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A Simple Plan

Day 0 - London to Munich


A simple idea rarely retains its virginal simplicity when further thought upon. A simple plan sprouts like knotweed when developed. But then again I'm not sure why I ever thought that riding a bike from Germany to the UK would be a simple thing. The genesis of this trip was in Sandra's determination that flying her bicycle over from Munich (on a plane, it's just a normal bike) was too expensive and inconvenient so why don't we ride back instead? She'd left it there when moving to the UK. I liked the idea instantly. It combined adventure with time spent in nature and I would be able to boast in years to come of the great physical exertion of a thousand kilometre journey and pretend, to my audience, that I was a person that enjoyed great physical exertions. The trip would also allow me to spend inordinate hours researching and inadvisable amounts of money on a bike. For this is something I did not possess. And this is where the plan immediately became less simple. But full of undimmed enthusiasm I hit the internet to siphon it's knowledge of cycling and indulge its capacity for unending debate and put it all into an attractively coloured spreadsheet that would be stored in the cloud. This sort of activity is amongst my favourite things to do in life, don't @ me. Now of course if I were to buy a bike in the UK and we were to fly over to Germany with it, collect Sandra's bike and then ride both back to the UK then it would undermine the reason for the whole trip. So this course of action, despite being widely recommended by all the people I surveyed be they anonymous on Reddit or expert in the local bike shop, was unavailable to me. Bikes are a bit like clothes it turns out, not because I have too many of them (rather the opposite) but because getting the fit right is rule number 1. I'd need to try a bike in the UK and buy that same bike in Germany. Bike manufacturers do not exist in the consolidated world I had assumed they did though and finding brands that sold in both countries was no easy business. We'd planned the trip for the beginning of July and my comprehensive research had eaten a lot of time by now, I needed to place an order. I settled on a racy number in 'seafoam green' from a company based in...Canada. They sold bikes in the UK and Germany though and time permitting I could try it and get the right size. Time did not permit so hopefully rule number 2 is 'get it in a nice colour'. I winged it with the online sizing tool and made the order for delivery to Munich, 12 days until the trip.

"They tried to deliver 3 times and now its being returned to a warehouse that doesn't open until until Monday." Friday night in Heathrow airport, 36 hours until the trip. I put my head in my hands, no wonder Sandra insisted I had a drink in front of me before she 'told me something'. A rage spread through me, black, boiling, impotent. How could this have happened? The delivery company had given an initial delivery date of the previous Saturday, 7 days before the trip. Saturday came and went, the bike did neither. On Monday the delivery day was revised to Monday. Come Tuesday the website advised that delivery would take place on...Monday. On Wednesday, Monday. Hermes (for it was they) aren't keen on talking to their disgruntled customers (which is presumably all of them) so instead you can 'chat' to an automated 'person' online that will cheerfully repeat whatever bullshit the website is saying. On Thursday, an update! The order 'is in the delivery'. Soon I'll have it, hurrah! That brings us to Friday and having managed to speak to a real live person at last Sandra delivered her devastating message. They tried to deliver 3 times between Thursday and Friday to a house that was permanently occupied and left no card to attest to this. The lying, incompetent disgrace of a company. Hermes was the Greek god of many things. He was the god of commerce which his namesake company had failed to facilitate here. Also of merchants whom these 'deliverers' had taken money from in exchange for a service not rendered. He was the god of heralds, presumably heralds that only told you what happened 3 days ago or just made things up. Ah but this is more like it, he was the divine trickster and god of thieves. His symbol was the tortoise, I see now why this company chose his name. The desire to froth and swear and scream at someone for this omnishambles was overwhelming but what would be the point? What one employee of Hermes would stand up and take responsibility for jeopardising the trip?

You've have to find a way to talk to someone first without dying a death by a thousand "we're sorry but we're experiencing unusually high call volumes". It was now midnight in Munich and all that was left to do was go to bed. 1 day until the trip, 12 waking hours to find a bike, on a weekend (not a good time for small bike shops to be open). Hermes is also the god of travelers and he definitely owed me one.

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