STEVE James – the ‘banker on a bike’ from Sticklepath – has passed the halfway point on his circumnavigation of the world on two wheels.

Steve, who retired from a 40-year career in corporate banking just over a year ago, set himself the challenge of cycling 18,000 miles across four continents.

He has so far raised £3,800 of his £20,000 target for Cancer Research UK and the Exeter Chiefs Foundation.

Having crossed Europe and Asia to China, he flew to Perth in Australia and cycled across Australia to Brisbane.

Flying on to New Zealand he is currently crossing the North Island and on Wednesday last week (August 28) he cycled through the town of Taihape, 11,271 miles into his trip.

He is posting detailed updates of his adventures on Facebook.

His partner Becky Holmes, back home in Sticklepath, met up with Steve in Azerbaijan in central Asia earlier in the summer.

She took him out a replacement bike for the next leg of his journey.

‘I had to pack it into a box for the plane which was quite a challenge!’ she said. ‘One of the spokes was broken on his original bike and he knew that the terrain was going to get a lot harder after that.’

She said Steve had found the going particularly tough after China and would not be home for his 60th birthday on September 17 as planned.

‘He now thinks he’ll be home on November 9,’ she said. ‘He was banking on about 120 miles a day but in fact he’s been doing more like 100 miles a day. He went through Europe and down to Turkey and Georgia then on to Azerbaijan and across Asia to China. He then had a problem with his phone so he had to cut his trip in China a bit short.

‘From there he flew from Kuala Lumpur [in Malaysia] to Perth and crossed Australia. He then cycled across Australia and flew out of Brisbane to New Zealand.’

She said that Steve had found crossing China ‘particularly tough’.

‘The problem in China was the language barrier,’ she said. ‘The people were lovely and helpful but a lot of the time he was communicating just using a translation app.’

She said he also couldn’t get on with the food and suffered an episode of food poisoning.

‘He lost a lot of weight and he can’t get the pounds back on,’ she said.

After enjoying his travels in New Zealand’s North Island, Steve will now board a plane to San Francisco for the next part of his trip, crossing America to Nova Scotia in Canada then back to Plymouth via Spain and France.

Becky said that while Steve had booked accommodation across Europe, as his trip got more remote he had often been offered places to stay in people’s homes. ‘He literally turns up in places and finds somewhere to stay,’ she said. ‘People have been really lovely, offering places to stay and making him packed lunches.’

She said Steve was still hoping to make it into the record books as the oldest man to cycle the globe. He plans to finish his circumnavigation in April at the Exeter Chiefs’ Sandy Park rugby ground in Exeter, the place he started out from in April. He is funding the cost of the trip himself, so everything he raises is going to his two chosen charities.