Time this article was written : One am, in a fit of night-owl enthusiasm. Kilos: 85kg (that’s minus two*). Cigarettes: none, but then I don’t smoke; Alcohol units: 15; Injures: too many to compute at the moment; Number of near misses while cycling the steed: one, a spectacularly dangerous manoeuvre by a yummy mummy on a roundabout in Chiswick, presumably as she hurried off to lunch; she pulled up on my left to wait for traffic and then set off onto the roundabout at the same time as me, brazenly turning right across my path over the white circle. (She ‘waved’, just possibly in apology, but more likely in a wafty dismissal).
Over the years I have quite often found myself writing something along these lines. …This is how adventure is made. “Sure, you say”, to some barmy idea, possibly while in the pub, “I’ll have a bit of that. Let’s do it”, leaving yourself to consider the consequences and the raw challenge at your leisure... But you’ve done it now, and for all the best reasons in the world, there’s no backing out. And the jeopardy has just begun.
The Adventure? The laser-beam that lanced the voice in the night? A cycle ride. A bike-packing race, from Krakow to Tarifa. Eastern Poland to the southernmost point in Spain. 4300 kilometres in all. I signed up the next morning. And now I am wondering what I have let myself in for. An old knacker who wants to get out there again, relive his youth… This isn’t endurance in action, it’s gerontology going bonkers. A sort of rallying cry for the superannuated. Could it be… could it really be… (I am sure there’s a joke in here somewhere…) Gerontimo…!?
What a dream, though: to cross Europe under my own power, from heart-stoppingly pretty Krakow lost in the northern Slavic forests, whistling through the Tatra, rolling up Magyar flatlands and briefly touching Slav territory once more as we broach the eastern Alps. And then to the emerge into the lands of the romance, first flying through northern Italian reaches, battling Provencal hills, bypassing the fleshpots of the Cote d’Azur, then over the Pyrenees and into Spain, where a long Latin haul will carry us to the very southern tip of Europe… For more information, see the course of 45-SW here.
And bike-packing, you ask? Well, more later on what it actually involves, but it‘s a fairly new format of competition, a sort of cycle-touring on speed (or at least speed is the general idea), gradually emerging from the lunatic fringe. There are three or four major races this year, each with 200 or 300 entrants, including the North Cape 4000 (from northern Italy to Europe’s northern tip), the Transcontinental (Belgium to eastern Greece) and South-West 45.
Which is looming over me rather threateningly just now… I shudder as I think of all the things I need to get into place: sharpening up the fitness, sorting the logistics, getting the bicycle checked over and repaired… getting myself checked out and repaired…. In order - visits to James the physio (and a gait analyst as it turns out), to a ‘bike fit’ specialist, and many, many visits to bike shops … train, train, stretching, train… Kit, kit, physio, kit… It’ll go on and on. There will barely be any time for the work I cannot get. It feels so out of control that frankly getting to the start will be enough of a challenge… And then… Oh, just 4300 kilometres to complete, as fast as I can go... I have no idea if I will make it. But… Gerontimo!
And here lies a pleasurable irony. Crucially, because exercise helps with sleep, all that physical endeavour, the miles pedalled in fresh air, the lean and overworked muscles sending signals of repair, repair, repair, will leave me feeling deliciously exhausted each night. I will sleep the sleep of the deeply depleted and The Voice in the Night will simply be banished.
* With apologies to Bridget Jones, particularly this notion.