Freedom 85 km

Let us return to the origins.

This blog was once meant to be about bicycle journeys. What has become of it? In recent years, it has been more of a diary of daily miseries. But today, yes, from today onward, everything will be different.

We do not need to discuss the fact that I have become fat. Again. But the fact that I am this unfit, that really annoys me. It frustrates me massively. I think I have rarely been this heavy either, and both together create someone who once again has to fight on the bike just to get up a hill.

The average citizen would now say: Well, then the midlife crisis has won.

But then again, they do not know me very well.

I do not give up that easily. Especially not against the only opponent worthy of being fought.

And that opponent is myself.

So, said and done. Over the last few days, I have been back on the bike more often. Even at 38 degrees. Like Italy, really, and still better than in, you know where, with all that humidity.

Since I had to go to Lower Saxony for work and had a few free days afterward, I thought: Take your bike with you and just let it roll south. That used to work quite well.

Today I was finished, somewhere near Hanover, typed Göttingen into the route planner at two o’clock, and saw: 120 kilometers.

Easy, I thought.

Which, of course, was complete nonsense. Even in the past, that would not have been easy. Maybe possible, yes. But easy? No.

Today, anyway, what can I say, the first forty kilometers were already a real struggle. To make matters worse, it started raining. Headwind. Weight in the panniers. And I had eaten nothing all day except two bananas.

It was tough.

Tough with the luggage. Tough with my extra kilos. Tough with that mixture of defiance, frustration, and the quiet question of whether I might no longer be the person I once was.

But I pushed through.

85 kilometers.

With breaks every twenty kilometers. With slow climbing. With shopping. With bananas. With music. With minimum targets. With everything that helps when the body no longer quite does what the mind still expects from it.

And now I am lying in the forest. Bivouacking. Listening to the sounds around me and thinking that maybe this is exactly the freedom I had been missing for so long.

Not the grand, heroic freedom. Not the freedom from advertisements, with sunsets and perfect legs.

This one.

Tired legs. Damp clothes. A body that complains. A mind that slowly becomes quieter. A bicycle next to me. Somewhere between Hanover and Göttingen. No plan that works out perfectly, but a road that has started again.

And, of course, Haribo Lakritz Parade.

I finally found it. Here, in some supermarket. The real reason why I came back from, you know where.

The licorice there is shit.

In that spirit.