My real name is Nigel Swaby, Bignose being my Enduro Africa moniker. I am 55 as stated, unfit (again) as I spend my day's in a van. I started out many years ago as a Medical Technician at Nottingham University Medical School in the Dept.of Biochemistry. Being young and stupid I left with the intention of following a hare brained scheme which crashed and burned, then wasted the rest of the seventies in a haze of booze. More details will be revealed in the book after the trip. I have been a Cartographer,Milkman, married twice (divorced), Rep for various motorcycle businesses, long term partnership (dissolved), motorcycle shop manager three times, MCN rep,Roofer, married again (getting divorced) and in 2007 was made redundant twice.

I have had bikes continually since the age of 21, and it took two jobs (Civil service and pump Jockey) to save enough for the James Captain 197 (1956 vintage) that was to become my steed. Having rebuilt it in the spare room of the second floor flat in the tower block, I triumphally rode it down the escape stairs. Three weeks later I was hit by a bus, sustaining a fractured hip and a ruptured kidney, and was off work for nearly a year. The compo cheque arrived while I was still on crutches, so I hobbled down to the local Yamaha dealer and ordered an RD250, telling them that I would take delivery when the crutches were no more. Fifty four bikes later here we are.