Banbury to Brussels: Small steps, but all in the right direction

Tuesday 29th April - Saturday 3rd May

So this was it. The dream dreamt up over 2 years ago was now a reality and here I was: ready to leave my friends, family, job and everything else you could care to mention for the next year to follow the stupid idea of trying to cycle to Vietnam.
In my mind I had expected the moment at which I left to be the boiling point of my emotions; the point where I realised where I`d bitten off more than I could chew, the point I realised I didn`t know enough about the bike, the point I realised I was too scared to even try. In reality this didn`t happen and I left feeling strangely relaxed; Sure I was underprepared but then again I had always known that, and the following year alone would give me plenty of time to learn all I needed to know.

No, this was it, definetely time to go and after having planned to set off around 9ish I eventually left the driveway at 12 to set off for one more trip through town, saying my final goodbyes, then off out the otherside with the destination for the day being Woodley and a night at my cousins. I had done the ride before and it would be a nice easy 60 miles to ease into the tour - oh how wrong I was. The day was an utter disaster. The moment I left Banbury the skies opened and for the next 5 hours when I´d hoped my mind would have been away dreaming of stunning foreign beaches, long hot summers in Central Asia and how it would feel if I actually achieved everything I set out to, I was instead left with the depressing realisation that the waterproofs I had which I`d bought 5 years ago for a trip to Morocco (did we seriously need those?) weren`t up to scratch and at the same time trying to work out just how far away the frequent bolts of lightning were. It also began to click that maybe, just maybe, a bit of fitness training wouldn`t have gone amiss.

I struggled through Bicester, struggled through Thame, pushed the bike up Christmas Common (to be fair its a bloody big hill) and began the decent into Henley. In the 15 miles or so leading to Henley I was so sure there was something wrong with my back wheel that I was to preoccupied to notice that my front tyre was losing pressure. Pulling away from traffic lights, just 4 miles from my destination and the tyre was gone. As luck would have it I had punctured right outisde the canoe club where James and his friend were headed, so instead of fixing it by the roadside I gave him a call and he picked me up in his truck and I was left to reflect on a day where not only had a cheated on the cycling front already, but the weather, the toughness and the bike itself had all hammered it further into me just how hard this was going to be.

After a warm shower, a hot meal and a good nights sleep all seemed right with the world again and leaving the next morning (still in the pouring rain) my spirits were back up again as I headed off on the 35 miles to Kingston. Its a frustrating distance 35 miles, not far enough to warrant a full day assigned to it but not short enough to think it can be done in an hour or so, and the day became even more frustrating when a `navigational malfunction` took me down 400 metres of the M40. I was only there for around half a minute, but even in high-vis jacket the M40 in the pouring rain its not something I ever want to do again! Eventually arriving in Kingston after 2 and a half hours, I spent the rest of the day getting my final innoculations, catching up with old friends and more importantly, buying some better waterproofs, before heading off for what should only been a couple of beers, but ended at 5 in the morning and as result left me to leave the next morning 3 hours late, a monstrous hangover and only 2 hours sleep.

I was shattered but what had to be done, had to be done and I set off for Dover. More rain, more thunder and more bike problems, this time with a mud guard which hadn`t been properly screwed on. My logic had been that as Kingston was a couple of hundred metres above sea level, getting down to Dover would be an easy downhill ride. Yet again I was proved very wrong. By the time I got to Sevenoaks at least the rain had stopped, but I was struggling with the hills and eventually gave up for the night after 72 miles, just outside of Wye, but the tests for the day didn`t end there - I needed to sleep.

The first night wild camping was, in short, petrifying. I had found a spot just up a bank where I knew I couldn’t be seen from the road, I was sure of that, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t vulnerable. I slept with one eye open, every noise amplified by a million, whilst in my mind every car that drove past was coming for me. For the next 8 hours I wished I had never seen 28 Days Later.

Of course, nobody found me and I was up and out the next morning, even satisfied with myself enough to cook a breakfast of noodles accompanied with coffee (note to self, next time I’m buying water to cook with, don’t buy flavoured water) and I set off on the final 20 miles to Dover.

The sun was out, my legs were warming to the idea of constant exercise and a part of me loved having the morning to myself. Until I then arrived in Elham, where I stopped to check my directions only to hear from the field across the road the voice of man who I hadn’t seen until he shouted across.
“Are you lost?”
“No.” In my defence I really wasn’t.
“Where are you going?” he said, as by now he’d walked over to join me.
“Swingfield”, I said, “I think its right up here into the village and then turn left.”
“NO.”
He cut in, short, sharp and with a condescending air of discipline in his voice as if I was a guilty school boy who had just kicked a football through one of his windows. Without asking he grabbed the map from my hands, me with a somewhat bewildered look on my face at what was going on and still not fully switched on as it was 8 in the morning.
He studied the map for a good 30 seconds. “Hmmm, no, hmmm, no, what you want to do is go right up here into the village, and then turn left just after the shops. That’s how you get to Swingfield.” And with that he gave me back the map and walked off.
Feeling rather bemused by it all I was back on the bike and shortly in to Dover and aboard the 12.05 ferry to Calais.

On a quick side note, in a day and age when a return train from Banbury to London costs £55, a bus in London costs £2 for a single and Gordon Brown’s Tax Dictatorship means petrol is expected to cost £1.50 by September, how great is it to get a ferry to France for me and the bike for £12?

It felt good to leave England. I’d never cycled much on the continent before but getting to France was like cycling in a different world: drivers were giving way for me, there were well maintained cycle paths along every road and instead of having abuse shouted at me for no reason, the locals seemed interested in the bike. I was in my own small part of heaven.

Celebrating the fact I’d made it out of England by stopping at the first Patisserie I saw, I spent the next half an hour basking in the sun before setting off along the French Coast, through Dunkerque before realising the map I’d bought on the ferry was pretty much useless. I thought I’d done well in finding a map which specialised in Northern France and Belgium but only after I’d made it to Dunkerque did I realise it only showed main roads, and it didn’t show all of them. I spent the next hour travelling in what I thought was the right direction, only to end up on another motorway. None of the places I was visiting were on my map, none of the roads lead to anywhere that was on my map and to top it all off it was starting to get dark. After leaving the town of Hondschoote and crossing into Belgium I was well and truly lost, but seeing lights I headed for the town up ahead. I won’t repeat the words I said when I saw the place name Veurne, but needless to say they weren't said in celebration. I had effectively drawn a massive ‘S’ on the map between myself and the town of Leper that I was aiming for, adding around 30 miles to my journey. It was now half nine, darkness was setting in and what was worse was not only was I in a town I didn’t want to be in, I couldn’t find my way out. Signposts lead to nowhere, cycle paths stopped suddenly without warning and I meandered over several level crossings before finally getting to the main road I was looking for 45 minutes later, by which time it was pitch black.

I stopped to evaluate the situation. Ok, its pitch black, your stressed and you’ve spent the last 4 hours going in circles. But on the plus side, the bikes fine, its not raining for once and, as much as you don’t trust your map, your now only 90 miles from Brussels and at the start of a road which goes all the way to the centre of Brussels meaning theoretically it’s impossible to get lost. Hell, even the grounds as flat as a pancake meaning the riding was easy.

It was at this point I made the decision to ride through the night to get to Brussels. 90 miles? At an average of 15 miles an hour? So that’s 6 hours, be there by 6 am at the latest I thought. Easy.
Of course I’m sure you can see the theme by now, and that I of course would not be arriving in Brussels for 6 am. I made it to Leper, only stopping once on the way to check the map. During this stop a local had stopped his car to see where I was going and if I was alright, he thought I was crazy for trying it but left with the advice ‘Be careful, this roads dangerous’. He needn’t have worried as for the next 30 miles I had the pleasure of a fantastically well maintained tarmac cycle path, well away from but parallel to the road and the miles were flying off the back wheel. I passed through several small towns that night, all unique in there own way but all connected by the mutual point of having a mass graveyard for victims of the two wars, a depressing reminder of the history of the area.

Shortly after leaving Menen I realised I couldn't go through the night, so stopped for an hours rest only to wake up absolutely covered in slugs. Now very slimey, cold and incredibly smelly, I found it impossible to get back to sleep so I carried on, only now road markers had appeared counting down the distance to Brussels: All this effort and I was still 80 kilometres from my destination. But still, I had no choice, I carried on as the sun rose, the breaks from riding becoming more frequent and the amount of food I was eating becoming more and more before eventually my body crashed.

I had just left Oudenaarde and was on a quiet piece of country lane and I stopped, propped the bike up against a tree and stopped for what was supposed to be 5 minutes rest. Body aching and eye lids drooping, I was out like a light. The next thing I know I was woken up by a Mum who was doing the school run. She had stopped her car after seeing a guy flat out on the pavement next to a bicylce and had ran over to see if I was ok. With me somewhat embarrassed to have fallen asleep in such a stupid place I reassured her I was ok and that I was grateful for her stopping, but not in need of medical attention.

I knew now I had to move, but my body was struggling so instead I moved into a more upright position to make it look more like I was resting as opposed to being the knackered heap of bones I truly was. It didn’t work, whilst no-one else stopped, the noise that I could hear getting closer was a siren. ‘It won’t be for me’ I told myself, but then why was it getting closer? Please dear God don’t be for me. It was. Someone had seen me, not bothered to stop to see if I was alright but had called me an ambulance. Seriously.
The siren was now about 100 metres away: That got me up, I was on my feet again and stood by the bike as the paramedics approached.
“You called the ambulance”
“No, I have no phone”
We stood for a few minutes scratching our heads, me apologising for what had happened and the men wondering who would call them out for something like this.

Needless to say, I left very quickly, an overriding feeling of guilt and shame that I’d let my own fatigue waste the time of others. But the fatigue didn’t go away. I was still 55 kilometres away before a puncture wasted another half an hour of my time and at 4 o’clock in the afternoon I was still 20 kilometres away.

These final 20 were painful. My body was aching, my eyes were tired and god knows where the sun had come from but it was focusing right on me. The earlier puncture had torn the tyre meaning on top of this I had no spares. The final 20 km took 2 hours but when I saw the sign saying welcome to Brussels there was nothing that could hide my excitement: I had made it, the first leg was over and I found a hostel and settled down for two nights well earned rest.

In just 5 days I had made the 340 miles from Banbury to Brussels. Looking back it had been a baptism of fire which had involved bike problems, extreme weather at both ends of the spectrum and the first night of wild camping, not to mention my poor map reading making a difficult journey even harder. But what excited me was that I had done it and whilst I had been pushed, I knew I was nowhere near my limits. I had proved to myself I had the stomach for this fight, I could solve the problems my bike would throw at me and I could live if I didn’t find somewhere to comfortable to spend the night.

This may have only been the first leg, but already I knew this trip would have everything I was looking for.

Pictures!

The last pictures of home



Not a fun first day....



The last time I'll see these for a while



Menen Church



The first success!