The last ride #6
Imagine for a moment that there was only one more
A single day, a final chapter, a last ride. Of all the miles covered and all the roads ridden, which would draw you back to experience them one more time?
THE MONGOLIAN MYSTERYCycling shoemaker extraordinaire // @quocphamshoes
A few years ago I was at a cycling trade show in Germany and met a man from Mongolia. I first saw him in my peripheral vision while talking to another retailer. Or rather, my eye was caught by the quick movements of his hands as he nervously flicked a business card back and forth between long, fluttering fingers. At one point he even dropped the card and spent long moments trying to pick it up off the floor where it had caught between the legs of two tables.
My conversation over, I turned to meet the man just as he presented the now recovered card. “My name is Narnaa” he said, pausing to make sure I had caught his name correctly.
After a few moments of polite conversation about the show, he told me that not only was he from Mongolia, but that his company would greatly desire to become our distributor. “In Mongolia?” I asked, a little taken aback. After three days of unforgiving indoor lighting, I would have struggled to locate Germany on the map. “Yes,” he answered, “of course!”
Not wishing to seem impolite, and to buy precious thinking time, I asked if road cycling was a popular activity in Mongolia. “No, not road, urban - the city!” he replied, bouncing cheerily on the balls of his feet. I frantically tried to recall what I knew about Mongolia, but for the life of me, I could not imagine that there was enough of a market in Mongolia to warrant a retailer, let alone a distributor of city cycling shoes. Although we never managed to meet up after the show, Narnaa proved to be an engaging conversationalist. His descriptions of Mongolia and its many opportunities for cycling, not the least of which were the ancient network of trade routes known as the Silk Road, left a deep and lasting impression on me.
Since then, whenever a free moment presents itself, I revisit links and tourist information squirrelled away in a web folder simply called ‘The Ride’. Whether it will be my last ride or not, I don’t know. I certainly hope it isn’t, but then, the Silk Road is long, wild and clearly a good career choice for ambitious highwaymen looking to broaden their horizons. Luckily, the internet offers a wealth of information to the curious cyclist looking to ride all or part of the route that once stretched from the Korean peninsula and Japan to the Mediterranean Sea. Of particular note is the book, Lands of Lost Borders: Out of Bounds on the Silk Road, by Kate Harris, which details the author’s journey travelling Marco Polo’s Silk Road by bicycle. Although, unlike the celebrated Italian traveller, I do hope to complete my ride in slightly less than the 24 years he spent journeying through Asia.
So between work and family commitments, with furtive clicks in darkened rooms, I continue to plan my adventure. Whether I take the Pamir Highway to the ‘roof of the world’ or ascend the smooth-packed dirt roads of the snow-capped Altai Mountains, sleeping in yurts beneath blanket skies, trading energy bars for a place to rest, I know that one day soon I will get tired of planning.
One day I will ride the Silk Road.
MOONSHINE & GOOD TIMES
Grassroots Bike Builder, Writer & Cat Herder // @money_melon
Although I am a natural introvert and one of the reasons why I love cycling is that I can do it alone, for my final ride I’d do the Dunwich Dynamo. The Dun Run is a mini audax, a 190km night ride on the Saturday in July closest to the full moon, where people ride their bikes from East London into the dawn of the slowly eroding Dunwich coast. It’s not for anything or anyone, except for shits and giggles.
The Friday evening before, I join my closest friends and loved ones to carb load, eating a mountain of whole wheat pasta and drinking not a few bottles of solid red wine. We are merry but serious about the ride ahead of us, and so I go to bed at a reasonable hour. In the morning I eat French toast, do some laundry, listen to a podcast, and then take a nap.
The weather is balmy warm - joy of joys, I can wear my short shorts! There are thousands of people gathered at London Fields park for the start. We have a half pint of local craft beer to celebrate, and when 8pm rolls around we set off. I love, absolutely love the swarms of people that leave the park, bustling about me, taking over the roads, becoming the dominant form of transport for one day a year. All kinds of people on all kinds of bikes do the ride, from your typical MAMILs and hybrids, to the more peculiar Penny Farthings and cargo bikes. It feels exactly as cycling should be, where everyone is welcome, where we all belong, and we are all starting out on an adventure together.
Riding away from London feels liberating - I know it’s my home, but it’s also the source of stress, and this night I am joined by a whole gang of people who have something in common with me: we are silly enough to forgo sleep in order to ride 120 miles away from the city. Some are playing energetic music through speakers, some have fairy lights attached to their bikes, and as the sun steals away to set, a sea of red flashing lights appear before me, hypnotically drawing me into the night.
The crowd starts to thin as the moon rises. Some friends have left, their cadence a bit higher than mine - I have never been a racer and prefer to cycle to the beat of my own drum, whatever that may be at that point in time. But my lover stays with me, our hearts entwined. I know his legs are stronger than mine, but that’s not what this ride is about. I do push myself at this point though, because once the sleep sets in my thighs will become sluggish. Time will start to feel like it is running out, because it is.
There are rest stops along the way, and even bystanders that cheer us on - their enthusiasm to encourage a couple thousand weirdos is touching. Round midnight I turn my own music on. I’ve made a playlist of cheesy 80’s montage music, the kind that you’d find in a Rocky film, and much of the night feels like said montage. Snapshots of certain spots remain - the pub that offers us free chips, the car that slows down and asks us why on earth are we riding at this ungodly hour, (why on earth are you driving at this ungodly hour!?), the wrong turn that ended up becoming a shortcut. But the tiredness is creeping in around 3am, and I take another swig of coffee and bite of my homemade coconut pekmez energy ball. My wheel lights seem to be flashing in time with Van Halen, and I just keep pedalling, keep wondering, keep asking, where am I? When will I get there? Why am I doing this? Why must this be my last ride?
I rise from my saddle to get myself up a hill, and the sun also rises. We catch up with friends who have become delirious from lack of sleep and have decided that whiskey will save us. Close, so close, I tell myself. Don’t look at the Garmin, it lies. Just when you think you’re there, you’re not. Another hill awaits. And another. And in my zombie state I catch a glimpse of…the sea? Is that the sea? I can smell it, and I can’t pedal any harder than I already am, but my heart swells as I see the tide rolling in, the smell of salt water filling my nostrils, and I silently pray that the crying gulls don’t poop on my head. There are people on the pebble beach already, bib shorts off, SPF on, sprawled out snoozing in the sun, and diving into the water.
Discombobulated yet happy, I walk my bike across sand and stone, the most ready I’ve ever been to rush into cold briny goodness, to feel goose bumps rush up my back, my hair wet and heavy, and the yellow sun balancing on my face. I am at the end. We all are.
06/06
