My name is Nick Hand, I am born and bred Bristolian. I trained as a typographer at Stafford Art College and Bristol Polytechnic and now work as a graphic designer and photographer. I have three children, Ellie (a teacher in Bristol), Jess (freelance production designer in London) and Laurence (a year in to a film degree in Falmouth). I live with my partner Harriet in Redland, Bristol in the South West corner of England.

For the past few years I have been bombing backwards and forwards to a lovely corner of West Wales working with my friends who founded howies, the nice little clothing company in Cardigan. I meet lots of cyclists over there who have inspired me to stay in my bike a little longer than the time it takes to ride into the centre of Bristol.

A couple of years ago I was down in Cornwall on our annual cycling holiday (well we take our bikes, but, if I'm honest there is a lot of sitting around looking at the sea), and I stared thinking about cycling around the coast of Britain. Last summer I set out to do just that, covering nearly 5000 miles. And a beautiful journey it was. My last memory is of the amazing folk that I met on the journey. I'm really please to have recorded soundslides of many of the inspiring people that I met on the way.

This year I am continuing the journey and will ride around the coast of Ireland. As before I will travel clockwise (a little nearer the sea) and will leave Belfast in early August. I will continue to the project of talking to the artisans that I meet, people who have a passion and have developed and honed a skill. This part of the journey is between 1500 and 2000 miles.

Better get on with it then.

soundslides