By Barry Neild, CNN
(CNN) — At first glance, the two photos almost look like duplicates: A young cyclist beneath the glaciers near Everest Base Camp, bike hoisted on his shoulders, face fixed in determination.
The images could’ve been taken within seconds of each other — same spot, same light, same shadows.
Yet they were taken 40 years apart.
The first shows Phil Hargreaves, a cycling enthusiast who set out from England in 1984 at the age of 22, accompanied for part of the journey by two friends, on an adventure that took him across Europe, through Asia and eventually to Sydney.
In the second, Jamie Hargreaves, Phil’s son, recreates his father’s pose almost four decades later — one of many images Jamie meticulously restaged while riding to the exact same places.
“I’ve been inspired by my dad my entire life,” Jamie tells CNN a few weeks after returning from his own 25,000-kilometer, or 15,500-mile, 19-month ride from central England to Sydney.
“Me and my brother were both raised on our dad’s stories, and the adventure was always calling to me. I always wanted to do something similar, but I didn’t want to copy his journey, I wanted to make my own way.
“Then I came up with a plan…”
The idea, first formed eight years ago, wasn’t simply to follow in his father’s tire tracks — he says he has a bigger ambition still up his sleeve. But retracing the 1980s expedition, and building a social media following along the way, felt like a useful step.
And so, in May 2024, also at the age of 22, a week after handing in his university dissertation on product design, he set out from the English town of Stockport and began pedaling.
“It was just the perfect time to do it, because I was finishing uni, everything was sort of coming together, and I had a bit of money saved, so, you know what? I’m just gonna go for it.”
Same place, same face
Finding the right bicycle wasn’t a problem. His dad rode a King of Mercia, a steel-framed model of touring bike made by UK company Mercian since the 1950s. Jamie had already tracked a vintage one down for sale on Facebook for £600 — about $800 — a steal for a classic that can cost double or triple that.
Then there was the task of pinpointing the exact spots where his dad’s photos were taken. Again, it proved easier than expected.
“My dad basically documented every photo that he took and he knew exactly where he’d taken them,” says Jamie. “So, it wasn’t that hard to find some of them.”
For trickier locations, he turned to AI for help.
“I actually used ChatGPT quite a lot because you can put the photo in and ask it. I’d say, you know, this was Malaysia, or wherever, 40 years ago, where was this photo taken? And it would give me an exact pinpoint location.
“It almost always got it right. There were a couple of occasions it didn’t, but it always got it in the ballpark.”
The result is a striking set of images — the same places, the same poses, sometimes even the same faces.
One photo, taken in Belgium, shows Phil and one of his riding companions with a young boy and the parents of someone they’d befriended along the way who had offered them a place to stay. Jamie tracked down the location and, although the parents and the friend had since died, he was able to meet and pose with the man who the young boy became.
In another, s