I passed from Denmark to northern Germany on the evening of July 14, after battling a fierce headwind and heavy spurts of rain. I was welcomed by my Warmshowers hosts Theresa and Simi at Theresa’s parents’ home in Niebüll. It’s exactly on such cycling days getting drenched from rain, and exhausted from constant hard pedaling against a wall of wind that I think Warmshowers was invented for, and I so appreciated the rejuvenating shower, and sleeping on a comfortable mattress with a roof over my head. Theresa and Simi, and Theresa’s parents Rebecca and Armine, were so friendly and welcoming, and we chatted about my journey as well as Theresa and Simi’s own grand biking adventure from northern Germany to Lisbon, Portugal that lasted 3 months over the previous summer. As avid surfers as well as cyclists, they had ridden all along the northern coastlines of Europe, searching for ridable waves. When I told them about the disability advocacy mission of my trip, they enthusiastically introduced me to their big family project, Haus Komet, a rehabilitation house built on the philosophy of holistic conductive education, a therapy and lifestyle approach for people with extensive combined physical and cognitive disabilities that emphasizes the capabilities of each individual, and tries to encourage active participation and independence based on each person’s unique support needs and strengths. The next morning, Theresa and Simi offered me the privilege to tour Haus Komet and see the program and conductive education approach myself (see my previous post about what I learned from Haus Komet here). After the tour, I gave a big thank you to Theresa, Simi, Rebecca, and Armine for their hospitality.
Thanks so much Theresa and Simi!
I got caught up with my fascination and curiosity during my tour of Haus Komet, and I hadn’t realized the time slipping away, which meant I didn’t leave from Niebüll until around 12:30pm, with still 120 km to ride to my next Warmshowers. I pedaled hard, but didn’t arrive to Heike’s until 9pm, two hours later than I initially told I would arrive. Gratefully, Heike didn’t mind. In the morning, I added my name and thanks to Heike’s guestbook that she’d kept for the many years she’d been hosting adventurers on Warmshowers. I rode on to Hamburg, the only larger city I’d hit on my ride through Germany. I again used Warmshowers, and connected with my hosts Marie and Chris at their apartment a little north of Hamburg. After leaving their place, I shortly explored around Hamburg, and rode in the old Elbe tunnel, a 426 meter tunnel built 23.5 meters underneath the Elbe river. Riding out of Hamburg, I felt so grateful to my Warmshowers hosts from the last days. Bike travelers around the world form a wonderful community, and Warmshowers is a beautiful way to connect with others who share that same passion and learn about their unique stories. And the truly radical hospitality I experienced from all my Warmshowershosts thus far has blown me away, sharing meals, offering beds, showers and shelter, and just being so open to welcome me into their lives for a short while. It has definitely made me want to do all I can in the future to give back to this wonderful community, and to host and welcome travelers myself in the future when I can!
A cozy floor mattress at Heike’s place
Explorations in Hamburg
Riding in the old Elbe tunnel
Riding high out of Hamburg didn’t last long, as the outskirts of the city turned fast into ugly industrial blocks, with the incessant rush of cars and sporadic honking the only sounds assailing my ears. The setting gradually morphed into endless monotonous suburbs, with nothing discerning each new house from the last, which seemed to stretch on and on and on. It made for quite a slog, and I started to question the point of riding when the experience was so devoid of meaning or enjoyment. Lethargically but stubbornly, I kept pushing the pedals, and arrived to my host Dagmar’s place, where I camped in her backyard, happy to sleep in my tent again. The next day, the biking experience again had me questioning the point of my ride, cycling through not the most beautiful region of northern Germany, with villages that all looked the same, and seemed to lack much character. I was feeling disconnected with my personal core motivation for the trip, to feel free, expand my perspective, and become a little wiser by exploring, seeing more of the world, and getting to know the diverse stories of the people I meet along the way. But it felt in those uninspiring northern German towns and roads that I wasn’t learning much, and just stubbornly biking on and on. I needed a break day, but unfortunately wouldn’t get one until meeting my friend in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Backyard camping
I crossed into the Netherlands, with the least ceremonious border crossing ever. The second I arrived in the Netherlands, though, my mood shifted. The villages began to get prettier with more variety, the countryside was more beautiful, and I began to spot iconically Dutch old-timey windmills. It changed the experience from drudgery back into an adventure and felt like real traveling again! I stopped at the Gasselte lake in the Drentsche AA national park, and was captivated by the beauty of the lake, the soft sandy beach, and the pearl crystalline water. I noticed on Google Maps a small mountain biking trail that looped around the lake. Thinking that Holland was completely flat, I was surprised to see something marked as mountain biking, so I knew I had to check them out. And damn, they were an absolute blast! A small single-track trail network with grippy dirt or soft but ridable sand, well-marked, and super flowy, with banked turns and gradual berms. It was exactly the kind of pure fun riding I had been missing on the 100+ km days on pavement through boring scenery, and I ecstatically flew around the trails and circled the lake with a dopey smile on my face the whole time! Google Maps showed a second small segment of mountain biking trails around a smaller lake not far, and even though the evening was waning, I was having too much fun to stop. The trails were curvier, bumpier, less well-marked, and muddier, and I had to push my bike up the sandy embankments a few times. Coming around one bend, a multitude of brown, brackish puddles enveloped the trail with no way around, so I aimed for the smallest of them and kept pedaling. I dropped with a jolt, as the puddle was much deeper than I expected, and the muddy brown water submerged my front wheel and splashed up onto my bags. Thankfully, the bike powered through the murky quagmire, and my back wheel didn’t get caught as deep, but my front brake and disk were covered in mud and grime. When I pulled the brake, there was only a squishy feeling from the lever, without slowing me down at all. I jumped off the bike and quickly sprayed water on the brake calipers and pads, and used a miscellaneous napkin to clean the brake disk of as much of the mud as I could manage. It was at this point that the absurdity of my situation really hit home, as it was past 7:30pm, and I still didn’t have a place to stay the night nor had eaten any dinner, and instead was cruising around on hidden, dirty mountain bike trails that were detours from my main path, and I had totally gunked up my front brake and was using a napkin I had pilfered from the last café I’d stopped to desperately clean my brake to a functional level… Eventually the brake and disk were clean, and the squishiness disappeared while the stopping power returned. Even through the silly brake mishap, I was still smiling, and shaking my head, I concluded that everything that’s fun is a little bit absurd, and resolved to find a campsite for the night.
Dutch windmills
Mountain biking in the Netherlands was a blast!
The crystal blue Gasselte lake
I continued into the beautiful Zeluwe national park, where the riding through the dense forests reminded me of Sweden, but with paved bike paths. I found my way to Herwin’s home in the middle of the national park, my Warmshowers host for the night. Herwin was a tall, incredibly fit, tan man from south of Holland who’d lived for a few long periods in New Zealand, and spoke with a strong and endearing kiwi accent. It was immediately easy to connect with Herwin, and we shared a lot of the same interests and seemed to have a similar cultural communication style, as the conversations flowed smoothly and effortlessly. Talkative and friendly, I learned that Herwin had been through many tough experiences in his life, such as a nasty motorcycle accident that almost lost him a leg, losing his successful business in New Zealand, and life not exactly going how he planned with previous partners. But Herwin seemed to be happy now, and I admired his resilience, and sage-like outlook, having soaked up a lot of wisdom through life’s twists and turns, and now focusing in big ways on his own health and wellbeing. Herwin lived with his two dogs Luna and Shiva, who he seemed to quietly adore. After a tasty and nutritious salad dinner, Herwin convinced me to get back on the bike, and we did a short night ride through the Veluwe forest tracks near his home. It was a fun, spontaneous adventure navigating through the trees and bumpy gravel guided only by my dynamo headlight and trying to keep up with Herwin as he cruised the trail ahead on his electric fat bike. We made a stop at the local bar before finishing the loop to drink some non-alcholic beers and chat about the state of the world. We arrived back to Herwin’s place around midnight, and I passed out happily feeling like the journey was aligning more with what I wanted again.
The following morning, Herwin took me to the site of some traditional burial mounds in the national park, riding together on the smooth dirt paths lined with bushes of Heather just beginning to bloom their purple flowers. We reached the replica burial ground, and noticed clouds beginning to build. We startedlooping back towards town, but soon the clouds were on top of us. The rain came gently at first, but within a couple minutes it started to pour. Herwin had brought Luna and Shiva in his handmade dog trailer, but they didn’t seem too happy getting soaked. We found a small shelter, and hid for a while, but as the downpour showed no signs of quitting, we eventually made the plunge to rough it out in the rain. Before parting, Herwin and I had a firm handshake, and I thanked him deeply for the hospitality and great conversations.
Thank you Herwin! So great to meet you and connect!
I reconnected with my path and soldiered on in the rain. The clouds thickened and the sky became an impenetrable veil of grey. The rain became truly torrential. It was by far the most intense downpour of my trip so far, and funnily enough I hadn’t even put on my rain jacket or rain pants. But I knew my bags were waterproof and my clothes would dry, and I actually had a lot of fun pedaling through the falling flood. The physical intensity of the situation forced me to focus, be more in my body and in my sensations, with no choice but to be present and feel alive. The rain pattered down to a drizzle and gradually stopped. Later in the day, I found more hidden, spontaneous mountain biking tracks in the forest of Birkhoven, and enjoyed another fun detour on the flowy, bumpy trails. By the last 15 km nearing Rotterdam, a real exhaustion began to set over me, but it was a calm and quiet tired, a feeling that maybe my body and mind had found solace knowing the rest day would soon come.
More mountain biking fun in Holland
In Rotterdam, I met with my friend Milan, who had been doing his Master’s in Finland at the same time I was doing mine, and we’d become friends in Jyväskylä. Now, Milan had moved back to The Netherlands, his home country, and was living for a while with his parents a little outside Rotterdam. It was a joy to take a full day off the bike and spend some time with Milan. We met with Milan’s friend Jelmer and enjoyed tasty Indian street food from the big food market near Rotterdam center, chatting and trying to protect our food from the ravenous and thuggish seagulls that patrolled the square (I saw one snatch a bite of a sandwich directly out of a woman’s hand as she was raising it to her mouth, so I kept my food close). We saw the funky architecture of the Cube Houses, and admired Rotterdam’s modern skyline, which contained so many modern buildings partly because of the destruction the city endured from bombings during WWII, which eradicated most of the old, historical buildings and neighborhoods. But the city seemed to be thriving now, with many bustling businesses and skyscrapers, and a return to its crucial role as a trade hub via the harbor and intricate system of canals. We also explored the smaller city of Delft, with its more calm but social atmosphere, older historical buildings, and hangout spots. We finished the day meeting Milan’s brother Jorin for dinner and made Poké bowls with a ludicrous number of toppings. It was exactly what I needed as a rest day to recover, explore and learn about this region of Holland, and spend time with a good friend. In the morning, I thanked Milan and his parents for a wonderful stay, and continued my journey.
The very boxy cube houses
The modern skyline of Rotterdam
Exploring together in Delft
I had the ambitious plan to ride all the way to Brussels from Rotterdam in one day (about 170 km). I pedaled over the Erasmus Bruck in good spirits, but the cloudy, grey sky loomed ominously. Very soon I was caught in heavy and constant rain. I took a break at a café in Dordrecht absolutely soaked, and had a coffee while getting caught up on the big news that Joe Biden had dropped out of the US presidential race and Kamala Harris stepped up as the new democratic nominee – Go Kamala! After the café, I got caught in more and more spouts of rain, which made for pretty miserable riding. By mid-afternoon I began to realize I wouldn’t make it all the way to Brussels, and I resolved to take a train from Antwerp. The decision relieved my fraying spirits, and even after the wet and hard day of riding, I arrived toAntwerp feeling good having crossed into Belgium. Antwerp had a beautiful old town, and the Grote Markt was impressive.
Feeling good on the Erasmus Bruck
Go Kamala!
Final stroopwaffle of the Netherlands
I needed to take the train because I made plans to meet with my partner organization, ENIL, who were based in Brussels. I met with my hosts Vita and Terrence, who lived in Leuven, a charming student city about 20 km from Brussels. Vita was working for ENIL, and had graciously offered to host me. I had a great couple days there in Brussels, meeting with the ENIL team, shooting video clips while exploring Brussels to make a short film about my trip and its connection with ENIL, doing personal interviews, touring the Magritte museum, seeing the main sights in downtown Brussels, and spending a little time back in Leuven with Terrence and Vita enjoying food and drinks in the lively town square. Thank you so much ENIL, and check out some of the other stories I’ve posted about the meaningful and crucial work ENIL is doing here and here.
Thank you so much ENIL!
The following day, I decided to take a train back up to Antwerp in order to still ride the section from Antwerp to Brussels and continue from there. I woke up early, but quickly got confused searching for the tracks, and found the bus station next to the train station. In my tired, dazed, and rushed state, I threw my leg over my bike after realizing I wasn’t in the right spot, and without looking just dropped onto the street. When I peered back, I saw there was a bus pulling into the stop at exactly the same time. I panicked, fumbled, and clumsily fell over with my heavy bike in front of the bus and the many onlookers at the bus stop. Thankfully, the bus driver was paying good attention, and slowed down to give me a wide berth. It was an instant I continued to chastise myself a bit too hard for the rest of the day, but definitely an important experience to learn from and make sure I don’t repeat down the road. In the end, my decision to take the train to Antwerp only to ride back down to Brussels was a kind of pointless exercise, as I didn’t have much time to explore Antwerp or enjoy the ride back down, and was just rushing back with my bike to have one final farewell with the ENIL team in Brussels. After extending a really grateful and warmhearted goodbye and thank you to the whole ENIL team, I rode on to southern Belgium to the family home of Michael, the communications officer of ENIL. Michael was such a friendly, kind, intelligent, and soft-spoken guy, and it had been a pleasure to get to know him during our meetings in Brussels with ENIL, and I was looking forward to hangout more in his hometown. Again though, I was somewhat just rushing with my bike to not be too late to their place. It was a hypocritical feeling, I realized, choosing to travel by bike because of the slow pace and being more immersed in the world around me, and yet just wishing I could be going faster and not paying much attention to the unfolding environment because I had crammed too many things into one day… It’s a lesson to slow down and not overload myself that this journey is strongly trying to teach me, and I’m little by little embracing the lesson (see here for another post on the topic).
A bit later than planned, I arrived to Michael’s family home in Piéton nearby the city of Charleroi in the southern Walloniaregion of Belgium. Interestingly, the transition from Flanders (the Flemish or Dutch speaking region in northern Belgium) to Wallonia (the French-speaking southern region), felt like one of the biggest cultural divides of the whole trip so far, larger than many of the differences I noticed when crossing between countries. I learned that the region of southern Wallonia, and especially near Charleroi, used to be a highly prosperous industrial center, with coal mining and many large power plants, and the area was given the nickname “Pays Noir” or “Black Country”. But, following WWII, many of these industries closed down due to heavy pollution and gradual switches to greener energy, which left high levels of unemployment, poverty, and lack of opportunity in their wake. The northern Flanders region long since surpassed Wallonia in wealth, and the economic, linguistic, and cultural divides between these two regions of Belgium were quite stark riding through (read more about the interesting history of Charleroi and southern Wallonia here). When I arrived to Michael’s family home, I met Michael and his brother Cedric, a funny, friendly, and laidback guy, and someone immediately easy to connect with. It was the Olympics opening ceremony that evening, and we sat together on the couch chowing on delicious pizza from their friend’s restaurant in town, and watching the boats with waving athletes from around the world float down the Seine. Cedric was an avid and professionally-sponsored fisherman, and we made the plan to spend the night doing late-night carp fishing at a nearby canal. It was both me and Michael’s first time doing overnight fishing. Cedric took us to this truly atmospheric area, nestled in a small patch of trees by the canal with a direct view to a huge abandoned powerplant. Michael and Cedric’s grandfather used to work at the powerplant before it was shut down for the extreme levels of pollution it was producing (spewing 10% of the pollution for the entire Wallonia region!). The looming brown façade of the plant seemed to emit an eerie glow, with many of the windows smashed in, and small bushes and trees twisting and unfurling around the walls, gradually reclaiming the deserted behemoth back into nature’s fold. There weremarkings of graffiti in seemingly impossible to reach places, high on the tops of the upper floors or sides of the smokestacks, and Cedric told me the area was popular for urban explorers, boldly scaling the decrepit walls and painting their tags. It was an evocative, post-apocalyptic kind of scene that told a powerful story of the history and current state of the region, but also somehow in that moment was very beautiful and peaceful. We set up our tents and Cedric began placing the fishing rods, equipped with fancy detectors that beeped when a fish pulled on the line. We went to bed with eager anticipation waiting for the carp to bite…
The eerie beauty of the abandoned power plant
The first beep went off at around 2am, and I groggily rolled out of my tent to see Cedric reel in a small, but sizable carp. Then around 5am another beep, and this time I got to reel in the fish, which pulled and tugged on the line, putting up an energetic fight, but eventually we pulled it into the net. It was a bit bigger carp than the first, and I got in position for a picture, holding the slimy, slippery body of the carp as it wriggled and occasionally thrashed it’s thick, sinuous body, once jumping completely out of my hands. I wasn’t sure how I felt morally about the whole process, abducting the fish out of its watery habitat just as a trophy to take a picture of then release back into the canal, but it was an interesting new experience. We had some breakfast and began to pack up our things, as Cedric asked to the group: “Which rod should we take first?” Just as I was preparing to point at the far rod, it started blinking and beeping. Michael reeled in this one, and it was the biggest of the three, caught just before we left. We dropped Michael off at the station for a train back to Brussels, and we had a sincere hug and goodbye, after spending some great few days connecting and trying new experiences together. Over lunch, Cedric and I had a deep and memorable conversation about faith, science, and meaning. Cedric ran a local home-less shelter in Charleroi as his job, and he had so much wisdom and empathy, and was truly a joy to discuss with. Eventually though, I had to say goodbye, and after snapping a selfie together and giving a heartfelt thank you to Cedric, I rode on and began my final push to Paris.
Posing with one of the catches of the night
Thanks so much Michael and Cedric!
I crossed from Belgium into France, marking my 7th country of the trip. I met a friendly, curious young French cyclist named Louis, who joined me for a short break at a café in the town of Guise. Louis said he lived about 10 km in my direction, so we could ride together. Once we reached Louis’s town, though, he didn’t feel like stopping, so he continued with me, and we rode about 25 km together. After a snack break, and hearing about Louis’s cycling adventure to the Nord Cape of Norway and his studies in agricultural engineering, he left me at the start of the canal paths to continue solo to Paris. Was great to meet and chat, and I really appreciated the spontaneous company on the ride. I passed through the beautiful medieval towns of Noyon and Compiegne, with immense cathedrals constructed in the 1100s, and pretty chateaus. The final night before Paris, I stayed in my tent in the garden of my host Cleo and her family’s home in the parc regional oise-pay. They had two rambunctious and chatty young boys, and after dinner together, me and one of the boys, Marcel, played ping pong while talking about Olympic table tennis, and the French wonder player Félix Lebrun. Then, after riding through a sweltering day of 34º C heat and chaotic traffic on the city outskirts, I made it to Paris!
Ancient cathedrals and pretty chateaus
I made it to Paris!
Damn, what an eventful, busy, sometimes dreadfully boring, sometimes deeply joyful, meaningful, silly, wacky, and varied segment of my journey. If there’s a takeaway I can draw from my experiences from Germany to Paris, it’s in how to re-connect with my ‘why’ for doing my trip when I feel myself slipping away from it. There were many periods of the ride where the journey felt pointless, or I didn’t feel as if I was learning or gaining anything from the persistent and boring biking. Or where I hypocritically wished I could travel faster and get to where I needed to be quicker without taking much in of the experience of the ride itself. But, what always brought me back to feeling a purpose and meaning in my trip again were those novel and spontaneous experiences with new friends, finding the beauty and variety in the landscapes or environments I was traveling through, finding fun in offroad trails and detours, and embracing a less serious outlook by welcoming the absurd. Germany to Paris taught me that finding value in the experience of my ride is about discovering experiences that stimulate me, inspire my focus and presence, and that I can learn new things from; but also that finding purpose in my ride is a matter of my own perspective, not taking myself too seriously, not getting too caught up in the sense of pointlessness or my own stresses or the ways I overload myself, and learning to let those things go, see the big picture, and embrace the moments when life is sometimes just silly and absurd. Because as I learned: everything that’s fun is a little bit absurd!
*This is a catch-up adventure update about my ride in mid to end July from the norther part of Germany through Netherlands and Belgium to Paris. Currently though, I’m in southern France near the Mediterranean coast and about to begin cycling across the Pyrenees mountains. Will be more stories about my ride here from Paris and all the adventures to come, so stay tuned…