Getting bicycle legs
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – I rode my bicycle several thousand kilometres across a large swath of China in 1985. I was 34 and relatively fit, having ridden around the perimeters of Ireland, Scotland and Denmark a few months earlier, as winter was setting in. I lived in Paris and was mostly broke, so on weekends I walked for hours in the city or rode my bike out to the countryside.
For the next few years I cycled around Ireland and other places in Europe and regularly rode my bike in Switzerland, where I moved after my trip to China. Nick, my China cycling partner, had agreed to marry me after seeing that we were still on speaking terms despite 10 rough weeks on the road, which seemed to auger well. We had a child, but too little money for a second car, so my son Liam spent a lot of time on the back of my bike, to and from daycare, the supermarket and wherever else I had to go.
Then we had a second child, life became more complicated and we found money for a second car. The bikes were parked and gathered dust. Occasionally, as one kilo and then another settled onto our bodies, we would whip out the bikes, go for a ride and agree we needed to do this more often. End of story.
Our son, who was by now grown and filming adventure TV shows in China, suggested it would be a good idea to film us visiting the places in China that we saw 30 years ago. The project was put on a back burner because he’d decided to set up a company and was launching it. There were other little problems, health issues that included two wonky knees for me. But the seed was planted, and maybe someday we’ll do that.
Meanwhile, Plan B, a scaled-down trip on bikes around Cuba, took hold.
Here’s the rub: we’re older, a bit overweight and not fit. And we’ve spent enough time on bikes to know that’s a recipe for misery. We bought new bikes and started riding again. We remembered the difference between cycling with weight on the back and without panniers, so we opted for an organized cycling trip. This is a far cry from the adventure of casting off into the unknowns of communist China in 1985, but you never know. I remember Che Guevara’s introduction to his “Motorcycle Diaries”: “This isn’t a tale of derring-do, nor is it merely some kind of ‘cynical account’; it isn’t meant to be, at least. It’s a chunk of two lives running parallel for a while, with common aspirations and similar dreams.”
We fly from Zurich to Havana in a week. A crash course in Cuban Spanish is a bit tough and so far I can’t say more than I could at age 12, when I had a 20-word vocabulary that at least included the useful “I’m hungry”. But we’re reading about the country and, most importantly, we’re getting back our bicycle legs (which includes other body parts).
Last week we were up to 50km in one go, not quite 35 miles. Then we bought gel seat covers, a brilliant invention and I wonder how I rode thousands of km without one. Nick headed off to teach a summer school course in England, trying to get in a ride in the evenings. That means going easy on pub ale, a shame when you don’t get it often. I went to Greece on a wine journalism trip last week, where food and wine occupied much of each day. This is not how to get fit!
The pressure is now on. Yesterday I rode about 60km, including a 10km downhill coast that gave my hands but not my legs a workout. Last night I slept like a rock. Here’s what Cuba training in Switzerland looks like. I’m back beating the asphalt in a few minutes for today’s 60km, waiting now for the heat of midday to ease.
The series, Ellen’s bicycle diaries