Ben Welsher | Writings

Day 2 - Ottmarsheim to Rhinau The snap of lycra and a greasy smear all over my sensitive areas marked the start of our first full day in the saddle. I had again followed the internet's advice slavishly and decided the practical indignity of wearing cycling bib shorts could be mitigated by never looking at myself in a mirror while wearing them, I wasn't sure how Sandra would cope with the sight though. The greasy substance was described as chamois butter and aided with the inevitable chafing or so I was told. Our route took us inland from the winding river and we passed through great fields of what looked like corn crowned by arcing jets of water to irrigate them. The land was wonderfully flat and the conditions were perfect for cycling, we pootled among covering 15 kilometres each hour. As midday came we neared Neuf-Brisach, town constructed by the French in 1697 after the Germans nicked the original Breisach on the other side of the Rhine. The old town is built within star sh...

Day 1 - Basel to Ottmarsheim The fact that I was violently cursing a hunk of metal as I struggled to drag it onto a train had to go down as a major success. I'd found an suitable alternative model of bike and hit what few shops in Munich purported to sell it. And sell it they did, in the wrong size, or with the wrong brakes, or the right size with the right brakes...on the women's model. It was early afternoon by now and shops were starting to close, indeed the one we were in had only 30 minutes until closing. As I despaired at the options I spied from the corner of my eye a bike I had considered at the very start of my spreadsheet marathon. It was the older model and had seen enough test rides to make 'new' a debatable descriptor but it might just do. The price was luficrous, a fact the salesman also recognised by immediately dropping it by 200 euros. A bit more haggling and it had new wheels and security bolts for a final bill that was acceptable in my circumstances....

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 immediate...

Day 10 - Munich So many people have become just portraits hung only with cobwebs in the attic of my memories. Passing acquaintances and fleeting passions created by chance intersection of different paths criss-crossing the world. And so I thought it was with her. I hadn't seen the girl since those last days of Margaret River, part of the sturm und drang that fires the memory of it. There is a delight in the dramatic recall but memory is just our internal storytelling function, malleable to the narrative that we want to hear. Is all history oral and shaped by Chinese whispers? Maybe this blog will act as my corrective to that, once stripped of the requisite flourish. Even now those events seem improbable, like EastEnders in Oz. After a hasty goodbye shielded from inflamed eyes, and one prompted by belated decency on my part, I welcomed the escape of the road. But they were great days for all their filthy, haphazard melodrama and I tear a little at their remembrance. I guess not all...

Day 4 - Berlin A restless night's sleep hadn't left Matt best disposed towards a long drive (my standing offer to take a turn still being rebuked) but I'd wager me and James felt worse. Matt likened the car to a hearse given the state of his two passengers. I drifted in and out of semi-lucid dreams, my consciousness on the melting edge of reality. Six hours passed until I stepped out blinking into a dusty car park somewhere in the Mitte district of Berlin. I'd long heard naught but good things about the capital and of all the places on the original itinerary it was the one I was keenest to visit. The itinerary, however, was evolving and we'd set ambitious targets to steam through Europe in a grand arc. Coincidentally it was exactly five years since my first road trip through the continent from Istanbul to Italy. How many countries had I seen since then? How many thousands of miles travelled by plane, car, train? On bike, boat or on foot? How many experiences since ...