Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A Minnesota man With a dream of cycling on the seven continents, it was forced to offer alternative plans after Israel launched a air strike dam on the Iranian military chiefs and nuclear installations, near where it was driving.
The Associated Press said that Ian Andersen, 32, of Minnetonka, the Minnesota had not planned to get stuck in a real war zone, so he went to Azerbaijan neighbor on Monday.
“The bombs have started to fall,” Andersen told Wire Service on Wednesday, while talking about a hotel zoom in Baku. “It was extremely frightening.”
Andersen was doing a tour through Iran as part of a one -year mission to cycle on the seven continents. While in IranAndersen had a local guide, and he had shared videos from his adventure with tens of thousands of followers on social networks since early June.
In this photo provided by @ridewithian, Ian Andersen poses for a selfie near the Dinde-Iranian border on Sunday, June 1, 2025. (@Ridewithian via AP)
“The day the bombs started to fall” was Friday, and Andersen and his guide were heading south along the Côte de la Mer Caspienne, from Chalus to the capital of Tehran.
Andersen would have hoped to ask for a visa for Afghanistan In Tehran, with ambitions to cross Central Asia and Russia.
“It was really fair, like the worst possible timing,” he told AP.
Once the bombs have started to fall, Andersen and his guide were sheltered and spoke Spanish to prevent people from suspecting that he was from the United States
Caitlyn Jenner, stuck in Israel after Iran’s strike, publishes photos of chaos and refuge
Cars lead to a highway while smoke rises from an oil storage installation after seeming to have been struck by an Israeli strike on Saturday in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP photo / Vahid Salemi)
He also said he saw long lines of vehicles fleeing Tehran and, at the same time, his own family, friends and social media followers had concerns for his safety.
The US State Department informed Andersen in an email that he should leave for Azerbaijan or Turkey.
A friend of Andersen in Los Angeles asked for a visa in Azerbaijan on his behalf, which was finally granted by the United States Embassy in Baku.
Democratic legislators criticize Israel’s defensive strikes against Iranian nuclear sites
A massive plume of smoke and shooting rises from an oil refinery in the south of Tehran following reports that an Israeli strike overnight targeted the site on June 15, 2025. (Atta Kenne / AFP)
The bike, Andersen said, was his dream and his escape, and in the past, he had fought against drug addiction and hyperactivity disorder with attention deficit.
And while his dream of cycling, the seven continents may have reached a slowdown, he has no regrets to continue the journey.
The bombs in Iran were not his only brush with death. In fact, he said he was in northern Kenya in 2023 when a tribe threatened to put a lance from him while bicycle in a rural area.
“There will always be risks, and you have to accept it,” he said.
Click here to obtain the Fox News app
Now that he’s out of Iran, Andersen said he was planning to transport the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan, and then head east to Uzbekistan. But from there, Andersen said he didn’t know where to go.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
