Mark Brayne, cyclotherapist, ends 1,000-mile bike ride

What do ex-Reuters folk do as they approach the latter end of life? Some write their memoirs, some play golf, and some work at old friendships through such networks as the Reuter Society.

Others, like Mark Brayne (photo) - graduate trainee 1973, Moscow 1974-75, East Berlin 1977-78, then BBC in Berlin, Vienna, Beijing and diplomatic correspondent London - switch career altogether. In his case, cyclotherapy/psychlotherapy. That’s right, psychlotherapy with an L.

At 62, Brayne is now a qualified and Europe-registered consultant in EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing - one of the most effective new forms of psychotherapy, he says, for trauma, depression and anxiety) and also a passionate long-distance cyclist.

During his Reuters posting to East Berlin, Brayne and his then-wife Jutta would take their tandem through Checkpoint Charlie, to the consternation of the border guards.

Now, four years after riding his Thorn Raven Nomad bike (£2,500, he says, and worth every penny for never breaking down) 4,000 miles to Budapest and back from his Cirencester home in the Cotswolds, Brayne has completed a more leisurely but also more vertical 1,000 miles solo through New Zealand, South Island and North, setting out at Queenstown in the Southern Alps on 8 December and reaching Tauramunui in the heart of the North Island three weeks later.

There’s more about the journey on Brayne’s blog www.cyclotherapist.com (yes, he says, the URL was available, as was www.psychlotherapist.com, both of which point to the same site) as well as his sobering musings on where humanity is heading with climate change and sustainability. ■