MEE – The Michael Edwards Experience

I got blisters on both my feet! But I’m (kind of) happy about it, so thats ok. After sleeping the entire previous day, I had the energy and the health to go exploring while Alex and Eugenia went to Castro-Urdiales to do a bit of flat-hunting. We figured some times off and I went out with them and then headed down the river towards the Gugenheim.

But I didn’t go in. I still had five hours left to go and I wanted to explore more than I wanted to wander in an art museum. Also, I have a bit more difficulty with modern art because I have less anchors to attach my perception to so I just sort of stare blankly at the canvas for a little bit and move on. I figured I had more than enough time later in the day anyways. I had a map of Bilbao and a pretty good understanding of its overall layout and its boundaries, so I proceeded to get thoroughly lost only periodically orienting myself to the map. After awhile I got bored and decided to do something Eugenia suggested. I got on the metro to Portugalete (very user friendly!) and was off.

I was here to check out the Puente Colgante which is this crazy bridge who’s entire goal was to get traffic across the river without messing up the water traffic. It’s actually a pretty cool solution and I’m surprised this is the first one I’ve ever seen. Sadly, the lift to the top-level walkway was closed so I was forced to wander more. I headed inland along the river remembering that I’d passed some burned out buildings in an industrial sector that looked like they had a lot of graffiti. So I figured I’d walk past this large warehouse-factory that I could see and see what I could see.

To my surprise the wall surrounding the factory was already covered in graffiti. Eugenia suggested there might have been some sort of sponsored competition, which makes sense… all the pieces in the most visible locations were very polished, often with several by the same artist, one of them with their own website proudly advertised on their piece. Figuring I had had some good luck I kept walking after taking some photos.

Eventually I got back on the Metro, but I got a good look at the outskirts of Bilbao (their own cities by rights, but considered part of ‘Gran Bilbao’). By the time I got back to the Gugenheim it was time to head in and make dinner for my hosts. After some rather average spaghetti (no mushrooms and I bought a can of puree tomatoes, not whole) I proceed to lose at Carcassonne due to Alex cottoning on to my farmer strategy and then on to a game of poker where Eugenia proved that there is no such thing as probability.

The next day I get on the train to Guernica (Gernika-Lumo in Basque and post-merger with Lumo). On the train I realize what I really need on this trip is downtime. The tourist busses understand part of the formula: Let tourists do touristy things, before they get too overwhelmed scoop them back into the bus, and then let them get comfortable again. Part of what works there is that the downtime lets you relax and absorb what you have just seen or done. Now I’m not endorsing such tourist entrapments, I think a hot/cold approach like that is only good for ensuring you always need tour operators, I’m just saying I see the need for *some* downtime now. My plan is to get a hotel in Guernica and just hide there for two nights. I’ve had to push back my arrival in Madrid (an entire story in of itself). During the day I will spend maybe half exploring the sites and if I feel like it maybe biking into the surrounding hills. If not, I’ll hide in my room. In a very real way, couchsurfing hosts provide this downtime without making you feel antisocial so I’m just having to do it with no one in Guernica to host me.

I’m looking out the window at my hosts place… its about 2 in the afternoon. I can see the roof of the building next door, that classic Spanish tile roofing. The day is bright and blue. And I’m fucking going back to bed. Welcome to Bilbao.

So the distance from Muskiz to central Bilbao is sort of misleading on the map, but after another hill climb its actually a relatively easy coast. Some towns, like Trapanga, have nice streets that I would have loved to take a photo of, but at this point I just wanted to keep going. I’m not even in Bilbao and I’m already loving the architecture and feel. This is a much more built-up region than Santander, and while the multitude of skyscraper apartment blocks are kind of intimidating its also much more familiar. Once I enter Bilbao I begin biking towards my hosts home. It is a testament to my lack of planning that I am surprised by the sign directing me to the Gugenheim Museum which upon reflection is definitely in Bilbao. Huh! Imagine that! I push my bike up a nasty hill and am finally home.

Alex and Eugenia are Ukrainians in Spain in Basque Country (aka Pais Vasco aka Euskadi). They are here on scholarship and its great to have a perspective that appreciates the local colour but is also outside of it. They are pumped to show me around and we have a pretty good time. I don’t know where I’m getting this energy from but we walked quite a ways, almost to the Gugenheim. I felt pretty good that I was not the first person to burn out on the excursion!

We got back in and played a game of poker until very late. I wasn’t the first to go out, but Eugenia has this retarded luck with Queens… no matter what happens, if there is a queen in the flop she has one in her hand. It was uncanny. At this point I’m staying up too late so I make a couple of decisions that would either get me back in the game, or end it more quickly in my disfavour. I lose, and Alex and I are designated cooks for tomorrow. Its ok because I just have to assist since I didn’t go out first. Throughout the night I have gotten good advice on getting to Guernica (I’m just going to take a train and leave my stuff with Alex and Eugenia), things to check out in Bilbao, some indications of abandoned industrial areas. It’s all solid and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

Then my muscle pain tagged out to let ‘The Cold That Won’t Die’ back into the ring. I spent the entire next day in bed. And so a beautiful day in Bilbao is lost, but I’m hoping tomorrow is a better day. One in which I can cook for my hosts to make up for how completely disorganised I must appear.

Oh, I also kicked ass at Carcassonne (with expansions). That is important.

“I can’t feel my balls,” I think to myself as I struggle up a hill that I know will be childs play compared to tomorrow. I am somewhere between Somos and Santoña.

How did I get to this point? Well Silvia and Carlos saved my morale. First off they pointed out that they’ve taken their bicycles on the bus to Madrid (something I didn’t check assuming it wasn’t possible). This is heartening. They also seem to believe that it is possible to bike there in a pinch. While they are swimming I sit down and really map out what that would look like. I have a full bike route from Bilbao to Madrid that I can use. It would probably take me over a week to complete.

Nonetheless I am very heartened and while the weather is atrocious overnight I make a pact with myself to cycle if it isn’t raining and bus to Madrid if it is. In the morning it is blowing some scary looking gusts and after a couple of hours of trying to get out of it I finally depart Santander via ferry to Somos. This days riding is actually stupidly easy, there is a hill climb that I have to take two-ish rests on, but after that its all downhill and then a ferry ride to from Santoña to Laredo.

Laredo isn’t even worth talking about. It is a ridiculously long stretch of beach with about 4 blocks deep of city beside it. These blocks are intended to provide space and tourist services for the people who will come here when the weather isn’t shit. The weather is shit.

The next day is more interesting. I could take the coastal route along the national highway but I have elected to follow a path suggested by Silvia that is ‘prettier.’ What it is is brutal, if satisfying. First I actually backtrack a bit towards Colindres, then I bike south. Eventually I am to bike west over two ridges of 300m elevation each. This is about twice as high as the climb I made yesterday. The first one is challenging, primarily because it wasn’t the correct turn off so I wasted some time there. Then I got on the right track and ground out the climb after about 5 stops.

I then get to blow all that altitude in one enjoyable downhill slide. Then I get to climb the other side. Right away the feeling in my legs sets my teeth on edge. Its not fun. I spend a lot of time describing to myself how I distract myself from feeling like I’m utterly exhausted. The ostensible objective is that these passages will make it into the blog, but its just another way of distracting myself. Finally, I crest the second ridge.

From here I figure I’m set. I get another fun dive down the hill, and then get back on the national road and take that into Bilbao. I basically can coast from here.

Oh how little I know.

After a brief climb to get to the highway, it dives down… and then begins an arduous snaking uphill route that finally breaks me. I walk my bike up all of it. I’ve refused to do so up to now. Walking your bike is a bad habit, and hard to break. I’ve been determined to do no more than take a quick break. Walking has been out of the question.

On the plus side it gives me some good opportunities for photos.

Finally I cross into Basque Country. Also known as Pais Vasco. Also known as Euskadi. All the signs change to Basque, but this is fine. As I do another tiny hill climb that feels like a monster out of Muskiz I think “I’m practically there, from here it is practically around the corner.” So I stop to take a picture…

OK, today I give you 2 Easy Steps To Get So Far Out Of Your Comfort Zone That All You Want To Do Is Call Your Mommy.

It’s pretty easy.
1) Go to continental Europe
2) Take or purchase something that makes all forms of travel arbitrarily difficult.

I want to love my bicycle, but right now I look at it like an albatross around my neck. Theoretically is should also be my salvation making any city available to me given enough time, but that is bounded by my physical ability. If I have to bike from the north coast to Madrid, then I think I can do it, but it will likely be brutal. Rob thinks I can do it, and I’m becoming increasingly confident that I can make this work if I can just ensure I have a place to sleep at the end of every night.

This is a very different trip for me. I already knew this, but just having the bike with you is both a curse and a blessing. Right now I’m working out the curse-properties. I’ve already seen that inside cities they can be great, though you need a decent map of the city. Anyways, the point is that I’m used to the following scenario: “Problem? Pay for it to be solved.” I’m in Montreal, but want to go to Quebec? Pay for the bus (The Orleans Express is lovely by the way). Can’t find my way home? Pay for a cab. Don’t have internet? Pay for a cafe. The list of times I’ve just brute-forced my way past a problem with money is not endless, but long enough to convince me of its efficacy. The bike and the language change all that. A cab won’t take my bike, and even if he’s friendly enough to give directions, I won’t understand them.

Knowing where you are is a huge deal as well. Traditionally I’ve travelled in cities with decent public transit. In Montreal I don’t need to know literally where I am so much as how I got to here from the nearest Metro station. As an exercise in route-finding it isn’t a huge challenge, but crossing town effectively is very difficult as all the windy streets could have you going in the wrong direction in a heartbeat. I normally pride myself on being properly oriented in most situations, but my mental compass is completely useless here. Whether thats due to lack of confidence or real directional trauma isn’t relevant at the time when you just want to go from point a to point b without having to tear out a map all the time and ask for directions.

Oh, distances are rather misleading too. Distances in Europe are relatively small, but even the ride from London to Portsmouth (which I didn’t even finish) would still leave me a minimum of 4 days short of Jasper if I biked that distance from Edmonton.

So I’ve hit some challenges I couldn’t have predicted when I left home. I’m reminded of the passages in The Hobbit which are all ‘Omg nobody talks about how shit adventures really are.’ At the time I time I thought “Suck it up Bilbo, this shit sounds exciting!” I know these last couple of posts haven’t been entirely uplifting and fall well short of the “medwards has CRZY ADVENTURE TIME in Europe” blogging expectations some of you hold, but I need to talk about this. More importantly, I’m handling it. I am more cognizant than ever of the gibbering coward that sits in all of our minds desperately pointing out just how close the yawning chasm of failure is. I hope writing this is a way of exorcizing those fears and learning how to deal with the challenges ahead of me. After all, I don’t have much of a choice. Unless I throw away the bike. No way that’s happening though, how will I get Rob to pay for a bike abandoned in a spanish ditch?

“Since I got to Europe I have not seen one toilet that works the same as another,” I think to myself. This is an odd thought all things considered. I’ve just spent the better part of an hour in the rain trying to find my hosts home. I am not in a tourist-y part of town so my mangled spanish and poor comprehension was not enough to get me there. A combination of luck and investigating an option from a random spaniard (which I’m sure I misunderstood) got me indoors. I should be more concerned with “How the fuck am I going to get from here to Bilbao if I can’t fucking make it across Santander?”

Silvia and Carlos are my wonderful hosts for this evening, but they’re not Couchsurfers. Except they kind of are. I contacted them via a site Rob recommended called Warm Showers which is intended for bicycle tourers helping each other out. I always found the name kind of strange because it reminds me of … well nevermind what it reminds me of, whats important is I figured it out. O. M. G. Hot Water <3 <3 <3. You don’t realize it as it happens, but hot showers and a warm bed are like a fucking form of currency as far as I am concerned. Anyways, Silvia and Carlos have a wonderful home. It’s just about perfectly sized, and much about it is quaint. In an email I mis-characterized their heating system as being literally a wood-burning fireplace, but much later I realize there are radiators. The fireplace is very nice though. It turns out that not only are they touring cyclists (there are pictures of what looks like an epic trek in Africa), but avid… everything else. These folks are hardcore serious. In their storage room are skiis, climbing gear, hiking gear, and scuba gear. When I show up Silvia is in the middle of a full bicycle tuning and cleanup. She agonizes over the fact that her disk brakes drag for less than 1/8 of a rotation.

With their help I buy a mobile phone and we return for a very late dinner of spanish omelette. They claim to make the best in Spain, I tell them it is one of the best in the world (Zuppa’s is still king, but they didn’t have cheese). They’re both very excited for my trip and eagerly pull out maps and proffer advice. It is the most unfair of disconnects that just as their enthusiasm for my trip is kicking in, mine is rapidly waning. Between the rain and a most unexpected degree of culture shock I’m very close to just taking the train to Madrid where I have friends. However, all is not lost. I may be able to make this work and I just need to plan for hotels rather than hospitality. Here the fatal flaw appears: Silvia and Carlos do not have internet. On top of that no one nearby has internet I can hack.

I must go without internet for the entire evening. The internet has been a critical tool for me to look at train times and routes, plan portions of trips, and figure out how to get to certain places in cities. Without it I would need a city map atlas of Europe (seriously, they’re that difficult to navigate), and some sort of clairvoyant train planner. In fact I need it enough that I change tomorrows plan. It involves staying in Santander for another evening, which I will use a hotel for (partially because they will likely have internet), but my hosts offer to extend their hospitality for another evening if I plan on staying.

So today I headed to La Oficina de Info de Turisticas where I got a nice little downtown map with an internet cafe and the ferry across the bay marked on it. The day started out beautiful and I figured I would do some planning and research, then head to some of the beaches, and finally check in on the rail station before returning. Poking around online (this internet cafe has a different toilet too!) things are starting looking dire. According to at least two sites (one of which is fairly reliable), there are no bikes allowed on the direct trains and they are only allowed on regional trains. When I had originally read this in Canada I thought I understood what regional meant, but it turns out I didn’t. I can’t find any information on what constitutes a regional train or how I could hop from regional train service to regional train service. I realize I may be committed to biking *everywhere* in Spain. This is scary and becomes leg-jellifyingly frightening when I realize there after Burgos there are no decent sized cities between the north coast and Madrid. If I have to bike that and miscalculate where I should stop for the night I may end up in a town with no hotel and no option other than to keep riding.

But I haven’t confirmed that at the train station so I just put that ultra-scary nugget of extrapolation away and check out the ferry across the bay. This would be the beginning of the route to Bilbao and then Guernica, with day 1 ideally ending in Laredo. I want to know if the operator knows anything about the Santona to Laredo ferry as I’d rather take my chances on the other side of that channel. He doesn’t, but I figure I can just crash in a hotel in Santona and ferry in the morning in a pinch. So I have something going there. The rest of the day is spent biking between some beaches until it starts raining. I hide for a bit and eat, and then decide to check out the trains. The lady at the Renfe booth doesn’t speak english but I speak enough spanish to know that she is saying that I can’t take my bike to madrid. She says something that sounds a lot like “If you change trains at point a and point b and point c, etc. then you can do it.” She directs me somewhere else but I don’t understand who my destination person is and decide to just accept grim reality and bike back to Silvia and Carlos thru the rain.

The port in Portsmouth is something else. Imagine US border crossings with the rows of tills, cars queuing up, and the mass of ashpalt to accomodate them. Biking up to a booth intended to service cars was kind of surreal. It only got more surreal as I biked around a building and through another gate and was directed about as if I was a car.

When I got to the final queue of cars I was directed towards the boat, but I thought ‘Surely I will have to wait with everyone else,’ but I was definitely expected to use the completely empty lane. Biking past a long line of cars: THAT was surreal. Inside a guy led me to a little nook where he tried to indicate how he wanted it placed, but he was speaking french and I was listening for spanish so we disconnected pretty bad. Eventually he just put it where he wanted it. I wandered the ferry, which is more accurately a short-range cruise ship. There are 9 decks, much of it cabins, the rest consists of a POOL, two restaurants, a cafe, and a bar. Oh I forgot the cinemas! I’ve been meaning to find out what they’re showing.

Eventually I break down and pay 4 pounds for one hour of internet. Its high-seas piracy, but I salve my wounded pride by telling myself I’ll spend it getting the information I need to hijack someone elses connection. Sadly, no one else appears to be as addicted to the internet as I am and I never see any victims on my network monitor. This, I now realise, is due to the fact that it is a boat full of geriatrics. In the entirety of the first evening I believe I am the only person under 30, unless you count the two little girls with their family. In the morning the young folk are flushed out due to hunger but we’re still quite the minority. I talk to a guy from the US East Coast for a bit who’s backpacking westward from Santander. I feel like he’s the only relatable person on the boat.

Despite my increasing impatience with the poseur luxury of the ferry this cocoon of the UK has me feeling confident. I bike off the boat, surprise a customs agent with my passport, and begin my planned route to my hosts. Santander, I imagine, is something of a tourist destination. If it is even a quarter as english-friendly as the ferry was then I’ll be perfectly alright. The day is unexpectedly sunny (the weather report said rain) and even a surprise hill at the very beginning of my route doesn’t put a dent in my morale.

The morning in Horsham was a beautiful sunny day for riding.

I was having none of it.

I’d arrived rather battered the previous evening, and Adam took me in and we got pizza and it was all rather re-energizing. However, I was grumpy, sore, and now missing a bike glove. There was no way I was going to bike to Portsmouth so I just planned on bumming some internet in town to plan my next leg (and figure out what happened to my prospective host in Portsmouth — he had gone silent). On the way there was a bike shop, but it wasn’t open yet. Then I found a breakfast place that also wasn’t open yet. Wandering quite randomly I ended up at the train station and decided just to go to Portsmouth and worry about it later.

I got on the wrong train.

But it was headed in the right direction so I just had to stand on the platform in Havant. On the last train I realized that I didn’t know what stop I wanted, and the British love to have multiple stops in the same community but never prefix them. You just have to know that the first stop in Portsmouth (the one I should have gotten off at) was Fratton. Then we stopped at Portsmouth & Southsea. I said “Well, I want Portsmouth so I’ll wait for Portsmouth Harbour, the final stop.” I sat for a good ten minutes reading a paper before I realized the train wasn’t moving and impatience moved me to action.

Except the doors were closed and off. I was trapped. Brief panic moment. “Ok, these doors must open somehow. Aha ‘Pull in Case of Emergency’ but ‘Liability if Misused.’ There’s this other switch for manual open, but step 2 is ‘Wait for train to stop.’ Maybe it sets off an alarm? Hell, its better than the first switch.”

So I pulled the manual switch, and tried to not be conspicious as I hustled the full length of the train station.

I wandered for a bit around the station, thru a commercial centre (imagine if two strip malls faced eachother with no road traffic between them and they were classy), until I finally found an internet cafe. Internet cafes are NOT COMMON and I was very lucky. Checking my messages I found that Kate was prepared to drive back from Brighton to host me. So I plotted a route from Portsmouth to Fareham (10ish miles) while griping to Rob about having to bike today. I almost didn’t, it was only 4 pounds to just take the train but Rob’s needling broke thru my whining (“my legs hurt, its cold, etc.”). First I had to get new gloves though as my hands were freezing (by now it had decided to be a crap day). I found a bike shop and bought the only gloves they had but I was rather dissatisfied with them.

The cycle to Fareham was fairly uneventful and once I got going, quite easy. I had chicken kebab at a random stop about 2 miles out, found another bike shop with better gloves, and managed to make it to Kate’s *precisely* as she pulled into her home. In all I only got lost 4 times.

So Kate is this wonderful girl I hosted a couple of years back. I’d forgotten this, but I was her first host on Couchsurfing (she had not forgotten). I had a nice bath, her boyfriend Simon came over and cooked a wonderful dinner. We went out and had delicious desert and I went to bed at a reasonable hour. Simon and I made incessant fun of Kate’s poorly loaded iPod (Apparently everything is by The Foo Fighters. Everything) and generally just kidded about. Oh, and there are baby foxes in Kate’s backyard. So. Cute. The morning was spent tearing apart my bedroom looking for a sock and rapidly stuffing things that had been left out back in their bags. I’ve either slept in too late, or been too rushed for breakfast so far, but I had tea and cereal and felt quite civilized. Simon dropped me off at the port and I loaded up.

A recent IM I sent:
I got off the train and was instantly lost
but then thanks to the grace of Google Maps I was found.
Our Google Maps, who art in heaven
hallowed be thy name
thy kingdom come
thy will be done
on Earth as it is in Silicon Valley
Amen

Started late today. Sometime between 0900 and 1000. Took a route along the shore to Greenwich tunnel.

So this is a tunnel that goes under the Thames. I have to carry my bike down the stairs to the tunnel itself. With the bags on. Fun. I get to the bottom and a bunch of people get out of the lift I thought wasn’t running. Then you can’t cycle in the tunnel. Because I wasn’t exhausted yet I followed the rules. Took the lift out of the other end, and began following the National Cycle Network’s Trail 21.

The signage is tricky and not helped by the hugeness of London. I literally spent hours just getting out of London. I had lunch at 1330 and still wasn’t out of London. After a certain point though, outside of London isn’t significantly different than inside. Even by this point I’ve gotten lost several times, had to struggle through trails that were better fit for fat tires and shocks, and did I mention getting lost? In once incident I couldn’t see a sign that had the bike route number on it but I saw a cycling sign that was also on the bike route I was taking. So I followed it probably a good 1 or 2 miles, then tried to follow a ladies directions to get back to the route for maybe half a mile before saying “Fuck this, I’m backtracking until I have this figured out.” I repeated this process several times.

I also hit some pretty gnarly terrain. Most of it rideable… some hills made me say “This is at least as good as some of the less technical trails in the river valley. This is fun!” This was often followed by “Man, I really wish I could have fatter tires right now.” That was generally rapidly followed by “OH GOD I WISH I HAD DISK BRAKES RIGHT NOW.”

Things went alright until Redhill, not only did I get quite turned around in Redhill, but I spent a lot of time trying to navigate Horley based on a map inset that was for Redhill. Once I worked this out I made OK time and felt pretty good, but it cost me a lot of time and energy. Little did I know that the worst was yet to come.

Crowley. Fucking Crowley. I knew Crowley would be a little bit sticky because my maps wanted me to go east, when I wanted to go south and then off the trail. I actually did alright, only had a little trouble by following the 21 for a mite too long, switched over to the 20… and discovered hell. I’m already tired, but I’m on the right path. Unfortunately, the sun is setting or has already set. I still have plenty of light, but I have some sort of wilderness area to go through. I’ll ride a road in the dark, but not some fucking forest trail. So lets hustle, get it right, get out and get on the last leg to Horsham. Looking about I noticed a 20 sign that led me to a roundabout. The signage here was kind of shit so I missed it and stopped on the other side of the roundabout. I saw a 20 sign for the other direction that said go right, implying if I went up that road I would be going in the right direction. Went down it into Tilgate, past two roundabouts, before giving up and going back to the original roundabout. This time I see the signage I missed that says I had gone in the right direction. So I commit to going further this time (I had already gone quite a ways the first time). Eventually I stop saying “What the fuck? Where the fuck is this forest? I’m on some road with no signage and the forest or its access isn’t anywhere.” Looking on my map I determine the road I am going along will eventually merge with a busy road and eventually hit highway. No fun. So I return to the roundabout and just go back up the way I came and take a left instead of a right thinking I have the position of the forest pegged.

Aha! A DIFFERENT Route 20 sign going in this direction! I am on the right track! I believe this horseshit until I go past a high school and I’m forced to wonder where the forest is. As I backtrack I ask an old lady with dogs if she knows where the forest trail access is (dog people always know where wilderness things are). She knows a gate you’d have a jump, and a gate you can open if you go further and then turn left. This is what I was thinking of doing anyways. I go up three different streets before I find it. And an elusive Route 20 sign!

Now I’m set! Except I’m in a golf course right now and there is no signage. I just go in a straight line (the map does, so its my best bet). When I come to a place where I have to turn I ask another dog walker how to get across the M23. She thinks I should go a certain way but the bridge might be closed. I thank her and determine that the bridge must not be closed. Or else I am completely screwed. I quickly bike across some final golf courses.

I find the bridge. It is open. There is a Route 20 sign. I cackle. Maniacally. Out loud, and loudly. I am so happy. I get on the bridge and see another dog walker. I give him a chagrined smile as it is unlikely that traffic covered the sound of my cackling. I bike across and am in….

Holy shit. How did it get worse? This ‘Forest Preserve’ is more like a ‘Forest Pit of Mud.’ Giant treaded machines have been in the region and while I can barely make do, this is mountain biking material. In fact the number of jumps indicates they already use the region. I’m hoping to meet one to ask directions, but to no avail. There are no more signs. I have to walk my bike around a log that is painted red and white. It’s in my way for going in a straight line. It hasn’t rained so its not too muddy. I begin to realize that this may be why the signage is so bad in Crawley. Between the golf course and this crap they probably just decided to move the route. I suspected this earlier but I couldn’t afford to use the other route as I could not be sure it would connect to Peas Pottage, my final ‘iffy’ landmark before I’m on the golden road to Horsham. I also begin to consider why I am such a crazy stubborn fuck.

As far back as Redhill I was considering just finding a hotel and grabbing a train the next day. Things were clearly bad. I wasn’t anywhere close to my desired rate of progress, I was getting close to losing daylight (and later was), and I was tired. Not bone-tired, but I was clearly out of the premium gas. I convinced myself to keep going with a mix of stubborn refusal to quit, the promise that the trains would be better in Horsham (I knew this from the maps), and periodically raging anger at misdirecting signage that made me determined to prove that I could follow directions (just the signs are bad!).

Now, in the middle of the Forest Pit of Mud I realized that option was now long past. I either found the way through or was thoroughly screwed. I got to the other end. No signs (other than “This is the end of the preserve”). The map says Route 20 dekes left, then right, then right again and then heads towards Peas Pottage. I don’t trust it, especially when left means “A downhill I’ll have to climb up again when its wrong.” I use this as a break to walk down to the bottom to double check. It dead ends. I walk back up and then walk my bike up to the top of the hill. I should note that long decent grade hills are by now automatically walked. Proving I can clear hills is a task left for Premium Gas, not I-don’t-even-want-to-know-what-time-it-is Gas. At the top it goes from gravel to paved. There is a road left to a named farm and a road ahead in the direction I was walking. I’m pretty certain that road leads to Peas Pottage, but I’m not sure. Looking at the map it seems like it, but I’m still not sure, maybe there is a path from the farm that is Route 20. I look at the Route 20 map and it clearly marks the farm as being a left turn off its path. I whoop and pedal with renewed vigour. I crest a hill… see a roundabout… the other side says Peas Pottage! Turn right down a path that says “Crawley” (I want to go to Crawley right, thats familiar. wait.) then realize I’m a moron and head the right way. Ask a guy if this is the way to Colgate and he says “Yup, 3 miles straight” and suddenly I even have a scale for the new map I’m on.

From here things get uneventful. I’m low on energy but going. This leg is very much like how I would have planned it just using Google Maps so the route has a minimum of kinks. I stop in Colgate to eat a chocolate muffin I bought a long long time ago during a stint of being lost and frustrated. I walk one hill, ride the other. Crest the last hill and race into Horsham at high speeds that I get to maintain for quite some time. Got turned around once but found my hosts place and gladly staggered inside where I recited the tale for them. Time of arrival was 2100. My odometer says 140 km, but Rob says it must have had time. If so it was no more than 25km which is still 70miles of cycling. I’ve doubled, if not tripled, my longest ride time. I don’t even want to know what I did to old distance record.

Tonight is my final evening in London. Tomorrow I bike roughly 70 kilometers. More than I’ve cycled in a single day, ever. The day after I bike even more. This is somewhat worrisome. One would find it to be gut-wrenchingly scary, but instead I’ve elected to post a random picture from London as a distraction

Thats better. So Saturday I picked up by bike and then Rob and I spent hours in a map shop (literally, nothing but maps and guides). I’ll admit to not having a great affinity to maps. I think it is because I do not have a good scanner/printer which means you can take the shittiness of needing three-ish paper maps, and convert it into a 2-3 page ‘useful-to-me’ map. At this point I do not see the potential so I am rather bored and antsy to get setup. Tonight is pub night with the local Solidarity Federation and some miscellaneous IWW members. I am supposed to stay with a fellow worker in the union tonight so I need to be loaded up before the pub night begins. So we begin setting up my bicycle.

We order some food, warn my friends I’m going to be late, and then try to get ready. I’m doing last minute pannier packing, Rob has determined that I need a bicycle computer and bought one for me (he’s cool like that) and is now installing it. One thing that has become apparent to me is that the British Isles have a different sense of pacing. In comparison I could charitably be described as impatient. So in the end we don’t really start going until 10PM when things were due to kick off at 7PM (though more likely 8 or 9 admittedly). Biking thru London at night with panniers was really weird. It was super cool, but half the streets we go through have clubbers/partygoers/whatevers dressed to the nines while I speed thru on my now oversized bike. The other half have guys who look at me in a way that reminds me to go faster. But really interesting even though its not The Foundry where I will find my comrades.

UK bars are fucked up. I remember getting a hard time from my Spaniard Couchsurfers about how nobody was partying until 6AM on weekdays. We had to clear out of the Foundry less than an hour after I got there. These bars close at 11. The next bar we go to closes at 1. Then we find one that closes at 3. In the end I had a lot of fun yelling at (aka debating with) people and pretending we were the Land is Power guy, but it was still kind of messed. This was on a Saturday night. So to my Spanish friends: We go to 3am.

We decided I would go back with Rob, mostly because I didn’t fancy trying to make my way across town at 3AM. We went back a more direct route and were home a jiffy and then collapsed and slept. The next day was spent doing errands and really doing some fine-grained planning of my trip out of England. Here Rob was a real trooper, he has a genuine interest in this I think, but he also put up with my ribbing about it. From here I get to plan my own routes so super-cycler Rob won’t be around to carry my ass. So from here, adieu.