start,” Jamie says. “He was watching my videos and said that it was bringing back all the memories when he set off, and the enjoyment of the road, and life on the road, and, like, living dirtbag-style, you know, sleeping out in bus stops and stuff.”

But in recreating the images, Jamie says he also felt a deeper connection to the young man who had stood in those places 40 years earlier.

“Every time that I pinpointed a place and stood on the exact spot where he would’ve stood, it was very weird because, you know, it’s a real sort of connection to Dad. The only thing dividing us was time. It’s really strange.

“I’ve heard stories from my dad my entire life, and then I’m there in the places where those stories took place. It’s very, very special.”

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