Travel thinking

[jameso]

Something spookily timely came into my inbox today, thought it worth sharing here. I find the Farnam Street blog a really good resource for thought-food. Podcasts for long rides or just an occasional browse. A link in today's email -

https://fs.blog/2019/09/how-travel-chan ... you-think/

I had the opportunity to take 10 days out after the TNR this September to ride back to the UK. Low impact travel yes but really just wanting to get some solo miles in, been a while since I did that. I'll post something in Trips + Adventures on the ride itself but there's been a few threads in mind (alongside the cobwebs) that I tried to get together on the 5hr ferry trip back.
Just some thoughts noted down (re the blog link above about a travel diary - I took a biro and made some note on my TNR card, was good to get a few things down) in case anyone has anything to add I guess ...

* It takes me a few days of riding just to settle into the patterns that make bike travel so rewarding. Day one or two and I'm still on UK day ride mentality. The TNR was as good as ever but the return ride was better for having had a mix of social and solo riding days preceding it.

*Not having a plan or time pressure might be the most benefit. I had one ride in mind then changed it completely. It meant I had no time pressure as the route was a day or two shorter. With that came less 'get the miles in' thinking and more 'let's go and see what that Cathedral is like inside', as well as the benefit of following a route I planned over a year ago where I knew there were highlights to look forward to but not the order, when etc. In the end I did some good days or covered a number of passes in a day but it only happened because I was happy to be pedalling. Other days were short by my normal 'standards' and felt fine, just right - they were good days on the bike, that's all.

*I went offline completely for 9 days. It made me realise how online stuff fits into one lifestyle OK (to a point) and seems alien to another. Thoughts about balance in life etc. Also about why people insist on instagramming daily as they ride/tour, to me letting go of all that isn't there in the world directly around you is a rare and valuable experience. Call or message home yes, but stuff social media, save it for when you're back. That part of life doesn't need to be instant all the time - what we need is the direct relationship with our surroundings. I found myself more interested than usual in so many small things that I might have missed before, or taking time to do things that might normally not occur to me (back to that lack of time pressure point). (aware of the point that I seem to be catching up in online time during this wet weekend while feeling a bit tired!)

*Solo travel is under-rated, I still enjoy it. Always times I wish I was riding with others to share those amazing roads or a beer and restaurant meals with, but overall there's something about travelling alone that reaches part of my brain that daily life doesn't. Being OK with spending time inside your own head maybe (despite realising a long time ago that it's not as interesting as I hoped it might be ).

*Acceptance or appreciation of contrasts. A flat bike path alongside the Rhone is perfect, a paradise, after many days in the mountains. Rain is fresh and violent skies look incredible after days of clear blue and heat. No great point of enlightenment there I know but it really felt genuine after becoming that bit more immersed in a simple period of ride-eat-stay comfortable.

*Having time to 'just be' when riding a longer distance solo. In the past bad weather has 'spoiled what could have been a good day/trip' or 'why rain on me now FFS' etc as a reaction. If I learned (and regret) one thing from past BP trips and races it's that a tired me can have a short fuse and I don't like what that's meant a couple of times in the past. Being tired in bad weather on a bike that has many way of letting me down is a better test than any 9-5 job could be. It means something as well as nothing and it's only my choices that put me there.
This time I got much closer to genuinely feeling calm about all that comes with being outside for days on end. Starting to think that is all there is to it - the peak of bike travel is to be able to act, react and be happy whatever comes your way - 'make your decisions then move on' (I forget who said that but it may have been MH). Aidan Harding wrote something about bike riding being a test of mindfulness and this comes back to me often. There's immense reward to me in hints of the ability to be in the moment and smell the flowers as well as staying aware of all the things you and your bike need to keep moving on unimpeded but moving between the two at the right time (for me) can't be assumed. The only minor mistakes I made on this trip were from a wandering mind or a lack of attention to the moment.

*A suprise one - the though that 2 weeks is often enough. I've ridden longer under more pressure and I seem to remember 12-14 days being the 'OK, enough' point where only momentum was keeping me going. I've often wondered what a year or 3 on the road would be like and this was the first time I thought that less could be more (maybe I'm just ageing!). The build-up of thoughts, memories, experiences etc in a trip can be so fast. Within a week to 10 days I'm struggling to remember and process it all (hence the point about the travel notes making sense). I had so many threads in mind but when I got onto the ferry and felt like the trip was done, things that were part of the 'active travel' mind seemed to become harder to hold on to as I went into recover/relax mode?

Anyway ... a public brain dump really, that's all. It was a great trip - if there's one bit of trip report to add here it's that the Vercors stopped me in my tracks a few times in a way no area has done before. Turn a corner and



everything changes, brakes on, jaw dropped, "they built a road there?" It's so good. Dangerousroads.org came up with some gems again

[RIP]

Some absolutely excellent musings there James as usual! Going to really have to take some time to digest and consider.

[RIP]

Maybe the amount of time to 'settle in' to a ride depends on the length of time you're out. For myself, the very second I step off the train I'm suddenly in 'tramp ride mode'. I feel more alive than usual, my senses are heightened - they're hard enough to deal with 'normally', which is a whole different discussion: one which you touch on later with 'cant process stuff fast enough'. Vivian Stanshall always said the same - he had no filters, and senses/experiences were both the pleasure and bane of his life. Same for me. Anyway, I settle in immediately. No, the problem is 'unsettling in' ie getting back to the un-real world afterwards which can take days! I'm still in mid Wales now even though I'm, er, not.

'No plans' is a bikepacker's bane and pleasure too. One thing I loved about this week was changing them - if there even were any anyway - frequently and rapidly following a whim, especially when it involved bickering, wibbling, hesitating, ranting, laughing, and cracking up between four of us. Fantastic fun and simple pleasure to be had right there.

Being in the moment is a cliched phrase of course but absolutely sums it up. Smell those roses, have a lovely random conversation with that bloke who lost his wife onto the train, share MaM's 'Hamlet Moment', laugh at that puncture.

Contrasts - yep, agree entirely. But would expand that further: embrace and enjoy absurdity, incongruity, (middleaged)madness, adversity, etc.

Ride, eat, sleep, repeat. I've heard that before somewhere. You mentioned 'getting the miles in' and it not actually being important. For myself it has no importance whatsoever because it's totally arbitrary. I'll take the experiences instead every time please.

Good stuff James - wish you'd been on our trip this week. Then again if you had we'd all still be in the pub talking bollocks! (*)

(*) er, and that's a drawback?

[jameso]

embrace and enjoy absurdity..

I can see that line sticking in mind for the future.

You mentioned 'getting the miles in' and it not actually being important. For myself it has no importance whatsoever because it's totally arbitrary. I'll take the experiences instead every time.

I suppose I've had a lot of reward and experience purely through the miles, the real mental-physical tests and the sleep-deprived mind. I get something from it that's been as empowering or -I hesistate to use enlightening but I think that's the word- but it can verge on the potentially negative influences of ride value coming from performance over other aspects. It's touring not Triathlon : ) I didn't start out as any kind of 'distance' aspirant and this trip was much closer to the early tours I did in the Alps. Refreshing stuff.

Would liked to have joined you Reg, been meaning to get another ride lined up as we did last year. This summer's plans seem to have been diverted by work hence the ability and need to grab time off in Sept while I could. Before long though..

[RIP]

Yes I was a little harsh re the 'miles' there so I slightly retract that. Then again I retract my retraction - aren't you actually describing an 'experience' rather than a 'distance'? Ooh this is fun .

[jameso]

Oh no, not taken as harsh. It's an experience yes, part of an experience that comes with distance where distance (or time on the bike anyway) is high relative to your norms. Perhaps the distance/time thing is about how the change is quite gradual, the building fatigue, repeated dawns and dusks, weird mental times at night, it can add up to something and maybe it is transformational somehow. /hippy..

I think that 'doing miles' is often Type-A behaviour and not what I find rewarding at all, but I've also found a reward in it (the mental aspect of big chunks of miles in one go I mean) that perhaps those that haven't pushed that far might not have had chance to experience or the Type-As may not be in tune with. I'd go back to Matt Lee's excellent bikepacking.net posts on this, about how exposure has it's effect on us. I find the links between a love of the outdoors and being on the bike as well as some odd interest in how the accumulated combined experience can alter our mental state fascinating.

[whitestone]

Pretty much sums up the dichotomy of modern life that James.

Last year Cath and I tried the French Divide, that didn't work out so we then had to work out how to meet up - not easy when Cath's phone had drowned in a thunderstorm and we're 150km apart. We ended up having a couple of days in Reims being tourists then headed out to Nantes via Paris and went touring in Brittany. Other than getting to St Malo to get a ferry back to the UK we'd no pressure in making up any distance per day or following a set route and would just make detours to see what a particular brown tourist sign was about. We'd use camping municipales with the occasional commercial site, whatever happened to turn up as the evenings drew in.

Very much +lots to the social media comments (says me who doesn't do any of it anyway).

[Richpips]

There seems to be quite a focus on the racing aspect of bikepacking, which personally I am stepping away from now.

Our TD trip had a time limit and a number of times I resented the fact that we didn't have time to visit "a ghost town" or "the best hot springs" Having said that we had 5 weeks away, and not many have the opportunity to skip the 9-5 daily to take that time off. Tom and I reckon a nice way to do that route would be over 60 days which would give plenty of opportunity for sightseeing.

I do enjoy being away from it all, but will quite happily spend a few minutes today taking pictures for my insta. I tend not spend time looking at what everyone else is up to on social media whilst I'm away though.

Hoping to be part of a social trip to Morocco next year riding bikes with a bit of time off for other things.

[jameso]

That's interesting Rich as I thought you were ITTing it hence the 'TD' rather than riding GDMTBR, read your first part on it here last night and remembered similar race Vs tour dilemmas I had.

[Richpips]

James we were on an ITT quest for the TD aiming for the usual sub 30 day “competitive” time at the start, though in the end the time meant little (other than we didn’t miss the flight home).

[composite]

* It takes me a few days of riding just to settle into the patterns that make bike travel so rewarding. Day one or two and I'm still on UK day ride mentality. The TNR was as good as ever but the return ride was better for having had a mix of social and solo riding days preceding it.

I have found when I'm doing a solo trip of 2 nights or more that I have normally not really enjoyed the first day. I have often had the thought of what is ahead and for some reason I'm not feeling it. I wake up the next morning and I feel 100% better about the world and on I go. I would find it very difficult to quantify why but I agree that it's something to do with getting settled. I guess getting a feel for the continued physicality of it mixed with the mental head space change that "suddenly" being on your own brings you.

*Not having a plan or time pressure might be the most benefit. I had one ride in mind then changed it completely. It meant I had no time pressure as the route was a day or two shorter. With that came less 'get the miles in' thinking and more 'let's go and see what that Cathedral is like inside', as well as the benefit of following a route I planned over a year ago where I knew there were highlights to look forward to but not the order, when etc. In the end I did some good days or covered a number of passes in a day but it only happened because I was happy to be pedalling. Other days were short by my normal 'standards' and felt fine, just right - they were good days on the bike, that's all.

I like to have a line on the map which is my "base" if you like, but I think it's important to not just mindlessly stick to that. There are times when I decide to just take a different route cause reasons, but I like having that visual point to guide myself back to when I feel I'm ready to. I remember one time in particular I was in a pub in New Radnor and someone telling me about Water Breaks It's neck waterfalls. I decided to reroute a large section to have a look, bivi near and eat breakfast there cause it sounded nice. It was... and that is something think about quite a lot when I'm deciding if I should carry on as planned or not.

I'm hoping to do the Audax LEJOG next year, which is not going to be touring speed at all. However, I was planning on touring back to Birmingham afterwards in a meandering and not wholly planned type way to try to balance up the "challenge" part of what I was doing with some chilling and sight seeing. As a whole, I don't want it to be solely about covering the miles.

*I went offline completely for 9 days. It made me realise how online stuff fits into one lifestyle OK (to a point) and seems alien to another.

The last Audax I did was the first time that I Instagrammed/tweeted actually on my way round. I like to get some pictures whilst I'm riding and normally would only upload a few once home. On reflection I think it takes you out of the moment somewhat and is not something I really want to do again.

*Solo travel is under-rated, I still enjoy it. Always times I wish I was riding with others to share those amazing roads or a beer and restaurant meals with, but overall there's something about travelling alone that reaches part of my brain that daily life doesn't. Being OK with spending time inside your own head maybe (despite realising a long time ago that it's not as interesting as I hoped it might be ).

Before I had my break I got really into solo riding. I have bikepacked a lot on my own and the only times I really ever had that pang of wanting to share whatever I was experiencing was wanting to share it with my girl friend. I have often taken her to some of those nice places though as she is more into walking, so I've ended up being "the scout" somewhat. I still think that it would be nice to have the first experience of that place together though.

*Having time to 'just be' when riding a longer distance solo. In the past bad weather has 'spoiled what could have been a good day/trip' or 'why rain on me now FFS' etc as a reaction. If I learned (and regret) one thing from past BP trips and races it's that a tired me can have a short fuse and I don't like what that's meant a couple of times in the past. Being tired in bad weather on a bike that has many way of letting me down is a better test than any 9-5 job could be. It means something as well as nothing and it's only my choices that put me there.
This time I got much closer to genuinely feeling calm about all that comes with being outside for days on end. Starting to think that is all there is to it - the peak of bike travel is to be able to act, react and be happy whatever comes your way - 'make your decisions then move on' (I forget who said that but it may have been MH). Aidan Harding wrote something about bike riding being a test of mindfulness and this comes back to me often. There's immense reward to me in hints of the ability to be in the moment and smell the flowers as well as staying aware of all the things you and your bike need to keep moving on unimpeded but moving between the two at the right time (for me) can't be assumed. The only minor mistakes I made on this trip were from a wandering mind or a lack of attention to the moment.

The reason I had to stop riding for a while was my lack of being able to deal with the world. It was mental health related and losing riding my bike and the strength that it gave, was a massive downward spiral for me. However now I also feel much calmer with the mental challenges, or at least the low level ones that I have posed myself since riding again. I'm looking to gradually build those challenges over time though and I hope I can continue to eat calmness pie.

I suppose I'm trying to draw on the mental strength/lessons of getting myself out of the reclusive place I was stuck in... only to go ride bikes on my own again for long periods.. haha.. not sure where I'm going with that...

[jameso]

^ good to read some parallel thoughts on those points, thanks Composite.

losing riding my bike and the strength that it gave, was a massive downward spiral for me.

I can only imagine, I doubt I'd cope well with many aspects of life without some sort of escape or release valve like riding. Good that it's all back on track.

Rich, still, a TD at that pace at 14 (or any age!) is quite something. Meant to say earlier too the pics on your blog are really good, some crackers there. One of Tom is 100% the Ride the Divide poster and that storm shot ...

[mikehowarth]

There is a lot to be said for noodling about on a bike without a specific or fixed agenda.

Before going travelling, I raced a lot but after travelling without a time limit for over 2 years it kind of knocks any sort of competitiveness out of you.

I've trained and peaked for a few road based events over the last year, but the best and most rewarding days riding are actually those spent riding with mates or my girlfriend with no major time constraints or limitations.

Travelling by bike is just ace