Epilogue
May 27 2010, 2:09 PM
In summary, it was AMAZING! Of course there was the sheer privilege of passing through all those wonderful places, one after another. And also the little obscure towns, unexpected views, things by the roadside, the people and the little conversations and encounters. A bike lets you travel fast enough that you can be always somewhere new, yet keeps you slow enough to still be immersed in the surroundings.
Being under pedal power gives you and excellent excuse to just stop. The pleasure of sitting down to rest by the road in the sun at the edge of a field of corn, lying back in the long grass, looking up through the vegetation at a blue sky, shading your eyes with your arm, breathing in and knowing there is nothing else to be done except be here. There were moments like that. Sometimes though I got caught up in the notion of having-to-be-somewhere and forgot to take these stops. And when it rained I tended to just put my head down and keep going; but it never rained long.
Being on a long trip with only three fixed points in mind (Valence, Paris and home -- I made the rest of the route up as I went along) led to experiencing an intense sense of freedom of a degree that was new to me. The realisation that plans can be change in an instant and that each point of choice --go here or go there, stop here or move on-- was entirely mine to make and would affect everything. At first I struggled with my total liberty to choose, and it was on occasion a source of anxiety. Later I learned how make the same choices without so much effort, accessing my gut feeling more readily and relaxing upon realising that there could be no really wrong choice.
The simplicity of purpose of life on the road is what I would say I appreciated most. The rhythm of the day and being largely near nature. Not just the riding, but the camping, and the falling asleep "nicely tired" and the waking each morning with the birds, wondering what the day had in store (and either there are wood pigeons everywhere, or the same one followed me).
Most of all I would say that it would be wrong to think of the trip as something focused around bikes or cycling or a challenge to go a certain distance. It's not the cycling, but the travelling that is the essence of it. The bicycle becomes a part of you and is almost forgotten.
After day upon day of new, unfamiliar places it felt both invigorating and surreal to be suddenly looking at a map with my home town on it, and soon after that to be riding past the shops at the end of my road. And there was of course a great satisfaction in arriving safely at the end, and to finish up they day enjoying Burbage's fine beer gardens on a sunny saturday afternoon. Cheers!
