The weariness of the long distance cyclist
The years of pedaling the roads of the world pile up in my head and in my legs. If the first year was one of adaptation and learning, the following ones gradually became a routine that almost resembled normal work. On a few occasions I had to find the reasons why I was pursuing this path.
This article first appeared in the excellent magazine Vélo Mag, April 2020 edition.
It has already been four years since I left the comfort of an office job to sleep in my tent and meet the inhabitants of this good world. For six months, I cycled from the UK to Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia. Then my journey continued in Southeast Asia for the same duration. Some 15 km after I left, I started to wonder why I was driving from place to place.
Humans get used to everything, from the sounds of curious cattle rubbing against tents, to the poverty and pollution found all over the world. Anything that surprises or jumps out at first gradually becomes normal. A bit like we no longer notice the walls and particularities of a house in which we have lived for some time.
In a first long bike trip, everything is new at the beginning, just as the first year in a new job is the most demanding: You have to learn everything, then the tasks become routine. In cycle touring, this routine takes the form of tidying up your campsite or equipment, riding, eating, discussing, answering the same questions - Where are you from ?, Where are you going? -, pedal and feed again, and finally land for the night.
A break in a cheap hotel in Laos.
The long climb of Los Libertadores, Argentina.
After a year, therefore, I had more difficulty in grasping the present pleasure, and the question often came back to me: where was I going with this adventure? The many difficulties were always renewed daily, however I had less desire and less mental strength to overcome them.
By serendipity, I then received and accepted a job offer in Malaysia. I landed in this country for a year and understood that I still loved traveling by bike and discovering the landscapes, but that I simply had not taken enough time to stop. So I left. And now, I come back to Canada twice a year. I also stop for a few days here and there, time to catch my breath and regain my daily wonder.
And apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so.
Aldo Andolfo
I met Aldo on the border of Laos and Cambodia. He was going north, I was going in the opposite direction. We had exchanged our money, exchanging the currency of the country we were leaving for that of the one we were going to, as well as some advice regarding the places that one or the other had visited.
For the writing of this article, I only had to send one question on his motivation to this French ambulance driver so that he could answer me at length via Facebook.
“I had originally planned for three years to travel around the world,” he wrote to me. I finally quit after seventeen months. He rode from France to Vietnam, then transported his bike to Canada with Argentina as his target. His reeling, however, ended in San Diego, California.
The following lines seem to come straight out of my head, proving to me that bicycle travelers all go through the same transformations.
“At the beginning I was totally afraid of not knowing where I was going, if the bike trip was for me. My fears and doubts are gone now. I learned to open up more easily to others, to share moments, most often fleeting and very intense, with people I didn't know. "
There were times that were particularly trying. Choked by the crowds and the heat in India, Aldo literally fell ill there because of the more than precarious hygienic conditions. In a rural public toilet - reading a hole in concrete - he lost consciousness and opened his upper lip on the edge of the hole in question. He did not wake up until several hours later, bathed in his blood… During our meeting, he told me this “anecdote” while telling me that he then went to Burma “to find civilization there”!
Nevertheless, it was in Western Canada, after a year of traveling, that the weariness began to be felt. “I had seen so many beautiful things that everything that was extraordinary had become normal. He continued south for a few months before deciding to return to France to a normal life.
Aldo writes to me all this from the middle of Africa, which he is crossing… on his bicycle. This is because he stayed in France for a year… before resuming the adventure on another continent.
“I was wrong to think that my world tour was the story of my life. I now see it as a chapter. My return allowed me to realize that I was much better on the trip, that I felt alive there, that this feeling of total freedom made me a happy person. "
Aldo during the first passage of his life to the Southern Hemisphere. Photos courtesy.
Martin ruggle
This Aldo Indian story, I told it to Martin, a Swiss-German cyclist crossed in Thailand that I then hosted at my home in Malaysia. "Your French… is it Aldo?" He immediately asked me, acknowledging the anecdote: the two men had met and had driven together in Iran a few months before!
Martin also recognized himself in this lassitude with pedaling, he who has just completed his round the world trip in precisely 58 km and three and a half years.
“Yes, I stopped in some places for weeks or even months,” he recounts. These stops gave me the opportunity to learn Spanish, but also to clear the air and prepare for the next stages, which are several thousand kilometers long. "
“Continuous pedaling prevents us from feeling everything we experience on the road. It takes us a vacation too! "
And just like Aldo and I, his stops have always made him want to start riding again.
Anyone who has traveled Eurasia and the Americas over their entire length has a special attachment to Mexico. “The people are incredibly nice, the food is excellent, there is a lot of culture, beautiful roads, four seasons… I had a six month visa, and it has had plenty of time to expire! "
Cloe Ando
It's not just men who roam alone. There is also Cloé, this 24-year-old architecture student who has been pedaling for two and a half years. The one I met in Uzbekistan while traveling with her backpack in the company of her mother and her brother had looked at me with round eyes and full of questions. A few months later, she set sail, leaving France to cross the Balkans, Turkey and Iran in turn before landing in India as well. The latter country also marked the adventurer on two wheels.
“After a year of adventures, Indian fury distracted, frightened and amazed me. Spending seven months alone in India cut me off from the world, and completely messed up my relationship with time. "
From the dust of the highways to the immaculate Himalayan peaks, this half-year will have seemed to him only a few weeks. “Only the alternation of twilight punctuated my calendar. Every day, everything started all over again: new landscapes, new encounters, new meals, new invitation to sleep… ”
It is from Siem Reap, in Cambodia, that Cloé explains to me the slowing down of her movements. Without realizing it, she had resumed on the road the same routine that she thought she had left at home. An obvious fact arose in the midst of the Indian cacophony: "Who forces me to continue pedaling relentlessly?" ".
She then allowed herself to take detours, to stop more often, for longer. And sometimes even to retrace his steps. A very rare path in cycle tourism.
To ride for a long time, the cyclo-traveler comes to define himself by his bike, like many people with their job. Cloé tells me that becoming sedentary again frightened her more than continuing her cycling routine. This is the reason why she decided to change her pace in order to land in Cambodia for a few months.
"My appetite for new things can just as easily be satisfied by immersion rather than by roaming" she sums up, philosopher.
“It's no longer a trip, it's become my life. It is nothing extraordinary, it is simply a daily life strewn with wonders. So why not take the time to pick each of these wonders along the way rather than just pass them by in a spin of the pedalboard? "
Janick Lemieux and Pierre Bouchard
Janick and Pierre are looking for the nomads of this world.
If there is a couple who took this time to pick wonders, it's good Janick and Pierre, these two Québécois backpackers who need no introduction.
Janick and Pierre have been life and road partners since 1997. Together, they have accumulated more than 200 km in some sixty countries!
For them, the “emotional limit” of the trip would be two years. This is the maximum time they spend outside the country for each of their expeditions, even if it means dividing a project into different stages.
Pierre explains to me what they lack more particularly abroad. “Family, friends. The four seasons of Quebec and… eat a poutine! ". I understand you, Pierre, I understand you!
Thus, when the motivation for travel decreases and takes away the taste for meeting people, the couple come to Quebec to recharge - and replenish their funds. Their next trip is planned for next year in Africa, for a period of eighteen to twenty months.
The moral
After all these conversations, the truth only appears clearer to me: whether you're on the roads of the world or in an office, you have to take the time to slow down, enjoy the present moment ... and eat a poutine sometimes !
Vélo Passion, the pleasure of the peloton