The cutting edge of stupidity
What’s this nonsense?
We love adventure. Really stupid adventures. So we like to make sure we’re at the very cutting edge of stupidity and that’s where The Institute of Adventure Research comes in. It’s our job to make sure we’re always finding new and ridiculous way to battle the ever increasing march of health and safety.
We like to test out these stupid ideas on ourselves first before we inflict them on the wider world. Sometimes the ideas are just rubbish in a boring way, other times they might just be too stupid to work. Often, somehow, through all the chaos they come up trumps. A while ago we started filming these rolling shit shows. Partly because Tom forgets to record any useful information, but mainly to laugh at them. A taste of the results are below…
We want you to join us. We often need new folk to pioneer new adventures. After we’ve tested an idea we open up a Pioneers Adventure. That’s the embryonic moment when an adventure is in its most dangerous and fragile form. Not usually for the faint hearted, but always somehow glorious.
Test Run #11 – Balloonacy
After creating the Icarus Trophy The Institute felt it wasn’t done with the sky. Our insurance company had a face on like we’d just laid a yellow turd on their desks when we told them about this one. Which of course we had. Ahhh the simple glory of floating under a balloon. Perhaps more than any other form of transport this epitomises the spirit of Adventurism. Once your feet leave the ground you are to a large extent at the mercy of the gods of wind and weather.
The goal is here to make the world’s most ridiculous air race. We will set forth from the starting point and the person who gets the furthest in any given direction (and gets themselves back) will be declared the winner.
There are a few more tests to be carried out before we’re ready to unleash the Pioneers. Clearly.
Test Run #10 – The Monkey Run
Back in the year of 2016 we set forth with our favourite 2 wheeled mechanical marvel to check how much adventure could be found with monkey bikes, the Sahara and the Atlas mountains. Sweet rolling adventure goolies the answer was A LOT.
Tom called up Buddy with no warning and told him to get on a flight. Having not learnt from the many previous times Buddy leapt into the adventure without a second thought.
After Tom and Buddy argued their way across Morocco and delivered a report folder with virtually nothing useful in it we launched the mighty Pioneers edition of the now legendary Monkey Run.
Test Run #9 – The Icarus
After many years of 2 dimensional adventuring across the surface of the planet the Institute decided it was time to make everything all 3D and wang ourselves headlong into the sky. We found out about the wonders of paramotoring and set about making the longest air race of its kind in the world.
But before that the Institute spent some quality scientific time investigating the possibilities. Nothing like flying at someones head while they’re wearing a bucket to inspire confidence gents.
Undeterred they carried on with their ill conceived experiments which almost landed Tom in an electricity pylon and Buddy took a face full of field. Stirling work as always.
Test Run #14 – The Moon
Ahh the greatest of the Institute plans. The idea was to unite the sheds of the World to build our own rocket on the cheap. In response to this videogramme we got about 500 people signed up. Some of whom were surprisingly respectable NASA and ESA scientists.
Things got off to a good start but for now we shelved this as we ran out of time. But much to the chagrin of our accountants this is not off the table yet.
Here you can see we recorded just how well thought through this plan was. Naturally we assume Tom was either drunk or joking. It seems he’s not though…
Test Run #7.5 – Ice Run Re-Pioneers
After we ran the Ice Run for a few years in the far west of Siberia we thought it was time to make it really really fucking stupid. So we moved it to Lake Baikal.
The largest body of fresh water on the planet that almost freezes over each Winter. Well it freezes over nearly enough so that a bunch of vintage Urals can just about shamble their way across it.
It’s mid winter in Siberia and a team of hardy pioneers gathered to take on the pioneers edition of the Ice Run. Cracking ice, unseasonably warm weather and the wilderness laid in wait to make this something extra awesome…
Test Run #7 – Ice Run Test
This chilly trip of wonder became the Ice Run but we demonstrate our inability to count to 10 by wrongly announcing this as Adventure 6.
Tom teamed up with Horatio (definitely not Buddy) Blakensmyth the 3rd. The world’s greatest explorer. They boarded a train at Moscow and headed North East into the depths of Siberia to try and buy a Ural motorbike and see what happened if they rode it up the frozen rivers and ice roads of Northern Siberia.
What happened was that they declared it to be an awesome adventure worthy of the Pioneers. And so it was…