by Danny Bent
I am left with a choice - unravel what I have taught them about green issues over the past year or ... the other choice is unthinkable. I shudder.
Just like a school sweater, I know that if I allow one thread to unravel, by lunchtime their whole education will be sitting at their feet like woolly spaghetti. Sarah, Jasper’s seating partner, drops her pencil and, as it hits the ground, I’m brought back to reality.
One statement, five words, changed my life forever: “I’m going by bicycle”.
Chapter 3
After speaking to the bewildered school in India to explain that I would be a little late, I was left with just two months to organise a trip across half the world - fifteen thousand kilometres.
I’d like to say everything was meticulously planned, with the route engrained in my mind after poring over maps into the night with only a cigar and a brandy to keep me company; with knowledge of the history, the culture, and the languages of each country I would cycle through saturating my grey matter; having erected my tent time and again whilst timing myself until I could do it blindfolded; and after spending days elbow deep in grease taking my bike and equipment to pieces and putting it back together again so I knew exactly how each and every bit should be used. However, every night until the end of term I had commitments. An open evening for new parents, class performances, orchestra, sports days, cross country club, drama club. I had no time to plan anything …. so I didn’t ….
Cotswold kindly offered to organise all my camping gear. Bicycle built me a bike that we hoped could cross mountain ranges and deserts, and handle forest floors, roads and tracks. I had some peace of mind.
* * *
On the 17th July all the teachers at school were drinking a glass or two of wine to celebrate the end of the school year, exhausted and suffering from the illnesses that a thousand sneezes and snotty noses generate. It was time for teachers to put their feet up, relax, time for holidays, lay-ins, and catching up with friends. That was all teachers but me. I was drinking to forget. I was leaving bright and early tomorrow on the expedition of a life time. I’d organised to meet friends at my local café at 7.30 the next morning for coffee and cakes which I hoped would power me on my way.
When I staggered back to my flat too many glasses of wine later, the front door lay slightly ajar. Pushing through I should have been greeted by four panniers neatly packed, my bike, and a neat pile of clothes ready for tomorrow. Instead, my possessions were everywhere, boxes had been turned upside down, drawers hung open, belongings were scattered about the floor crunching under my feet as I ventured further in. As I switched on the light I could see that my most expensive piece of kit, my tent, was missing. I held my head in my hands. Burglary?
Oh, no, no, no. Sorry to worry you. This was just the state of my affairs the night before I left. I was surrounded by unopened boxes, papers, and equipment. My tent hadn’t arrived yet. Some problems with deliveries meant it was still in the post to the Cotswolds store. They were hoping it’d arrive tomorrow and then be delivered somehow to me whilst I cycled to Dover.
By midnight nothing had moved. I was sitting on my bed sewing a present onto my shirt that a girl at school had given me. It was a tiny silver lucky star. It had already become significant to me – a symbol of hope, new beginnings, faith. For someone devoid of religious and spiritual beliefs it was strange to be putting so much trust into such a little thing. By the time the sun was rising on my first day of my new life I decided it was best to shove everything into my panniers and hope for the best, an emotion I would learn to rely on quite heavily over future days, weeks and months. I was setting off in three hours' time.
* * *
I woke after a couple of hours' sleep to my screaming alarm. I rolled over and pulled my pillow over my head.
I wanted to hide, ignore the fact that a steal framed bike christened Shirley, packed with what I hoped were all the basics that a man needed to survive in any situation, was sitting at the bottom of my bed. She was chewing at my toes ready to get on the road for the first time. I was chewing my bottom lip hoping that Scotty would beam me up.
Pulling on the Lycra I would soon become attached to – literally – I pulled the bike upright and made for the exit. I lived on the second floor and had to get Shirley down two flights of stairs. With all the baggage, it weighed about fifty kilogrammes - not far off my own weight. I tentatively dropped the front wheel over the first step before being dragged down the rest of the flight by my feisty companion, falling to a crumpled heap at the front door. My concerned neighbours opened their own doors to find out what the commotion was about. Lying at their feet was a thirty year old man pinned underneath a bicycle. Laughing, they said “Good luck, Dan”, opened the front door and shooed me out.
Friends were supposed to be coming to see me off. In the café, I was alone barring a camera man who fluttered around taking video footage of me looking awkward, scared and lonely. As the smell of roast coffee swirled through the air, my best friend from Junior School arrived with a smile that lifted my heart. She was so proud of me I realized I’d already made a difference. My chest expanded and as teachers, pupils, family and friends arrived, all dressed in pink with their bikes at the ready, I started to get excited. Could I do this?
A cheer rang through Richmond as those without bikes cheered off about fifty mad folks who’d pledged to cycle one hundred miles to Dover with me to raise awareness of the charity and show their support for what I was doing.
I’d chosen to ride the fifteen thousand kilometres for ActionAid a charity whose pledge is to “End Poverty Together”.
Within five miles we were stopping for a puncture. Not mine - my bike was still intact. I felt smug. I used the opportunity to throw sickeningly sweet energy bars and drinks down my throat, hoping these would give me the extra energy to cross the hills. Carrying all that extra weight in baggage, the hills that I’d once raced to the top of, pounding my fists as I summited first, were slow slogs. Sweat dripped off my nose onto my bike, my legs burnt as though they were laced with glass.
These, I have to mention, are hills, the highest one being two hundred meters above sea level. I would be climbing mountains more than forty times bigger than this in the coming year if everything went to plan. Friends pushed, dragged, provoked and encouraged me to get my sorry ass to the camp site where we were to rest before my ferry left in the morning.
Once there it was the first chance to air my ukulele. Others had brought guitars, drums, bells and tambourines, and we sat round a camp fire playing music and singing until it was time for us all to squeeze into our tents. Mine had been handed to me as I cycled along by the wonderful people of Cotswold who pulled out all the stops to get it to me on time. This was convenient for all those who’d forgotten their tents who now squeezed into mine.
* * *
Sunday the 19th July 2009
This was my day, the day I’d dreamed of since I was eleven, the day that changed the course of my life forever. The sun was shining, the grass shone electric green, lambs in the nearby field played gleefully under the birds that soared through the salt drenched sea air.
I crawled out of my tent looking like a monster from the deep. Swollen eyelids, tongue lolling to one side, hair encrusted because I had not showered after the gruelling ride yesterday.
Sports coaches will tell you the best way to recover from a long hard day in the saddle is protein shakes, plenty of carbohydrates, gallons of water and electrolyte to replace the lost fluid and minerals. Possibly the worst recovery is five pints of lager, pie and chips. But, quoting Bear Grylls, “Survival means doing what you have to do”.
My mouth tasted like I’d been sucking used cat litter all night and my gut rolled and gurgled. The sun's glare burnt my eyes and the beautiful noises beat against my eardrums like thrash metal. Luckily I only had a few miles to the port of Dover where my vessel awaited. She was a fine beast. The Olympic Spirit was her name, weighing in at over thirty-thousand tonnes. Her spirit rubbed off on me as we dash
ed and dived across the English Channel to take me across the seas and to my first border, to France. The start of my solo trip!
The white cliffs of Dover were drifting away engulfed by the sea mist and spray by the time I was up on deck. As the water spattered my face I knew that people were waving, so I shouted out goodbye. The sea-gulls echoed my call and carried it to my friends and loved ones waiting on the shore.
What do I do now? For the first time in two months I had nothing to do. I sat and I waited. When the boat docks my adventure really starts. I imagined the glory of it all. Riding down the plank, finding the road out of Calais and heading off into the sunset.
I did ride the plank but I couldn’t find the road I needed. I just couldn’t get out of the city. My pigeon French - “Où est ma route?” - whilst jabbing my finger at my map, got me nowhere. In response my French friends raised their shoulders in a shrug, held up their hands, stuck out their lower lips and said “Bof”.
Round and round I went. One hour after I’d arrived I was beginning to ask myself how on earth I was going to get to India? After two hours I think I’d traversed every road in the city and was beginning to ask myself if I’d even make it out of Calais.
After three hours I decided to bite the bullet and rode up onto the motorway. Cars peeped their horns, drivers showed me that my understanding of French expletives was better than that of normal conversation, and I was comforted to see that hand gestures meant the same in any language.
I didn’t care - I was on my way - until the police pulled me over and told me to leave at the next exit. They followed behind all the way with lights flashing. My first police escort!! Awesome.
Chapter 4
Waking in England, crossing France - albeit a very small section - and ending my first day in Belgium. Three countries in one day. I’d be in India by the end of the week at this rate. Surely you’d expect me to be feeling elated, pumping my fists in the air, cheering.
I rolled into a Bed and Breakfast in Poperinge with the weight of the world on my shoulders. I was down, already missing my friends and family, contemplating what I had taken on, wondering how on earth I’d keep this going for months on end. Belgium is flat and westernised; this is supposed to be the easy bit. My legs were tired, my back sore, my new seat had chafed places that shouldn’t be rubbed. I barely spoke to the kind owner as he tried to lift my spirits.
Broken, I sat on the edge of my bed staring at my reflection in the mirror on the oak-panelled wardrobe. An ashen, grimacing face returned my gaze. I turned my attention to my panniers. I needed to do something drastic.
Tipping all the kit onto the floor in front of me, I started sorting feverishly. Within an hour I’d made two piles. To my left was a pile that I deemed essential. A toy sheep (the mascot of my school given to me in my leavers’ assembly), balloons and musical instruments for the kids I would meet, ukulele, emergency chocolate, designer boxers, camera, a pick and mix of medicines and pills. To my right was the “I might need some of this, but can probably do without it” pile consisting of sections of maps, vacuum packed food, ten litre water carriers, bicycle tools and a heavy winter jacket. I gathered all of this pile in my arms and dumped it in the oh-so-small waste paper basket in my room. With my bike lighter, as the night closed in, my mood began to lift.
Embarrassed by my teenage strop the previous night, I sneaked out of the B&B without taking breakfast. A cheery wave through the double glazed window to a bemused owner of the B&B was our last interaction. I was on the road to Germany. I whizzed over a little rise (probably Belgium’s biggest hill) and whooshed down the other side. It was a Monday, start of a new week, start of a new me, I needed to get some grub in my belly and to fill my water bottle and then I would be set for adventures beyond my dreams. Today was a commemoration - the ascension to the throne of Belgium's first king, Leopold I, and hence was a bank holiday.
Contrary to the consumerist markets in London, all shops were closed. I began to regret the cuts I had made last night as the sun beat down on my head and a continuous trickle of sweat dripped off my nose. I was getting very thirsty and hungry. I’d already eaten my emergency chocolate and I was dreaming of the hog we’d roasted two weeks previously to raise money for my charity at a local pub. The further I went, the tighter my tongue stuck to the top of my mouth. Streams ran along beside the road swollen from the nightly rainfall that would follow me across Europe. The water was starting to look tempting when at last I saw a neon ‘open’ sign in the distance. Hallelujah.
The bright colourful lights contrasted with the secluded, traditional village setting. My mouth salivated at the thought of downing litres of fizzy sweet drink and raiding shelves stacked with goodies. As I drew closer I noticed that the lights not only proclaimed that the shop was open but also that it was ‘erotic’ and sold magazines and DVDs. I stopped far enough away for people not to confuse me with someone considering going in.
A stereotypical man left the establishment wearing a beige mac, his face adorned with thick horn-rimmed glasses that magnified his eyes giving him a look of a goggle-eyed marsupial with his day's facial hair and a paper bag under his arm. My hunger and thirst made me question whether the shop sold chocolate willies and taurine energy drinks proclaiming that it ‘keeps you up all night’. I didn’t pluck up the courage to enter and find out.
Another hour of steady cycling to preserve my dwindling energy supplies and I came across a greengrocers which was open. The marrows and aubergines made me giggle after my previous experience of shops in Belgium; a good sign that my senility was already wavering. The owner filled my panniers with all sorts of sweet and savoury foods and pointed me in the direction of a camp site. I was looking forward to rustling up something special on my camp stove. I’d brought a stove that burns with any liquid fuel – at a pinch I was assured that even Russian vodka could be used to boil up a brew.
Having been told time and again to try the camp stove before I left, I found myself trying to light it for the first time. The instructions were still sitting on my sideboard at home. I’d pitched my tent between the caravans and a large tent housing a number of German families. The evergreen branches sheltered it from the setting sun, and the birds and animals in the forest gave me a real feel of wild camping. Attaching the fuel bottle, I sat it on the grass. This has got to be easy. Right? Turn it on and put a match to it.
Turning the nozzle I tried one match after another. I could hear the hissing of fuel. It just wouldn’t go up. The German family watched on; I could feel the pressure. Maybe I’d filled it with unleaded and it was supposed to be diesel. I did that to my mum's car once and managed to get one mile down the road before the engine seized up and we (read: Mum) were slapped with a £2,000 bill for cleaning it. Back at the camp site, unbeknownst to me, the petrol was leaking all over the floor, running between my legs and over my equipment. I tried one last match which hit the right spot. A large fire ball that could have roasted another hog erupted into the air. In fact it might have done – the trees around were scorched, my maps were charred and my leg hair was burnt.
Once they’d stopped giggling I was assured by one of the campers that it made me look more like a shaven-legged Tour de France rider. The tour was coming to a close about now (Contador had put the hammer down leaving Lance Armstrong struggling on the Alpine Mountains for second place).
Eating raw veggies and dipping bread into a Bolognaise tomato sauce, I made a decision not to use the stove again until I had managed to access the great World Wide Web to find instructions on how to use it. I’d had a narrow escape. I later learnt that my stove is much more effective when it is turned the right way up.
On the bike I tried to keep my spirits high by waving at anyone who passed by, encouraging the feeling that I was living my dream. The countryside also took a turn for the better. Belgium’s row upon row of housing estates gave way to rows of pine coniferous trees releasing their pungent warming holiday smell and rivers weaving in and out of fields of wheat, swaying
to the beat of my pedal pushing.
These gave way to the claret red poppy fields, symbols of the bloodshed of the First World War. In these fields ninety-five years ago the German army swept through, costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of men. Many more thousands had to watch friends die, mown down by machine gun fire or picked off with primitive rifles. Their blood and guts filled the gaps between the flowers.
I tried to recite 'In Flanders Fields', a poem I studied at school, written by Colonel John McCrae after he witnessed the death of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer:
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow,
Besides the crosses, row on row….”
I began adding the occasional made up word or line to complete the verse and ended with some original lyrics of my own.
These men were true heroes, every one of them, giving their lives for the safety of women and children. Very different to the wars of today where families are deprived of friends, family, brothers, and lovers to aid oil prices and continue the lucrative arms trade.
* * *
A young spotted dear jumped out of the deep woodland beside me, bounding along beside my bike before turning and dashing back into the undergrowth.
I was now in Germany. I’d crossed the famous Belgium-Germany border with only a stone Belgian in uniform left to guard the crossing which had once been the most strictly enforced frontier in Europe (in the early 1900s). Europe was flying by. Looking at a map to see if it was really true that I had covered four countries in six days, it became obvious that I had barely begun. Europe is so small. Germany, the biggest country in Western Europe, is minute compared with the ex-Soviet and Asian countries I’d have to cycle through.
