During his cycle trips around the world, he was shot at by bandits, almost eaten alive by tropical ants and survived close encounters with elephants and lions. But, with sad inevitability, Ian Hibell met his end after being knocked off his bicycle in a collision with a car near Athens.
Friends and admirers yesterday paid tribute to Hibell, who died aged 74 after cycling some 250,000 miles in journeys that took him to the most remote and hostile regions of the globe. Over four decades, he would turn up on his touring cycle at far-flung outposts and be welcomed in by the local people. He was given shelter by everyone from Inuit communities in the polar regions to tribesmen in the jungles of Borneo. He survived malaria, the frequent attention of rabid dogs and occasional detention by border guards, and got through more than 800 puncture repair kits. He continued to embark on gruelling journeys in his 70s, taking only a small tent, paraffin stove, waterproof cape, woolly hat and socks when he cycled from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast of Russia.
Hibell, from Brixham, Devon, estimated that he cycled 6,000 miles a year but claimed the most dangerous stretch of road in the world was close to his home.
He died while cycling on the Athens to Salonika highway on August 23 after being involved in a collision with a car. The car that was allegedly involved drove away but a man was later arrested.
Hibell's friend Nicola Henderson said: "He had been touring the world more or less continuously for over 40 years. He pushed, dragged or carried his bike from the fringes of Antarctica to the jungles of the Amazon, from the Arctic to the remoter islands of Indonesia." Explaining why he was setting off on a hazardous trip to Peru in the late 1970s, he once wrote: "I like visiting unworldly places; I wanted to test prototype front and rear luggage racks I'd designed ... and I wanted another chance to photograph Peru with less shyness, I hoped, when approaching those multi-skirted, bowler-hatted women I'd been so terrified of before."
He mainly travelled alone, eking out his modest funds and finding food and shelter wherever he could. Writing about Mongolia he said: "Approach any yurt, and one is bound to be offered food and often a bed for the night."
Tributes were yesterday paid on cycling websites.
One person who knew him said: "I always looked forward to seeing him so I could hear his latest adventures, from escaping from armies of soldier ants as they ate his tent, to encounters with exotic tribes that had never seen a white man before, much less one on a bicycle."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008
