1. Big Plans.

London.

I’ve always enjoyed making Big Plans. At the age of 12, faced with the stretching eternity of school summer holidays I remember making one of my first Big Plans. My resourceful mother, staring head on at the prospect of a week alone with me – the wild child – before term ended for my older sister, gave me the opportunity to devise a creative project to keep us occupied. My ears pricked up. A Big Plan started brewing. Two weeks later, with the help of two great-aunts and several million polystyrene balls (do forgive me, Greenpeace, I was only green myself!), I sat beaming in my grandma’s garden with a 12 foot lizard lying obediently at my feet. Norman Bird was born. That Big Plan was a roaring (hissing?) success. Norman Bird, however, may have been the reptilian exception that proves the rule. 

N.B., N.B. lives on, despite looking a little deflated (either from pining for his creator, or from the loss of a significant chunk of his filling over the years).

The Enneagram (read, personality type framework with the clever get-out-of-jail-free-card that “it’s not putting you in a box, it’s showing you the box you’re in, and how to get out of it”… touché!) characterises a Seven as “The Enthusiast''. A Seven is known for a number of things: at their best, a boundless joie de vivre; at their worst, short-termism and non-commitment. From all I’ve read, I get the sense I may be about as archetypal a Seven as you can get. Friends who know me well will be all too familiar with hearing about the next Big Plan – from veganism to polyamory – not many of which make it to canon. The next thing proves all too tempting, the allure of the unknown is fierce. I chase the magic, trying my best to escape the mundane along the way.

Forgive this introspective indulgence. Before we continue, it’s important that we get to know each other, you see.

A long ride is an old lover. It requires hard work, patience, and sometimes a bit of counseling. A labour of love, quite literally. It’s a different beast to a sweaty weekend dalliance in the Surrey Hills, easily jilted at the first sight of brooding skies with the bail-out of the fast-train back to London. Cycling from my home in the UK to the southernmost tip of Africa can certainly be classed as a long ride. A ride that promises glimpses of magic, but demands a truckload (bike-full) of the mundane in return. I’ve signed myself up to long, laborious love, not a fleeting affair.

So here I am, on the eve of a Big Plan, having jumped in with both feet (real Enthusiastic like), hoping I can suffer the pleasure of my own company for months at a time. 

So, the adventure. I’ll be riding my bike, Madonna (more on her to come), more or less from London to Cape Town. What this seemingly epic statement doesn’t include is that “cycling” from London to Cape Town involves several boat journeys, obviously, a flight, less obviously, and a brief stint of repatriation over Christmas in the hygge of a family Christmas, seriously? Is this even an adventure at this point? These all have their reasons, and I won’t bore you with the logistical details, but importantly it’s a choice to ride (if I can still call it that) in this way. Some people who undertake such journeys find it essential to join all the dots and cover every inch of asphalt with their own tire tread. They’ll scramble down to the shorelines from ferry terminals to make sure all land has been trodden, if not ridden (seriously, I’ve seen this happen). And I commend them. They’re probably more principaled than me. But I’ve chosen to build in contingencies. To allow my Seven tendencies a little wiggle room in the tight embrace of a long ride. Having a more flexible approach allows me to feel the freedom I’m looking for, to carpe the diem – haha! – and to enter into opportunities that arise along the way.

So this journey is a trilogy. Part One: the prologue, an amuse-bouche, or simply, Genesis. This takes me from London to Barcelona, via one of the aforementioned ferries. And not just me! Joe, my friend and brother-in-law-to-be-I-hope is joining the charge and kindly obliging my serious preference for social over solo, at least to begin with. We’ll be parting ways in Montpellier, leaving me with a whole five(!) days of solo cycling to take me the final stretch to Barcelona. There, I’ll collapse wearily into the arms of my real life lover (not the faux philosophical one above) and be plied with affection and soup. I’ll regale tales of solitary life in the barren wasteland of the Pyrenees that I hope will be met with gasps, squeals, and Oh my’s (Ellie, you best be reading this). 

From there, I go home. No seriously. Thanks to our good friend Nige, I’m now bound to an anemic 90 days in Europe. So to make the most of the seasonal sweet spot of a January departure from Spain, I’m deserting Madonna in Barcelona and traveling  back to my family home, where I’ll collapse, be plied, regale, this time to a hopefully larger audience of family, friends and, of course, Norman Bird.

It’s only on my return to Barcelona in January that I’ll be reunited with my love (both real and faux philosophical) to pick up the ride once more. In mid-January, Part Two commences and finds me riding down the south of Spain, taking yet another ferry to Tangier, and following the coastal road round West Africa to Ghana. Now this is starting to sound more like the epic you were promised. But no! From Ghana, I’ll be packing up my bike and flying (my renewed apologies, Greenpeace) across to Kenya, where Part Three will zig-zag me down to South Africa and eventually to Cape Town.

If I were feeling defensive (and I promise I’m not, no seriously!) I’d argue that I’ll actually end up cycling further than a direct line down the west coast, and longer than if I did it in one continuous push. But really, I’ve made a choice. A simple toss up of  risk versus reward, easy points for others to join (for I will be joined again I hope), and the following of visa rules – how boring! But I’ve no doubt I’ll be served more than my fair share of adventure. And this is what I intend to share with you.

So let’s kick off this farce of a long ride and this commitment to a year of adventure where I’ll look to make peace with both the magic and the mundane of an intercontinental bike tour.