A golden week
On the optimism of long bike rides
I’m writing this in one of my favourite places: a windowless cabin on a cross-channel ferry. Maybe favourite is the wrong word. But these neat little rooms have come to feel like a sanctuary in recent years, given that I normally inhabit them at either end of long complicated bike trips, when I’m exhausted by either riding or packing, and grateful that the world has gone away for a few hours.
There’s no phone service, so no one can reach me or ask me to do anything, I can’t check social media, and nor can I do any work on my inbox, or the looming logistics of my next few trips. The décor is reassuringly bland, with nothing to absorb or distract me, and no personality to clash with my own. Once I’ve finished writing, I’m probably just going to go to bed. I always sleep very well on boats, I’m not sure why.
I’ve just spent a week with my parents, and no one is more surprised than me that it went very well indeed. Dad and I were recreating a bike trip we did thirty years ago, when I was fourteen – I wrote about it a couple of years back, in case you’re interested. And Mum was following us in the van, entertaining herself by looking for swimming pools, and somehow magically showing up at the exact moment every day when we needed her the most.
I’m sure we all got on each other’s nerves from time to time, but the overall experience was surprisingly idyllic, in a way I don’t think it could have been if we’d attempted this at any other point in our lives. I was sharing our antics on Instagram as we went (I’m sure some of you will have seen), and although my stories were received with great enthusiasm, I couldn’t help but worry that I was projecting an ideal family life that is very far from what most people experience. Some people I know have lost one or both parents, or are having to cope with their physical and mental decline. Lots more don’t get on well with their family, or in some cases aren’t even in touch. And I’m sure it must be very rare for two generations to be simultaneously willing and able to go on a bike trip together, let alone two, thirty years apart.
But no one (vocally) objected to me sharing the stories of our ride, so I carried on. I hope that those who might have been upset by them had the wisdom to look away – and I also hope that the many people who said they were reminded of their own family adventures (or inspired to go on some) will take this as a sign to make hay while the sun shines, because you never know when these things might not be possible any more. Dad and I are now 44 and 69, and there’s just no saying how much time we have left, of our active lives, and of our lives themselves. This is one of the reasons I made this trip a priority, even though my calendar is bursting at the seams these days. I didn’t want to look back a year or two later, and realise I had missed my last chance.
