and you don’t know where that can lead you. »
When I started pedaling in 2013 to give my destroyed body a new impetus, I did not know anything about cycling and I could never have imagined a European tour that had lasted 7 years or that I would visit 49 country by pedaling more than 55.000 kms making the equivalent of 50 times the ascent of Everest. The doctors who saved my life a year before would never have bet on that. And yet …
My first wheel revolution took me straight across 5 countries over 4500 kilometers. After a year and a half of galley, I pedaled with joy and without pain. They faded over the kilometers, and even though my body, still feverish, still worried me a little, I slowly regained confidence in him and me. From Belgium to Germany via Denmark, I arrived in Poland without having seen neither the kilometers nor the months pass. Thanks to the bike, I rediscovered what it meant to live.
I had since a long time lost hope in Humanity because of the competition raging in the world of work and the growing individualism in Western society. Then the heat wave, a deep dehydration and a new passage to the hospital stopped me at the Polish border. I remained bedridden in a family that took care of me as their own son for 10 days. The generosity, the kindness, the tenderness even, which they showed me was incredible. On the Road, I saw this kind of testimony of Love everywhere and that gives me the hope that I needed so much. Thanks to the bike, I rediscovered what meant humanity.
By chance (or not) at this time, I discovered the existence of Heinz Stücke and his life spent cycling on the roads of the World. Teenager, I had thought about it, and learning that before me, someone had already done what I thought impossible changed everything. Things were racing in my head. I had discovered in a few months too many good reasons to continue pedaling to stop. Thanks to the bike, I rediscovered what it meant to travel.
The instructions of the perfect nomad was not delivered to me, and initially, I was overwhelmed by emotions, things to do, … Nomadism allow to focus on the essential, but the daily tasks, simple, take a considerable time : organize your equipement, orient yourself, talk to people, shop your food, find water, a safe place to sleep, set up the camp, maintain the bike, cook, eat, sleep. The days pass quickly. Free time comes with experience. Tiredness is part of daily life. Despite the difficulty, I felt good. After several difficult years, paradoxically, traveling by bike brought me stability and huge pleasure in the present moment.
Traveler « old school », without a computer or phone at the time, I prefer the practice in the terrain. In two years, I wouldn’t pedal that much, about 10.000 kms, but I was going to learn a lot, dedicating the years 2014 and 2015 to acquire the basics of nomadism. I wandered between France, Portugal and above all Spain, which I had estimated to be a good test country with its varied climates, from snow-capped peaks to arid plateaus, and its omnipresent mountains. Before starting on a World Tour, I wanted to test my body. Over thousands of kilometers, I slowly found back the 17 kilos of muscles lost after my Australian accident. It was reassuring. I was out of all troubles. I came back from far away.
However, my first real winter on bike gave me more difficulties morally than physically. The mornings being cold, I pedaled especially in the afternoon, at the hours when the Spaniards make their traditional nap. They were not yet awake that the early winter sunset forced me to pitch the tent. For several months, I almost believe that this country was deserted. Talking to someone was the only thing I wanted. Loneliness made me suffer for the first time in my life. I have since learned to appreciate it, to look for it even sometimes. Loneliness will teach me to love me, allowing me to love others better.
To be often alone, I thought a lot. It is at this time that the NO MAD’S LAND project that I had in mind for several years was born. The adventure began as a blog, people often asked this to me. I had taken refuge in a small Andalusian village, living in an abandoned house (and supposedly haunted) for 3 months, to work on making my website every day at the library. Before, I did not use the internet myself and then thought I had discovered a way to “save the World”. I quickly fell back on Earth discovering the competition raging on the web. This is not for me. A year later, because I spent my time searching for internet and electricity, I abandoned the blog, and the World is still decaying. Continuing to learn and develop NO MAD’S LAND despite everything, my project will begin to take shape after 5 years of constant work.
It was only in 2016 that I really started to feel the nomadic fiber in me. It took 5 years. I was speeding things up and pedaling 10,000 km that year from northern Europe to Scandinavia to the entrance to the Balkans. But I was still far from imagining what I was going to draw. I was starting to be able to face the worst weather, take the toughest roads, I just accumulated experience. I had also improved my equipment by investing in a 4-season tent and my bike was getting lighter after I made the mistake of overloading myself. In fact, with the years of Road, over the needs and problems encountered, I multiplied the knowledge and skills that allowed me to be more and more independent and resilient.
Scandinavia teached me a lot. I was heading North Cap and while in Sweden, I couldn’t resist the call of Norway and its fjords, which I had boasted so much about his beauty. Splendid, it was undeniable. Rainy too. A heavy rain, incessant, 17 days, 17 nights, non-stop, didn’t destroy my morale, but my energy was at its lowest. I was exhausted and the steep slopes all day long finished to kill me. By borrowing the Rallarvegen, a very rough 85 km long track, stony, tricky, closed to the traffic of motor vehicles, I will live without doubt one of the most memorable experience of this great European Tour, the one that will have marked the turning point of the desire for even more. Arriving at the top of the track, in the snow in the middle of July, I will climb without having premeditated it one of the 3 glaciers I slept face for 5 days. Without ny more food, I would have to go down into the valley, not without fear, since I discovered that I had split in 12 points the rim of my rear wheel. This incident forced me to remain stuck for 3 weeks in a small town looking for a new wheel that I would never find and this “lost” time will force me to give up my desire to join the North Cape because the winter approached again. But it was not a failure, on the contrary, I had discovered everything I was capable of and it had made me grow up. Tenacious, I promised myself that I would try the Cap Nord adventure the following year.
My best friend diverted me from North Cape once more in 2017 by bringing me with him to Turkey and its +60°C in the sun. It contrasted with -18°C at night in the Balkans where he had joined me to pedal. Rather minimalist, ex-backpacker, he will initiate my important lightening, while I will start teaching him to build home-made travelling equipment from the waste of the society found on the street. I was starting to be ab expert about it. My bike had lost 22 kilos in 3 years.
The great cold temperature that I discovered in Balkans take space the whole spirit and the summer back reconnected me with my desires. I looked at my European map and see that I had already visited half of the continent. From Turkey I had the strange feeling of unfinished. Eureka. I knew what I had to do : visit all the countries of Europe. I then left my friend, thanks to him to help me pedal 13.000 kms in 2017, turned around and crossed eastern Europe until entering Belarus, the only European country requiring a visa for a Frenchman. I was happy to have shared 6 months of Route with my best friend, multiplying the flavor of kilometers, landscapes, encounters and galleys, but alone, Freedom is total, and I was happy to find myself again to live without compromise.
However, I was not going to be alone for long. The following spring, the love season, again on my way to the North Cape, I met a woman in Latvia. As in a fairy tale, in 3 days, she had returned the keys to her apartment to pedal by my side, without really knowing what to expect and not really ready to face the endless Scandinavian forests that I loved so much. I guided her thanks to my experience. Together, we will finally reach the North Cape that I have coveted for so long. However, the minute after we arrived there, our only desire was to run away, as the extremely violent wind whipped us and tackled us like vulgar bowling pins. We were afraid but we were united. After 4 months in Scandinavia, we crossed Europe from North to South to escape winter which was approaching again quickly. We were riding happily in Italy as 2018 slowly ending. Sharing the daily life of the trip with a friend is fantastic. Living on the Road with the woman you love is the ecstasy, the cherry on the cake of Liberty and Happiness that this nomad life on a bike already provides. When she took the decision to return to her country and let me continue my adventure alone, all the marks that I had put around her collapsed and it was like this I no longer knew how to travel, unable to decide where to go.
My project to visit every countries of Europe was almost accomplished but stuck. I doubted about everything. But as only the Road could heal my scars, I jumb back to my saddle to explore the European islands, the only country missing of my endless loop. Malta gave me fear in an epic ferry crossing on a rough sea which I had thought would be the last of my life. Back to Sicily, the Etna volcano erupted four days after I climbed into the snow. Weak and heartbroken, I found a work in a youth hostel in need of human warmth while waiting for the mental and physical energy to hit the road again. I had to force myself for the first time. But from the first pedal strokes, all the suffering that I had accumulated for months evaporated to leave slowly more space than the pleasure of the wind, even cold, on my face.
2019 was a surprising year where I would have pedal « only » 8000 kms. I crossed Albania, my favorite European country, and northern Greece playing cat and mouse with snowflakes. The roads closed one by one behind me because of the heavy snowfall until I inevitably got stuck. Encircled by the mountains, it will take me a week to find a vehicle capable of taking me with my bike on the motorway, the only axis open to traffic. I was fleeing to Cyprus to find heat and sun. When I returned to pedal in Greece a little later, the first mountain pass I crossed was fatal. The inguinal hernia that I had been dragging for 6 months suddenly doesn’t allow me to climb. When I arrived at the hospital, the sentence was immediate : emergency surgery in Greece and repatriation to France where I got a second surgery. In the rush, I had to abandon my bike in Greece. My European Tour, which was almost nearing its end, suddenly stop. You should never claim victory too quickly. After 5 months of recovery, I had only one desire : hit the Road again. This is what I did with a new bike out of the trash, that will make me a lot of trouble, to explore the United Kingdom and Ireland before returning to Greece to finish my tour where I stopped it.
I am entering the year 2020 with a feeling of revenge and full of enthusiasm because I was both happy to have found my real travel bike and impatient to roll out the tempting program that I had concocted. I had plan a final crossing of Europe from South to North to conclude this great European tour in apotheosis. After a tour of Greece full of surprises again where I had met war refugees, I began a rapid crossing from Italy which had allowed me to go through the Vatican, a principality counting in my objective to “visit every countries in Europe”, just like Monaco which I visited when I put my wheels on French territory, which had not happened to me for a long time. I was heading calmly towards Andorra with a well-defined itinerary in mind for the rest. I had to make a diagonal from France towards Denmark where I would embark to the only ferry that leads to Iceland, my ultimate country to discover on the old continent. The cherry on the cake that I would offer myself will be a stop for a few days on the Faroe Islands in order to try to understand how one lives on an island as small and isolated in the XXI century while continuing the challenge that I set for myself a few years now: “Never pay to sleep” !!! Alluring and exciting no ?
Yes, but !!! Because there is always a but, the Corona virus has arrived and shook the planet. Like everyone else, I was forced to confine myself bringing myself back to the essence of nomadic life, a constant need to adapt. Once the European borders were open again, I hit the road again, rushing to conquer Andorra, then I hoped to reach Iceland, the last country in Europe that resisted me. The entry conditions due to Covid requested by this country did not suit me and I then decided to give up the idea of going there, taking advantage of the end of 2020 to set off to rediscover my country native, France and continue to write, always on the Road !!! With the international health crisis, my lifestyle was completely challenged …
Rejoignez vite la communauté Facebook pour discuter avec nous !!!
