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Liane, from London
"You can
only bomb the world to pieces, but you can cycle it
to peace." -
My first week on the Peace Cycle!
Day 1
We left London amidst a sea of London cyclists and two giant
sound systems attached to bicycles booming out music to
cycle to. The cyclists left us at the top of a small uphill
slope in Greenwich Park and waved us on to take on the big
hills, the Alps, the unpredictable weather and the
treacherous roads.
We left London waving Peace Flags, Palestinian flags and
bedecked in matching green bibs emblazoned with the Peace
Cycle logo and reading, ¨The Peace Cycle London to Jerusalem
bike ride.¨ One individual in front of a pub we cycled past
had such a strong reaction to our mission for peace, he
slammed down his pint, stood up, strode towards us, though
not too close; and bellowed, ¨What about when you bombed us
on 7/7?¨ He was quite a character and I hope we meet him
again. If you’re reading this, that man, please do get in
touch, we have so much information we could impart to you-
for one thing, that The Peace Cycle is about peace for all
people, and ending the cycle of violence! Luckily that one
person’s reaction was a million miles away from reactions we
were to receive on subsequent days.
On arrival at a pokey, basic Holiday Inn in Dartford, we
were warned by our logistics coordinator, Sheridan; not to
expect such luxury during the rest of the journey.
Day 2
On the second day I woke up in a daze after a few hours
sleep and launched into the morning stretches too
vigorously. I stepped into a forward plunge that left me
with groin strain.
We had a desperately tight schedule in order to get to a
ferry that would get us to Dunkirk in time to get enough
sleep before the next days cycling activity. We were pelted
with the most relentless rain I have ever encountered on any
August summers day.
Our breaks were short, snatched moments in petrol station
forecourts. We consumed as much food as we could in these
short moments so our bodies could convert it into enough
energy to cycle the 85km to Dover. The hills en route were
long and arduous, the rain was attacking us from every
direction and huge lorries stormed past us, drenching us
with puddle water and knocking us with fierce side winds.
But we arrived in Dover in good time.
A fellow cyclist, having engaged in a week-long skirmish
with the British post office, lost his battle when he
arrived to Dover and his hopes of his new passport waiting
there for him were dashed by an entirely oblivious passport
control attendant. Sad and deflated, he made the journey
back to London renew his attempts to leave the country.
The rest of us arrived on the ferry drenched through and the
cyclists peeled off layers of sodden clothing, draping them
over any available piece of railing, chair or table that
could be found. Almost instantly, a burly Speedferry staff
member marched over to chide us, ¨This isn’t a launderette!¨
she bellowed. Already the Peace Cycle was creating a stir!
On arrival into Dunkirk we began the 3km cycle to our youth
hostel. It was 3km before our logistician for this section
of the ride, Heidi, noticed that the roundabouts on the
roads bore no relation to the roundabouts on the maps. The
ferry had dropped us off in the wrong part of Dunkirk and we
had a further 18km to get us back to where we should have
arrived. Strong headwinds slowed us down and vastly cut
into any sleep we had hoped to have.
When we reached central Dunkirk Heidi stopped to ask
directions from the first local we encountered. As she
approached her, she roused the ladies dog that sprang up and
ferociously attempted to attack Heidi. Endlessly the
beastly dog growled as Heidi heroically tried to maintain a
dialogue with the woman and find out where we were going.
Eventually a car stopped and led us in convoy to our
hostel. By this point it was so late that we could barely
hope to snatch 5 hours sleep before the next days 114km
cycle to Gent.
Day 3
When I woke up both my hamstrings were hurting.
Today we were to be led by one of our most athletic, strong
cyclists, we needed to maintain a brisk pace in order to
reach gent in time for the evening’s activities.
As the day wore on, my hamstrings were causing me increasing
pain. I had the feeling that something was clamping itself
round the backs of my knees in a long and tedious pinch.
But I kept my head down and pedaled as hard as I could,
maintaining a front position, so that I wouldn’t have to
catch up at any point and so I wouldn’t delay the cycle.
We arrived in the most bicycle unfriendly town I’d met yet;
Gent. As if cobbled streets weren’t enough, the city
planner had installed tram lines everywhere, a death trap
for racers. A fellow cyclist was almost flung from his
bicycle as he tried to negotiate the mounting hazards on the
roads and got his wheels caught in a tram line. It’s times
like these when I pine after the asphalt idyll that is
London.
A local youth hostel put on a special dinner for the Peace
Cyclists, but also in remembrance of the Hiroshima and
Nagasaki bombings. They flew in a chef from Nagasaki and we
all had a Japanese feast.
By this point I was so fatigued I could barely
communicate with the people around me. I had one beer and
felt stupendously drowsy. I was so tired I apologised to a
chair for kicking it. I looked around at my fellow
cyclists; we were all a gibbering mess. After the day’s
routine debriefing, this one more incoherent than most, we
got back on our bicycles to cycle just out of town to the
Formula One, sterile sleep factory where we were staying.
My left leg was increasingly letting me down, which was a
shame because I was depending on it.
A couple on the cycle Melinda and Steve had celebrated their
25th wedding anniversary by cycling the excruciating 114km
this day and at the end they were welcomed by the luxury of
having their own room in the hotel, for the incredibly brief
nights sleep. What troopers.
Day 4
On the fourth day we were to cycle to Brussels to be met by
a local University’s Palestinian solidarity group who had
erected a replica of the separation wall in Brussels centre
square. We were welcomed by cheers and hollers from
students and the public. The press had come out in force
and we went out on Brussels News Channel that day.
We were led by police escort to the Brussels University
where they gave us use of their swimming pool and sports
complex for the crazy ones among us that felt that 75km of
cycling wasn’t enough exercise for one day. We dove, did
lanes, frolicked around in the water; one cyclist lost his
swim shorts in the murky depths of the Brussels University
pool and when we got out the students had prepared a BBQ for
us with local beer and every kind of meat and vegetarian
delight imaginable.
That night we were to either sleep with local families or in
monasteries or with students. After our food some nuns
arrived, they were to be my host for the evening. A huge
Brussels tower house, overlooking the whole of the city was
the venue for their nunnery. These most attentive, friendly
and enthusiastic women in habits, questioned us over dinner
about our mission, the journey, our hopes, everything they
could think to ask. Two other girls accompanied me, we each
had our own room with high ceilings, oak cabinets, it was
the lap of luxury. The grounds were vast and contained a
large swimming pool, which the nuns had imaginatively
converted into a mossy pond. We loved those nuns,
especially one who kept baring us a toothy grin and
quivering with delight at our mission to free the
Palestinians.
One of the Belgium cyclists who joined us told us that due
to the Peace Cycle various local activists and groups met
for the first time, having not previously known that each
other existed - also inspiring them to set up a bike ride
around Belgium to help further promote our cause!
Day 5
Day 5; fantastic, the most incredible day yet. We were led
by local cyclists from Brussels to Namur. Their knowledge
of the roads meant that we could take cycle paths virtually
the whole way. The cycle paths were the most unrelenting
hazard to our bicycles. Speckled with holes, bumps, glass
and huge gaps, it was unsuprising that a mere hour into the
cycle we had already had one fall, a crash into a lamp post
and a broken chain. But this hazardous road made for the
most fun cycling. Despite being on a racer, not made for
off-roading, today’s cycle felt like the most exhilarating
mountain biking. What’s more, the cycle was incredibly
hilly and the cycle path was surrounded by forest.
I ploughed up the uphills and screeched down the downhills,
yelling with wild abandon. The scenery was magnificent.
Belgium is home to the most spectacular pastoral lands and
forest settings; already one cyclist had decided he wants to
live here.
We cycled into a rural village where a local church had
arranged a drinks reception for us. They showered us with
gifts of biscuits, chocolate, nuts and fruit juice, sang
hymns to us, then waved us on to continue our journey. Our
passportless cyclist finally caught up with us at this
church after he won his battle with the post office, then
had his flight to Brussels cancelled because of a security
crisis at Heathrow and ultimately caught the Eurostar.
As the day wore on my left leg increasingly stiffened, until
finally it gave in, seized up and refused to move. The
feeling in my legs had been like a crab had clamped it’s
pincers around the tendons behind my knee and was gradually
tightening the grip. Now it felt like the two ends of the
pincer had met and my leg had frozen in a bent position.
I hopped off my bike landing on my better leg and burst into
tears. The team of cyclists gathered round and offered me
energy bars and consolation. We were in the middle of a
forest, 3km from the local town and anywhere that the
support vehicles could get to. Gently I coaxed my leg into
a less painful straight position; got back on my bike and
began cycling one legged.
I pushed ahead, again trying to achieve poll position so
that I wouldn’t delay the other cyclists. Next thing I
knew, a message came over the radio that Nav, another
cyclist, had gotten ¨everything¨ caught in his spokes and
gone head first over his handlebars cracking his helmet
open. When he caught up with us we saw that his forks were
bent out of position making it hard to cycle in a straight
line.
We had to continue. So there he was with his cockeyed bike
and there was me, one leg asunder, the other pedaling double
time and going nowhere. We cycled the last 5km like that.
He went round in circles and I got half way uphills before I
lost my footing began to roll back down.
But we made it to the hostel and aside from the seeming
chaos of what I’ve described, we’re doing incredibly well.
We’ve gone from being an anarchic mass, a discordant rabble,
a road hazard, to a streamline, unified team. From a
distance we appear to be a sea of green bibs, lycra clad
bottoms and legs rotating like clock work, cyclists
completely in tune with each other. The strong cyclists
push the weaker cyclists up hills, some people belt out
songs to boost morale and some even insist we’re going
downhill when quite clearly we’re going up. When we’re
delirious with exhaustion, it’s easy to believe we’re going
downhill when in fact we’re going up and somehow it makes us
float up those hills and then soar down them.
Day 6
The manic schedule and language barrier in the countries we
were passing through had meant that people who usually are
avid news addicts had existed in blissful ignorance of the
occurrences in the real world. Everywhere we went people
conveyed messages of optimism for a peaceful future in
Israel and Palestine, but little was said about the current
situation. The cyclist embroiled in a passport quagmire who
had just joined from the UK brought us back to reality with
a sudden jolt and shared with us newspaper clippings from
the previous few days. The situation in Israel and Lebanon
had escalated and the fear and sense of foreboding I had
felt since war broke out, which had momentarily left due to
the excitement of cycling, now returned.
I had also been warned by the team nurse not to cycle if I
intended to ever conquer the Alps and had to spend the day
in the van. This day the cyclists endured one of the most
brutally hard days yet and watching from the van I was
astonished by how much some of the cyclists had improved
already. They cycled through what is known in the area as
¨Little Switzerland¨ and up a hill known as ¨The Wall.¨ But
they managed it and it made me think perhaps almost anyone
is capable of doing the Peace Cycle and anyone who is
reading this and thinks they are not, should definitely
attempt the Peace Cycle 2007. I’ll be back, this has
already been one of the greatest experiences of my life. I
also can’t imagine a more wonderful group of people to cycle
with.
After what the team accomplished that day, dinner was put on
for us by a local supporter in Bastogne. The next day was
going to be a rest day and I wont tell you about that nights
debauches that ensued. But a good time was had by everyone,
especially Melinda and Steve who danced the night away and
we’re to leave us the next day along with Kieran and
Hilary. There were tears, they were the most exceptional
contributors to the team and we’re all very sad to see them
go.
27th August, 2006
I am terribly, terribly sorry that I haven't written
in ages. Before I set out on this crazy expedition
I was sure that I'd end a day having cycled 100km
and skip off to the nearest internet cafe to update
my blog and send sweet nothings to all my nearest
and dearest. However, it turns out that I pull into
the whichever hostel we're staying in, kick off my
shoes, order a pint and proceed to rant jibberish to
my poor fellow cyclists. You may have assumed that
I've become the pinnacle of good health with bulging
calves and a warm glow. In the last two days I
think I've consumed over a gallon of Italian ice
cream and each evening I congratulate myself on the
days successful exertion with a beer or several and
when I'm tired beyond belief I refuel with Italian
espressos. Yesterday's huge mountain range was
covered by me entirely as a result of those
wonderful little shots of caffeine that I bought so
many of at the many biker cafes along the mountain
range between Bologne and Florence. I was quite
literally dancing up those mountains, inviting the
mountain to walz with me, stood up on my pedals,
swinging my bicycle from side to side. I, quite to
the dismay of all around me, have fallen in love
with mountains, I've developed quite an affection
for them, I enjoy the challenge of getting up them.
When I look at those mountains I realise they've
gone from being to daunting to sexy. As Michaela
the Aussie girl amongst us says, 'Phwoar, look at
that mountain, I can't wait to get on top of it!'
Anyway, enough about my new found passion for
mountains, I should probably tell you what's been
happening over the last couple of weeks. The thing
is it's hard to remember events even from day to
day. It seems like a weeks activity has been packed
into every day. I feel like I've spent my life thus
far with a saddle inextricably pinned to my bottom,
my feet relentlessly pushing pedals. We're now
passing through our sixth country, Italy. In the
second week of the Peace Cycle we covered Belgium,
Luxembourg, Germany and ended up in Switzerland.
Heidi, our country coordinator, managed to drum up a
media frenzy around the Peace Cycle in these
countries and we were plastered all over TV
stations, on the front cover of newspapers and on
German radio. Everywhere we went people seemed to
have heard of us and were even expecting our passage
through their small villages on occasion. We
were cheered on by enthusiastic Luxembourgians,
standing on their doorstep, encouraging us on our
way. In Freiburg in Germany we were met by the
Mayor. In Strasbourg we went to the office of a TV
station and demanded a camera crew come out and film
us, we were on the 7 o'clock news that night. Then
we arrived in Switzerland and none of the press were
interested in us, it seemed that they were afraid
that covering our story might jeopardise their
impartial stance.
We arrived in Zurich on the last day of the second
week. I met up with my friend Stef, who should be
held accountable for my fleeting over the details of
the second week and my failure to fill in this blog
on the rest day last Saturday. After a weeks heavy
pedalling, he showed me the highlights of Zurich and
took me to a open air latino party in the middle of
a city square, where a rum and coke was called a
'viva cuba!' He then led me from party to party
until 6am when I insisted it was enough, it was a
mere two days before I was due to cycle up the
Alps. All I managed to achieve on the rest day was
to clean off the congealed sand on my bicycle from
where I'd accidentally cycled directly into quick
sand and my bike had almost drowned, and then do my
laundry. I woke up about six hours later in a
darkened laundry room, my face buried in a pile of
warm, fresh laundry, a half eaten cheese sandwich in
my hand.
The next day Stef was to join the Peace Cycle, but
overslept, got a train past the first mountain and
finally met us in a town named Bar. It was the
beginning of the third week and it got of to a
pretty bad start. As a response to my endless
cycling at the front of the ride, forcing the front
forwards and creating gaps etc. I was made to do the
job of tail rider and look after the back of the
ride and be in contact with the support vehicle.
We'd barely gone a few miles when I got a message
over the radio saying, 'agressive driver coming
towards us.' A deranged, nay crazed, Zionist in a
Jeep was driving at us screaming, 'TERRORISTS.' He
was so eager to get his message across that he drove
past us and then back at us three times, enough time
for Shaf to get hold of his camera and film the
nutcase screeching towards us, bellowing nonesense.
Sadly though, when we went to the Swiss police they
said, 'nice footage, but have you got the mans'
number plate.' We hadn't. That mentalist may go on
to road rage another day at another load of innocent
peaceniks.
That day we saw some spectacular scenery, drove
along the side of a beautiful lake, through several
long and winding Swiss tunnels directly through
mountains and climbed around 500m. We arrived in a
tiny rural area near the bottom of the Alps. We
stayed on a farm at the end of a country lane, it
was the only civilization around. Other than that
there was Alps as far as the eye could see. A
lovely couple owned the farm, two middle-aged Swiss
mountain folk, him with a giant handlebar moustache
that any cyclist would be pleased to get a grip off
and her with a highlands windswept air and homemade
jams. Each morning they would step out onto a view
of nothing but the most spectacular mountain range
and confused cows falling down the slopes of
mountain edges, their huge bells ringing as they
whacked them in the ears. That night we got fed
delicious organic homemade food in preparation for
our trip up the Alps and Schlaf in dem Stroh, (slept
in the straw). All the cyclists shared a huge barn
and nestled into a bed of straw.
When I woke up the next morning and stepped out into
the fresh mountain air, I looked up at the Alps and
the Alps looked petrifyingly back at me. I was so
terrified of our imminent attempt to cycle up the
mountain that I had to spend the morning on the loo
and would never have been able to leave if it wasn't
for the fact that my mum slipped me some immodium
just before I left the UK (thanks mum). I felt
atrocious. We were to have a staggered start going
up the mountain with the the cyclists who were
likely to take less time going up, going half an
hour after the first group of cyclists. I was in
the second group. A few hundred metres into the
trip, our support van driver realised the van was
broken. It was steering off in directions it
shouldn't be and was most certainly not safe to
drive up some several hairpin bends up a steep
mountain. We had to leave him at the bottom and
continue the cycle without the option of a support
vehicle, should we need it. We all packed our
saddle bags full of nuts to keep us going. On the
way up the mountain we caught up with the first
group of cyclists and were all elatory as we
realised we were a mere couple of hours into our
trip and had covered most of the distance. We were
to climb 1000m in 35km. So not a great distance,
but a great height and a continuous uphill. It was
calculated that we'd cycle at walking pace so it
would take us about 6 hours. But we soared up and
had reached our destination by lunch time. We were
all so excited. Supposedly one of our hardest days
and it turned out to be a mere half day! We were
all so full of joy at reaching the top that we
larked around like a load of baffoons on teh top of
the mountain, having a water fight and wrestling
each other until we'd rid ourselves of every last
modicum of energy we had. We then raced each other
up the last bit of steep hill on the cobbled streets
leading up to our hostel. That night we were
informed that the mountain was far from conquered
yet, we had the hardest yet to come. The next day
we were to climb 600m in a mere 6km. Brutal.
The second group had seriously depleted in numbers.
There were now far fewer of us willing to go up a
mountain at insanity pace. The road we started on,
started on a steep incline. We passed a cyclist who
looked like she was on her last legs, muttered some
words of encouragement, but kept going. We had to
maintain a rhythm, if for a moment we stopped
pedalling, we'd begin a backwards descent. The road
was so steep that my bum kept on slipping off the
nack of the saddle, I had regularly re-perch,
without breaking my rhythm. My ears popped from
the altitude and throbbed from the immense amount of
blood rushing through them as I strained more and
more with every rotation. My muscles burned, still
weary from the last 1000m climb and from the build
up of lactic acid in our muscles that comes from
this kind of exertion. The breathtaking views
served as a welcome distraction from the task at
hand. Every single one of us reached the Gottard
pass, without getting off our bicycles to walk. We
all felt phenomenal. With my last bit of strength I
picked up my bicycle and held it above my head as I
stood on top of a boulder amidst the
mountain-scape. We had conquered the Alps! I
phoned my mother to tell her I'd conquered the
Alps. It sounded as if the Alps was some kind of
beast we challenged to a duel and that the Alps were
vanquished. But no, the Alps were still standing,
but miraculously, so were we!
Within moments the brutal cold at the top of the
mountain hit us and we got dressed up like michelin
men in all our clothes to descend the other side.
We were to descend 2000m, and it would take about
30 minutes. I watched as the people in front of me
whizzed down the moutain at speeds of 30-40 miles an
hour, they sped down like lycra bullets. The
scenery was absolutely sublime. I was bent double
over my bicycle to be more aerodynamic and get up
the highest speeds possible. I think I would pedal
my way up any mountain just to be able to go down
it, it felt incredible, petrifying, but incredible.
That night we ended up in Lugano.
Early the next day we crossed the border into
Italy. Italy, wonderful Italy. I love it here. It
was instantly apparent how politicized the Italians
are. Scrawled across a wall, just across the border
was, 'Palestina Libera.' It was learnt as a chant
and cried out as we passed through towns. Often
when people chant the public look on confused,
wondering what all the noise is about. I've never
felt comfortable chanting, as I don't want the Peace
Cycle to become the 'disturbing the peace, cycle.'
But in Italy people chant back at you, adults and
children alike were crying, 'Palestina Libera.'
Italy seems to be the kind of place where the fiery,
wilful people will shout and scream about the
world's grave injustice until something is done
about it. We cycled all the way to Milan, howling
and hollering and engaging with the public. We
flyered almost an entire road between Lugano and
Milan and, it being Italy, we're likely to have
drummed up a lot of support.
Despite Italy being a wondrous and magnificent
place, the roads we took were mindnumbing, long,
straight, flat and monotonous. We'd experienced
nothing but dreary weather throughout the rest of
Europe but in Italy we immerged into the most
immense heat. The heat and dull roads and general
slump in activity in Italy at this time of year
meant that our energies were low and several of us
were virtually falling asleep on our bicycles. I
could barely lift my eyes more than a metre from the
groudn and the same scenes were playing out to me on
repeat. The broken road scattered with squashed
tomatoes, (no one knows how they got there), the
variations of decomposing road kill and the strange
protrudinous vein lurking around the calf muscle of
the cyclist in front. The only thing keeping me
awake was the horrid, acrid smell of the melting
tarmac and lorry fumes battling for olfactory
supremacy.
After all these long, tedious, drawn-out flat roads,
I was overwhelmedly excited to discover we were to
take on a second mountain range on the last day of
this painful six-day week of cycling. Over the six
days we'd done an average of 100km a day and we'd
started with the Alps and were to finish with the
highest pass that runs between Bologne and
Florence. The highest pass was chosen because it
was the most scenic and shouldn't be a problem for a
load of cyclists who've conquered the Alps. It
turned out to be the best cycling day ever with
wondrous mountain-scape views, we passed through the
lovliest little villages, full-gorged ourselves on
the most delicious Italian ice cream. Came across a
beautiful lake in the middle of the afternoon and I
insisted we all take lake-break, so we had two hours
submerging ourselves in the beautiful water. Also,
Hussein and me decided it would be an interesting
challenge to attempt to swim to the other side of
the lake and back and ended up covering about 1km -
arm-pedalling for a change. Yes, I joke ye not, we
do have a cyclist called Hussein and in Belgium we
were joined by a cyclist called Jihad, what's more
we have a man who's nicknamed Arafat, Mossad would
have a field day with us! Anyway, we arrived in
Florence, descended the mountain range at sunset and
plummeted down these Italian anarchic roads into a
heavenly, pink city full of the most spectaculare
architecture I've ever seen.
Well, I must run as I've virtually out of minutes,
massive love to you all.
Liane
xxx
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