Summer had started 2 weeks earlier, and I had promised myself not to spend another season locked up in an office. So I finally hedged my bets, quit my 9 to 5 job working as a trailer editor, and a day later embarked on a journey to cycle from London to Frankfurt.
I had prepared a little, in hindsight way too little, but I had bought a large travellers back pack, and my house mates had equipped me with a sleeping bag, matts, camping stoves and whatever else they could scrape together.
735 km was the distance, with an 8 hour ferry ride from Harwich to the Hook of Holland in-between. The day to leave had come, it was the 17th of July 2011. My italian house mate, much wiser then myself, said two things I should have listened to. First was “eh, what abouta your ass?” What about it, I said. He insisted I get one of those pads that makes cyclists look like they’re on their period, and I thought, no way! It’ll be ok.
My ass would be fine.
The second point was, “You have aqua jaquette?” I didn’t. Living in england for 5 years I had developed the bizarre superstition that if you pretend the weather is good, it will be. So I embarked, full of fear and joy, all on my lonesome, wearing jeans and a sweater. Little did I know I was riding into England’s wettest summer since 1955.
30 minutes into my journey, I had taken a wrong turn, and the map (a google maps print out) was seeping ink. I had asked for it, so I continued, and somehow it was the right direction. A few km into the journey I bought a road map from a petrol station and made my way direction Chelmsord. I was gonna get to Harwich (110 km) at the end of my first day, catch the ferry 0930 the next morning.
The rain never stopped that day. My jeans and sweater stuck to my body as I cycled through puddle after puddle, droplets clung to my glasses so long I thought the road was bubbly, and children laughed as their driving parents sped passed and sprayed me just that little bit wetter.
Chelmsford was 20 miles east of Hackney, where I had started. I thought, “sure, 2 hours will get me there”, but it took a good 5. My legs were starting to burn a little, but I could hack it, and so I continued.
Full of naive ambition I finally made it to Chelmsford, and found a petrol station. I warmed myself at the heated pastry section. After half an hour pretending I really couldn’t choose between a cheese pasty or a steak pie the cashier conspicuously cleared his throat with two rhyming syllables; ho-bo.
I was fine I thought, a bit cold, but rested. The cashiers’ accusation had inspired me, and I now had a bin bag as a rain jacket. Minutes later my legs started burning, as if out of fuel, but I pushed onwards, my head spinning with the thought, “only 700 km to go, just keep pedalling.”
After Chelmsford, I was headed for Colchester, apparently England’s oldest city, and it was only another 30 km. I hit a round-about that split four ways, and I merrily follow the signs.
The road widened, and steepened, and I heard loud rushing sounds in the distance. VOOM! I was rolling onto the A12.
Car after car was rushing passed at 70-90 miles an hour. I stood meters away from it thinking, shit-shit-shit. I wheeled a few cm forward, and then few more back. I could do this right? I’ll just ride on the safety lane. Damn it! I shook my head, trying to stir up some sense as if my brain was a snow globe in which the flakes had long since settled to the bottom.
Google maps had made it look like I could ride along the A12 on some parallel route, almost all the way to Colchester. I was wrong, and certainly hadn’t seen the fine print I see now which reads “Use caution – This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths”
I know what your thinking; “this guy isn’t very smart…” Well you’re right, it was far from my brightest moment, but in a way I wanted this. My bike was shoddy, my preparation worse, but I wanted an adventure, and god was I getting one. I still have flashes of the journey every day, and its October now. My grandfather dreamed about his time in World War 2 until the day he died. I guess I’ve developed a similar lingering trauma.
Anyway there I was, drenched, done, lying in damp grass, back at a roundabout that seemed to go nowhere but the A12; dual carriage-way of sure and sudden cyclist death. I sucked on a Power-aid as if it would comfort me, but it didn’t, and I had to continue.
They say England is flat, and it is, until you decide to cycle across it. I had to go around the A12, and it was the beginning of a long diversion. Google maps says it 75 miles to Harwich, or 110 km. Metric system or imperial, either way, if you can’t fly or tunnel straight through, it’s more then that. So there I was, trying to cycle to some little village called Little Baddow, and although the rain had faded, there was no sunshine ahead.
Little Baddow was a little hill, and was preceded my Big Baddow, a big hill. I remember thinking it must have been a wealthy area. I remember 2 couples in there mid thirties coming out of a mansion with a big twirling drive way. They had a little snivelling Chihuahua, which had a better hair cut then I did 7 days a week. At this point the little rat was also much cleaner then myself even if it would defecate in the grass, roll in it, and lick its genitals. I caught the rich couples giving me a quick dirty glance which made me feel like I was a shit specked dog myself. What did I care, I was worried about the next hill that was atop another hill, and my legs, aw my legs…
Thankfully, what goes up, comes down, and at the top of Little Big Baddow, was a long descent, so I rested on my bike like a cowboy who could sleep on a galloping horse. The hill ended, suddenly all houses were gone, and I was in the middle of an endless field. I tried pedalling a bit more, but I soon capsized into the wheat, shivering as the wind licked my damp clothes. I was starving and all I had was a can of Bertolly beans. Time to use my mini stove, heat them bastards up and eat. But of course, the gas canister, which in the store seemed to fit the nozzle so well, was actually not a fit. Damn I thought, and took out my knife. I stabbed that can of beans as if it was trying to kill my family and slurped the raw buggers for every last kilojoule. For a moment I had to think of Brad Pitt eating dog food in Seven Years in Tibet, but that only made me hungrier.
I was a few km outside Witham, rolling down some main road next to a train track. It was hardly 30 minutes later, the rain had started again and my legs just wanted to hang and dry. I finally saw an open corner shop, in the middle of nowhere, dropped my bike, my bag, my drenched map and hobbled inside. My brain was on auto pilot, and I snatched Haribo packets, energy drinks, chocolate raisins, and anything sweet I could get my hands on. Then I sat outside and lunched on my Haribo diet till I felt sick, but somewhat replenished. My legs started to twitch, as if a little life was coming back, and eventually I got back on my purple bicycle, and continued, until I thought, “stop kidding yourself, its time to find a place to sleep!”.
I meandered along country roads, climbing into shrubbery here and there, searching for that obscure place I could set up camp. Eventually I found a park that had a long winding path that led into a dark forrest. A few meters in, empty beer cans and wrappers indicated the local youth liked to drink here. No good, I needed to go further in. Then needles and used condoms indicated that a different kind of youth partied here at night, and I knew I didn’t want to encounter them either, so I went deeper. All signs of human presence faded, the roots and bushes grew so thick I fantasised about a machete, and there I found a spot. An uprooted tree had grown into a sort of branch and root covered hut. I would climb in there, set up my tent, be safe, dark and stowed away deep in the forrest.
My friend once told me he camped in a forrest at night, and that he’d never do it again because the sounds scared him half to death. Back then I thought, “what a sucker !” But now his words were ringing in my head. It was 7ish, the sun was crawling to sleep, and the sounds were already scaring me. There were no people, but spiders, and eventually foxes, and birds that had a talent of being heard and never seen, and they weren’t chirping, they were screaming. And so I screamed too, on the inside, out of fear and much much more, and climbed back out of that forrest before the night banished me to it anyway.
So I set up camp in the residential park instead. An old man walking his Chihuahua stopped when he saw me. The dog took the opportunity to defecate in plain sight, and the pair stared at me as the old man scooped it up, as if it to say “we crap on you!”
I ignored them and continued setting up my tent. I hung my clothes on the bushes because they stank, tried to lock my bike to the tent, but the rain and mud of the day had jammed my the lock, so I tucked it under the tent, hoping I would feel it if someone tried taking it. I had my knife by my side just incase.
I could feel a cough developing, and I thought to myself, “this is pathetic, I’m not even gonna make it out of England” or worse, “what if I got pneumonia?”,
What if I died one day into the trip? Damn, they would surely laugh at my funeral. I know I would.
DAY 2
I woke up the next morning as the sun was creeping over the horizon, and the dew was clinging to the grass. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, put my glasses on, and when my vision focused, I saw my bike was gone. Damn it!
Part of me was relieved, but the other part of me was dreading the shame at the end of this road. I packed up my stuff, found new resolve in the fresh morning sun, and decided to walk to Frankfurt instead. Only another 650 km to go.
A mile down the road it started raining again, and my mind was changed: “Screw it, I’m hitch hiking”. I stuck out my thumb and hoped for a quick fix. Instead of a spacious car with a friendly driver, a scruffy young man on a purple bike whizzed passed me. He didn’t have a rain coat, and wasn’t wearing an ass pad. What a fool I thought, “I hope your ass hurts as much as mine does.”
THE END