In the midst of a record-setting blizzard in 1963, Dervla Murphy packed a pistol aboard Roz, her Armstrong Cadet bicycle and accomplished her first international bicycle tour - a completely self-supported solo trip from Ireland to India. In Yugoslavia, she began keeping a journal instead of mailing letters home. That journal was later published as her first book Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle. In Full Tilt, she describes her adventures through Persia, Pakistan and Afghanistan. She particularly enjoyed Afghanistan and wrote lovingly of that country.