I have spoken to many people on a similar path of world exploration by bicycle or otherwise, and I can safely say, although we all come from different directions, we have all converged on one single point. It’s that point where all the dreaming, study and longing for adventure combine in a realisation that if one does not try to make it a reality the regret will stay with you forever. You will never know what could have been. This is the point that unifies everyone who has chosen to leave their families, jobs and easy way of life behind to see what they are capable of. We are all driven by a fear of regret. I can’t tell you how universal this is.
I was no different. Beginning to think seriously about this trip at Christmas 2023. I jokingly mentioned it to my sister around the same time and it got a similar response to many other fanciful ideas I would throw out and wasn’t taken very seriously. Deciding to go quiet on my plan until I was fully committed, this was both to protect myself if I didn’t follow through and so as not to be talked out of it by anyone but myself. I knew that the best time to leave the UK would be between mid-April to the end of June four or five months away, the clock was ticking. I began obsessively researching every aspect, from the route to the gear and visas. The more books I read and films I watched the closer I got to that realisation that, if not now, when. And just like that, I’d convinced myself that I had to try for fear of regretting it for the rest of my life.
For what happened next I was not prepared for. So when you sit down with your family soon after your twenty-third birthday around the end of February and tell them that you’re going to cycle to Istanbul, I wasn’t going to propose the full plan as the chance of failure was far too high, they don’t tell you it’s not possible. Instead, they ask you a bunch of very detailed questions and you quickly realise, despite your research, you do not have a fucking clue what the answers are. Scary to be confronted with your lack of knowledge having just committed to such a massive challenge. But getting used to being scared is part of the course.
Now my family were not the first people I told. The first was Jack, my saint of a friend and flatmate. This man had been putting up with my crazy escapades for a long time, from me washing my mud-covered bike in the bath of our cramped third-floor flat to hanging tents from the Velux windows for days on end. If there was anyone who wasn’t surprised by my new plan it was him and he was fully supportive. Despite this meaning he would likely have to find a new place to live. What a guy, but as far as my other friends were concerned, they were in the dark and would be until a mere couple of weeks before I left. The last big one was my boss, an off-the-wall Frenchman. Who after I’d explained my plan in the pub told me the story of when he, at a similar age to me travelled through the Sahara desert in a convoy of Landrovers. The guy understood. That was it. Once you’ve told your family, friends and your boss you are in, whether you like it or not, you’ve committed. It is both terrifying and exhilarating.
My proposed start date was around the end of May but was moved forward to the 4th of May so I could meet a friend in Split, Croatia on the 26th. This gave me twenty-two days to cover a distance of nearly two thousand kilometres. If I could pull it off I’d be rewarded with a week’s holiday and a big confidence boost. I’m going to do a whole separate post on what I packed and how that has changed but by April it was pretty well fine-tuned. The last thing was to have a bit of a send-off party. Jack did a great job getting all of my nearest and dearest into my favourite pub for a knees-up concluding in my hair being ceremonially removed in our living room at 7am the next day.
I went to stay at home for a few days before I left and it wasn’t long until the 4th rolled around, the bike was in the car and it was almost time to get pedalling. I don’t really remember much from that morning. I remember swapping a couple bits of gear last minute and swearing I’d forgotten something, but once I was in the car, it had begun. It was a two-hour drive to Dover. Once there I assembled my bike in a car park, with the locals asking what I was doing and my parents watching on. Then it was time to say the last goodbyes and I was off, it was as unspectacular as that.
England – Luxemburg (stage one)
After getting down to the Dover seafront I had a little stare out to sea, contemplating what I was about to embark on. It was only a few minutes before I was snaking my way through the queues of cars, lorries and buses up to the UK border, my first border of the trip. I’d passed through this border by car a few months prior and the process was no different. I was instructed to check in at another building where the loading procedure was explained and I was told which lane to wait in. With the spring sun shining I chatted with some German bikers who were heading home after a short trip. Before long we cyclists, as there were five of us now, saddled up and began to wiggle our way along the painted lines and up into the hull of the giant ship, me following behind, clearly the greenest of the group. Upon reaching the bow we crammed our bikes into corners and lashed them to ladders and water pipes before settling in upstairs.
My arrival on the European continent was greeted with lashing rain. As we stood straddling our bikes at the foot of the ramp we all looked up as the rain began to flood through the steadily widening gap. But, with a gesture from a high vis we set off. I remember the moment when I rolled off the ship and just like that, all the nerves and worries I’d had just disappeared. Just like that. The hardest part was over, I’d started, and now all I had to do was keep going. I followed the old hands as we worked our way out of the port avoiding motorway slip roads and train tracks set into the ashfelt that would throw you off if you give them half the chance. We slowly spread out as we moved east along the coast until I was alone. Well not exactly alone. I was following a coastal cycle path along the dunes and every five hundred meters or so I would run into a huddle of men with radios. People smugglers. They would nod and move aside to let me pass. I was shocked at the scale and apparent openness of their operations but they gave me no trouble so I pushed on. Before long I was in Belgium, three countries in one day, not bad going. I settled into a rhythm for the rest of the day and as the evening drew in I started looking for a place to wild camp. With Belgium being so flat and open it was hard to find a good spot and I settled for a patch of grass next to a water treatment plant. Not glamorous but, such was life now.
The following few days consisted of canal paths, intermittent rain and a realisation that when it comes to Sundays, Europe is still stuck in the dark ages with nothing but the odd corner shop being open. In the afternoon of the 7th of May, I climbed out of a misty valley and saw the towering buildings of Luxemburg in the distance. I had done it. I’d finished my first pre-determined stage. Part of my timetable that I had designed to get me to Split on the 26th. I was on track, this was a good start. I would rest up in Luxemburg for a couple days. Stripping and checking the bike for any early signs of trouble as I built what would become my routine for rest stops.
