Bike Wheels on a Gravel Road

Sometimes, we all need a kick up the arse. When motivation is low, when the feeling of the full force of the wind is just a distant memory, when the things that used to motivate you are now merely part of what makes you feel jaded and lifeless we need a spark to launch us headlong in a new direction and to give us back that sense of joy we spend our lives chasing.

And so it was that I spent November sat on the sofa feeling sorry for myself. Since I was sixteen, cycling had been my passion in life. It had, countless times, literally got me out of bed in the morning. Traditionally, November is the time that my season takes shape, I enter events, I plan training for them and I start to mentally plot my route to my goals. Last year, it wasn’t happening. I didn’t care anymore.

In 2016, I published a book, I quit one terrible job and started a new, scary and demanding, but enjoyable job, I moved house… the combination of all of these seemed to blow some sort of fuse in my mind and all through the autumn it was impossible to throw myself into any challenge with any intensity or enthusiasm.  I couldn’t even get kitted up and go out and ride. In hindsight, there was a bad cold, there was a Labrador-precipitated knee injury but I think in all honesty I was just tired of feeling that every day was about pushing myself.  I rode my bike three times for a total of 135km.

I decided to give myself something to focus on and, being a person who struggles with the concept of proportionality, completed an entry form for the Transcontinental Race, a 4,000km self-guided route that mandates that participants must carry everything they need and accept no outside help in a rush from Geraadsbergen to Greece. Up until that point I’d given no thought at all to the logistics of such an event. I didn’t know about modern bike luggage, I hadn’t camped since I was a kid (and had no desire to) but the simplicity of the event spoke to me. I loved the idea that for 90% of the riders, the race would merely be one of personal challenge. Even if you were fighting for the win there was no prize. Lastly, it seemed to be an outpost of the sport populated by what my Dad once called “introverted weirdoes” which was largely untouched by “The industry”.

I started to plan my route, based on the checkpoints provided by the organiser. I started researching gear, I got super motivated to train again and dug out my turbo trainer. I even used it three times a week with two longer rides at weekends and all the while I was refreshing my e-mail waiting for what I knew would come… my golden ticket, my acceptance to a race that can only award places to 15% of those who want them. It was my destiny, after all, the narrative of salvation was too strong for the universe to deny, surely. I would go and ride across Europe on my own and I’d meet this person and we’d bond through the trials and pain and I’d get to quite like him and that person would be… me. Cheesy, Hollywood crap designed to lift my flagging spirits. Just after New Year, whilst me and my wife sat in a bar in Gent (whisky for me, G&T for the lady), I got the word. No ride.

So there I was, with a fire lit in my heart, with a  new way of looking at cycling and a renewed motivation and no outlet. Well, not quite. On a car journey back from an insane pre-Christmas Alley Cat race in the Ardennes when, frozen, hungry and unfit, I’d bailed with 30km left to the finish, Bart was talking about his plans for the year and the French Divide came up. I’d never heard of it but an unsupported 2,100km from the Channel Coast to the Spanish border off road sounded crazy. It sounded impossible. It sounded frankly scary. He also talked about keeping chickens, so this could have gone in a completely different direction.

 

Over the years I’ve honed a theory that if something is both exciting and scary, you should probably do it. It’s due to this approach that I’ve gotten married, obtained numerous dogs and emigrated to Belgium. Sure, it doesn’t always work out but it keeps things interesting and this is what I think, stripped of all pretence and cycling motivation, is what appealed to me about the French Divide and the whole bikepacking thing in the first place. I want to keep having adventures. I want to keep trying to do things that I’m not sure I can see through.

In our house, the Divide is simply referred to now as “The Adventure”. I bought a sleeping bag. I bought a cross bike (my previous one having been pilfered by Gent’s thriving bike thief subculture). I bought loads of nylon luggage that velcros on to the cross bike. In the past I was always disdainful of bike touring, it seemed a slow and cumbersome way to enjoy the bike and an uncomfortable and limited way to enjoy a holiday. Now I think I get it. Or at least, I know what I want to achieve with it. This isn’t about racing. It’s about getting from the start to the finish as quickly as I can whilst enjoying the ride and some scenery I haven’t experienced before. It’s not about beating people or even competing with them, it’s about the shared experience of all 150 of us being out there alone but together.  

I think when the neurons start firing like that it can’t help but impact other areas of your life and I’m hauling myself out of that funk that we came in on. I started coaching (cycling of course, I’m massively unqualified to advise anyone on anything else), I started playing music again and, as you can see, I even started writing again. Not to see things in print, not to have my name on something, not for money but for the joy of it.

The scene set, I hope to be able to communicate some of what gets me to and hopefully through the Divide in August.