The Pan-Eurasian Bike Trip

It is much easier and funnier to write about the harshness of the weather or  to tell the stories of missteps and blunders of the bike trip, than to write about the beauty of the country side or the wonders of spending months on a bicycle.  But sometimes I think that you might get the wrong idea of the bicycle trip, and so just for Thanksgiving I will try and give a more positive look to the bike trip. Just as a side note, the weather has in no way improved (don't tell Adrian but we have experienced some hail recently), our radiators are covered with smelly socks and dirty bike shorts every evening).

For thousands of kilometers Levi and I talked about where we are now, it was the dream. Siberia is fascinating an amazingly beautiful place, but there are an awful lot of birch trees for your eyes to scour and things move slowly, 1600km of mountains, then a city, 1000km around Lake Baikal and then a city. Things are different now, you are riding through the heart of Europe, a place where Pilgrims have walked in search of religious fulfillment for centuries. If you are not in a small town then you are in a city, we now avoid cities as too many red lights slow us down.  Everything is closer and more manageable, what you lose in adventure you gain in comfort.  The search for coffee?? Those days are over, there is so much good coffee that I can barely steer the bike my hands shake so much.

The tents rest quietly and untouched in their bags on the backs of the bikes, only moved to get to the clothing bags underneath, camping is a thing of the past for us, instead more often than not you will find us in a small bed and breakfast not unlike the ones that you dream of for your own European travels.  We stayed at one the other day, off in the middle of nowhere, it was a small French chateau, for some reason it was incredibly well priced.  It looked distinctly like a place that should not be admitting cyclists, due to smell alone, but they were more than willing, we had  a great breakfast featuring over 50 varieties of home made jam, and as we were leaving (in the rain and wind) the owner came running out with a jar of the jam "a little piece of sunshine for you." I am doing my best to save it as a gift for my mother, who would appreciate it more than me, but any food on my bike is subject to spontaneous Sunday eating, as I usually forget to buy food for Sunday.

I talk all the time of the battle against the wind and rain, but recently there has been a dramatic change in the battle. I stopped fighting. I have pretty much always looked at the days ride as a bike ride, cycling is my favorite past times and I like to push myself, trying to keep up a good pace. But having faced a month of intense headwinds and a go nowhere pace, I stopped.  Now I cruise, and I have discovered that cruising causes me not to notice I am cycling at all. What happens below my torso has no effect on me I just am in my own little world watching the small French towns pass by.  I just get lost in my own thoughts and watching the French country side (the fox hunts, the mushroom pickers and grape vines being tended for winter)
I've taken to referring to my bike as "The Bus".
"Boy it is windy on the bus today, and I think there is a hole in one of the windows, cause I seem to be getting a steady stream of rain on my bus, what about yours Levi?"  So really I don't battle I just kill a bit of time until the next bus stop.

And a bus trip across Europe is really quite interesting, I am often transported into the same mindset I had as when I was a kid traveling with my parents. I always would stare out the window as we cruised through the mountains and hills of Europe and wonder about the little details of the towns, those little caves in the side of the cliff with an ancient padlocked gate in front, "is it a mine or just a little shelter for cattle, a well?" Or perhaps you wonder what that word you keep seeing in French is.  You watch the farmers get the fields ready for winter (we have now gone full cycle with the farming scarily enough).
For me it is a scary test of my history degree (and I seem to fail quite often) as Europe is a place that one cannot go a half inch on the map without finding ones self in the midst of a battlefield you can't quite remember the protagonists of or at the birthplace of a historic figure you can't quite remember why they are important.  In the last weeks we have gone past the battle field of Waterloo, seen Marcel Prousts home town and Cardinal Richelieu's home town (conveniently called Richelieu) and many more that I have failed to recognize.

This is Levi and I have now shared  3 Thanksgivings together disturbingly enough.  The first one was at my parents house about 6 years ago while we were going to school at Alfred University a typical college Thanksgiving where one is so hungover from "meeting up with old friends" that the turkey still tastes like beer.  The last one was on the Camino de Santiago. It was the night before the biggest climb of the trip, Levi and I wound up hitch hiking back 10km to the last town in search of a good party, only to find ourselves quite drunk alone in a town which did not have "a good party" at four in the morning.  We tried desperately to trudge through the muddy cow pastures to the highway in a pathetic attempt at hitch hiking we gave up and started walking home, only to find a couple of teenagers who were game for an adventure, we got in bed by 6 for the hardest day of the trip.
The third Thanksgiving wasn't like that, not even remotely.  It was a long day on the "bus" once again filled with rain and wind.  We had been doing some vague talking about the big Thanksgiving meal, a rotisserie chicken, a heaping pile of yogurt and granola (a bike trip staple) but it seemed like the meal was destined for delay, we just didn't feel the need.  But then we hit Futurscope, France.  Apparently right around the time that Paris was building EuroDisney, Poitiers, France decided it was not to be outdone, they built Futurscope.  It is a rather bizarre futuristic theme park outside the city, when it first was unveiled 20 years ago it must have been quite a site, but just like watching those 1950's "the house of the future" segments on TV it seems a bit dated. It just kind of looked like modern city center, but instead of surrounded by a huge metropolis, it was surrounded by highways and open pasture (and our reason for staying there, cheap hotels).  It was also completely empty, it appears that Futurscope has had a difficult time selling it's formerly state of the art business offices, everything was showing it's age.  We couldn't even find a internet signal in the whole place.  We did stumble across a buffet restaurant though and so Thanksgiving was saved. We hadn't been out to eat in what seems like months, so we put on our suits and went out for perhaps one of the nicest meals of the trip, although the French waiters perhaps didn't see it that way as the two Americans in poorly cut suits helped themselves to an undisclosed number of trips to the buffet line, but hell, we tipped well.
Ellski