DailyKenn.com | AbateHate.com | New Facebook Group
No, we're not all the same.
Some push the woke left's ideology to the extreme with the fervor of a Jehovah's Witness. To some, the outcome is an awakening. To others, its the literal end.
On July 29, 2018, ISIS sympathizers rammed the cyclists with a car and stabbed survivors, killing the American pair along with a Dutch and Swiss national, amid ISIS's recruitment efforts in Central Asia.
The couple's blog chronicled encounters with welcoming locals worldwide, underscoring the tragic irony of their deaths in a region where ISIS propaganda targeted foreigners to counter narratives of global goodwill.
It appears they were out to prove the world was a safe place after all. And with that bit of dogma fueling their spirits, they rode their bicycles straight through hell's gate and into the furnace of Islam
I'd forgotten about this tragedy. A post on substack jolted my memory and I decided to revisit the episode as an exclamation mark for those who understand we are not all the same and a warning to those who don't.
Your $8 monthly partner pledge helps us reach others & more ►
A Delusion of Kindness
Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan pedaled across continents with a simple creed: Humans are kind. The Washington, D.C., couple chronicled their global bike journey on their blog Simply Cycling, recounting warm welcomes from strangers in Africa, Europe and beyond. “By and large, humans are kind. Generous and wonderful and kind,” Austin wrote in one post, dismissing evil as a “make-believe concept.”
The Attack in Tajikistan
Their belief met a brutal counterpoint on July 29, 2018, along a highway south of Dushanbe. Five ISIS sympathizers in a Daewoo sedan rammed a group of seven Western cyclists, then attacked survivors with knives and an axe. Austin and Geoghegan, both 29, were killed along with René Wokke, 41, of the Netherlands, and Markus Hummel, 52, of Switzerland. Two others — a French tourist and a Swiss man — survived with injuries.
ISIS Radicalization in Central Asia
The Islamic State claimed responsibility, part of its broader strategy to recruit in Central Asia. By 2018, an estimated 2,000–4,000 Central Asians had joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Tajikistan, shaped by poverty, repression, and migration, became fertile ground for online jihadist propaganda aimed at alienated young men. The cyclists’ murder was the first attack on Western tourists in the country.
A Journey Fueled by Naivety
Austin, a vegan policy analyst from New Jersey, and Geoghegan, a Georgetown admissions officer from California, left their jobs in 2017 to explore the world on a shoestring. They traveled through South Africa, Tanzania, Morocco, Europe, Turkey, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan before entering Tajikistan’s Danghara district. They camped under open skies and shared tea with locals. Days before the attack, they wrote that they were content to “pedal where the winds and the world and our own hearts take us.”
Remembered for Gulibility
Friends described them as radiant with curiosity and warmth. “Lauren never met a stranger,” one blog contributor wrote. Fellow cyclists Nathan Beriot and Sophie Boyle remembered their “insatiable appetites for life” and honored their open-mindedness in a 2020 tribute.
Arrests and Aftermath
Tajik authorities arrested the attackers — local men led by 26-year-old Hussein Abdusamadov, a former prison guard radicalized online. Officials linked the plot to a cleric tied to banned opposition groups, though analysts saw it as grassroots ISIS sympathizing fueled by local grievances. The U.S. State Department condemned the killings as a “senseless act of terrorist violence.”
The Families’ Grief
Geoghegan’s parents remembered her “enthusiastic embrace of life’s opportunities.” Austin’s mother later sued Tajik officials, writing to one suspect that he had “given him the greatest gift — to live in peace in eternity.”
A Legacy That Endures
Their archived posts remain a digital testament to their belief in the world’s beauty. Their deaths — at the intersection of wanderlust and extremist violence — underscore the tension between openness and risk. Yet, as one tribute quoted from their blog, “There’s magic out there, in this great big beautiful world.”
-
Jay Austin, “You read the papers and you’re led to believe that the world is a big, scary place…” — Simply Cycling blog, July 13, 2018 (archived)
-
BBC News, “Tajikistan attack: Four cyclists killed by drivers who then stabbed victims” — July 30, 2018
-
Reuters, “Islamic State claims attack that kills four cyclists in Tajikistan” — July 31, 2018
-
The New York Times, “They Believed the World Was Good. Then Came a Brutal Attack in Tajikistan” — Aug. 1, 2018
-
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, “From Tajikistan To ISIS: The Path Of Hussein Abdusamadov” — Aug. 2, 2018
-
Washington Post, “D.C. couple on world bike tour among 4 killed in Tajikistan” — July 30, 2018
-
In Memory of Jay Austin & Lauren Geoghegan — official tribute site
Your $8 monthly partner pledge helps us reach others & more ►