We were all out of our comfort zones on this one. Four female endurance cyclists all used to feeling in control of when we eat, rest and pedal would instead ride cargo bikes 1000km in two pairs for six days. We would leave Edinburgh at 9am on 26th December with the intention of arriving in Copenhagen in time to celebrate New Years Eve. While one of us rode, the other would sit on the front of the bike as cargo, each pair swapping every hour in order to manage the fatigue from the riding and the cold from the sitting. No electric assist. No vehicle support. Entirely self-supported.
It would make no sense to act in our own self interest during this challenge. We all had our own preferences and personal systems that would have made riding long distances more comfortable for us individually but by making personal demands to feel warmer, less tired or less hungry our team mate would bear the brunt thus jeopardising all our chances of succeeding in this challenge. Instead we were going to have to consider the collective consequences of our actions and keep our eye on the overall objective. We discussed it and, although nervous, were all in agreement that we would sacrifice personal desires for the greater good.
We hoped that this seemingly arbitrary, almost impossible and very silly challenge would bring the more serious global climate challenge we are all facing into sharp relief. We are all inextricably connected to one another, and the only way to make change, to achieve the seemingly impossible, is to endure some personal inconvenience and rise together with mutual care, trust, flexibility, and good-humour. What we were to unexpectedly discover was that by rising to this uncomfortable, logistically complicated challenge, our sense of shared purpose would make the minutes turn into hours and then into days almost effortlessly. We were going to have a lot of fun.
Storing two cargo bikes in a top floor tenement has its repurcussions.
As always, getting to the start line was the hardest part of the challenge. There were weeks of preparation during which everyday something would happen to make us question whether it was worth all the stress, money and uncertainty of pressing on. The Copenhagen based cargo bike company who were going to lend us the bikes and share the expense of the project pulled out with just three months to go. Then, a month before the start of the challenge, we all decided during a Skype call that we simply could not justify flying Lael Wilcox, Janie Haynes and Rugile Kaladyte (Lael’s partner and filmmaker / photographer) over from the US to ride the third bike and create the media. This was very hard for everyone involved to accept but we knew that making difficult decisions and sacrificing personal wants was a great metaphor for the changes we were all going to have to make to tackle climate change. So instead we recruited Oxford-based Sarah Outen and her partner Lucy Allen to ride an Urban Arrow but who, in turn, were forced to pull out a week before Christmas due to ill-health.
We were a team down, one of the bikes still hadn’t arrived and we had no media crew or means to transport them anyway! It felt like everything was telling us to put things on hold but then we would remind ourselves that we didn’t really have a choice. If we are to address our climate emergency we don’t have time to put things off until later when the weather might be better, when our families aren’t all together celebrating Christmas without us, when we’d secured some funding for the project. It felt right that we were winging it a bit and footing the bill ourselves for this one. And, as always happens when you stick to your convictions with open hearts, good luck follows.
Two cargo bike companies, Omnium and LarryVsHarry, offered us bikes to ride. MJ from the Sustrans Cargo Bike Library stepped up to receive, build and store the bikes for us. Exposure loaned us all the lights we’d need to stay moving on our night shifts. Lezyne gave us all the tools and equipment to keep the bikes moving. In an effort not to buy lots of equipment we didn’t need, our good friends at Lyon Equipment loaned each bike a set of panniers which would help us keep our things separate from our partners on the move. The Energy Saving Trust sourced an electric LDV van and insured it for us. Endura offered to pay for our photographer James Robertson to accompany us and who then, in turn, rose above his job description to get his head around the logistics of driving an electric van across the continent. Jack Reed and Catherine Dunn, two students from Edinburgh University, offered to use the time the University’s Sustainability department was paying them to come and document our journey and, like James, work around the clock to drive, film and ride alongside us so we might make a film about the challenge. David from Laidback Bikes lent us recumbent bike seats to make the cargo bikes more comfortable. Steven Shand got his welding kit out and worked with us to adapt the bikes to make them more comfortable for sleeping on. Edinburgh City Council leader Adam McVey and councillor Lesley McInnes publicly endorsed the project. Everybody just rallied and helped keep things from stalling. That’s how we got to the start line at the top of the Royal Mile at 9am on 26th December 2019. The hardest part was already over.
The forecast was good. Above freezing and dry with tailwinds much of the time. Some friends and family assembled at the top of the Royal Mile to wave us off and weren’t at all surprised that we weren’t there until 8.55am. Within The Adventure Syndicate, the theme of flying by the seat of one's pants is omnipresent.
We rolled off at 9.11am, Jenny Graham and Phillipa Battye riding one bike, myself and Alice Lemkes riding the other. These pairings had taken some thought and discussion. Jenny and I have ridden together a lot over the years and instinctively trust each other when the going gets really sticky (it might be a coincidence that the going gets sticky when we ride together but we both prefer not to dwell on that). For this challenge, however, it was decided we’d mix things up a bit. Alice and I had spent lots of time together more recently and had had the opportunity to practise riding cargo bikes as a pair in a way that Phil and Jenny had not - they had only met the year before and since then had shared more beers than they had bike rides. It was going to be a steep learning curve for them and, as we all suspected, learning about each other on the move was going to add tension to this already intense situation.
We decided as a team of four that we should remain in our pairs throughout the journey but that we’d swap bikes every 24 hours to keep things more balanced. The Omnium was lighter and faster but the Larryv’sHarry Bullit was more stable and comfortable and because this challenge wasn’t a race between the pairs, the constant swapping would reduce fatigue and keep all four of us moving together most efficiently. We also hoped this would send the message that this challenge was not about brand promotion. We’d accepted no money from any brand other than to pay James with and we felt this helped encourage people to understand that affording the right kit and equipment is not always necessary in order to try something new and bold.
We trundled north out of Edinburgh to intercept the Sustrans National Cycling Network that would take us 220km round the coast to Tynemouth and our ferry crossing that sailed for the Hook of Holland at 5pm the following day. Both pairs settled into a steady rhythm quickly, taking it in turns to ride and sit in the bucket munching on mince pies and sandwiches filled with brussel sprouts and bread sauce and croaking Christmas carols to each other. We might not have been lying on the sofa watching James Bond on Boxing Day but there were some traditions we felt it was important to honour.
With nothing else open, we stopped for tea and to fill up our hot water bottles at McDonalds in Dunbar and had a brief conversation about whether we should include our eateries in the calculation of our carbon footprint on this trip. We were sure that McDonalds wouldn’t score highly in this regard but you have to choose your battles or change of any sort would never happen because everyone would be paralysed by their inability to behave perfectly all the time. There’s no shame in the occasional McDonalds, or in driving a car, but without an eye on the bigger picture we quickly get into trouble. That said, we also found ourselves in McDonalds in Berwick 5 hours later. We all winced a little then.
Alice had taken great trouble to work out the flattest possible route between Edinburgh and Copenhagen but we all knew the first day was going to be brutal. There’s no flat way out of Scotland except by sea and so we prepared ourselves for hopping off the bike to trot alongside it when the gradient ground us down. We’d just get comfortably wrapped in all our down clothing and inside a sleeping bag, eyes poking through a slit in the bivvy bag, when momentum would fall below 6kmph and you’d be forced to jump off.
Or be dropped sideways. As it turned out, the dropping part was to become a recurring theme.
James met us at the bunkhouse we’d booked just outside Alnwick around 11pm having found a charging station along the way. Sometime on that first day the van had developed an annoying beeping noise that no one understood the cause of. Our words of encouragement to him were to turn the radio up and sing more loudly. I’m not sure this helped but it at least showed we had some empathy for his situation.
We were all up and moving again at 5am the following morning. Our first day of 135km and almost 1000m height gain had given us a real confidence boost but we were acutely aware that a change in wind direction or a mechanical meant we’d miss our ferry that afternoon and the challenge would be over. Drawing on the impetus we all felt to not miss our boat meant we flew to Tynemouth mostly on safe, segregated cycling infrastructure and had time enough to spare for a muck about in a BMX park and a pint. Merry Christmas everybody.
Our 12 hour ferry crossing had everything we needed to recharge before our mammoth stomp up through Holland, Germany and Denmark. We filled our boots at the all-you-can-eat buffet then sat on massage chairs, posted story updates to social media and played the Ukulele before bed. What would you have done?
We arrived into the Hook of Holland the following morning under a clear blue sky but with a biting wind. The sun had stained the eastern horizon a startling blood red above a wobbly grey sea while on the shore, industrial clouds billowed out of tall cement chimneys before being swept north passed juxtapositioned wind turbines.
As soon as we were out of ferry customs the route took us onto wide, fast bike paths that navigated us all the way to, and through, the city of Amsterdam. We knew we had to average 200km a day for the next four days if we were to achieve our target of reaching Copenhagen by the end of the decade but at 10am on the 28th December we hadn’t even got going yet. There was mild anxiety hovering around both bikes and a silent resolve to keep our pace steady that morning to make up some time. No stops for coffee. Toilet breaks only at change over time. But you should never hold on too tightly to how you think something should go. When passing through a park in Amsterdam (just after Phil and Jenny had crashed into a bollard and laughter was still on everyones lips) a figure on a bike intercepted us. Heidi’s boyfriend had sent her a link to the Resolution Race page of our website and she had positioned herself on the route clutching coffee in thermos flasks for us all. We pulled over to a picnic bench and shared our leftover brussel sprouts, Christmas cake and stories with this kindred spirit. Heidi then navigated us through the busy streets of her city, saving us all a lot of time and avoiding the inevitable irritability and subsequent arguments that would have arisen from lack of caffeine.
We were behind schedule but the terrain was flat and fast and we were now in sync with our partners. Every hour we would stop, the passenger would drop their sleeping bag and bivvy bag while the rider would put on all her discarded down and fill the sleeping bag with the food and drink she’d require to recover from her hour-long effort. For Jenny and Phil this seemed to mean quite literally pouring peanut M&M’s into their shared sleeping bag. The new passenger would then enjoy ten blissful minutes of comfort while her core temperature slowly dropped and the new rider shivered uncontrollably until her core reached comfort levels from pedalling.
The riding through the Netherlands on that third day was boring but the good humour and bad singing made it more fun than any of us could have hoped for. We rode the entire length of the country on flat, well surfaced segregated cycling path which allowed us to focus on other things like keeping the bikes upright. For our media team, it meant that the only way to capture any engaging footage was if they left the electric van on charge and rode out on their own bikes to meet us at changeover times, as the sun was setting or at resupply points. Catherine, Jack and James would take it in turns to follow us at what must have felt like a snails pace in the hope that we might do something entertaining. By the end of the third day, there had been plenty of slow speed topples from stationary positions but remarkably, no high speed crashes. We were aching all over form these falls but not from the impact with the ground (we were too bundled up for them to hurt us much), everything hurt from laughing. We were just congratulating ourselves on our crash-free record when Phil rode off a newly laid cycle path into the dirt and sent Jenny flying from the platform of the Omnium. There was tense silence until Jenny wriggled free of her down cocoon to a barrage of apologies from Phil.
“I am so sorry. I’m so so sorry. Maybe I should put my glasses on.”
We all agreed that this would be a good idea.
Dinner was called early because I spilt water inside our sleeping bag and experienced a throwback to an early memory of having wet myself in my pram. Unfortunately, on getting back on bikes after dinner, with another five hours still to ride through the dark to reach our hotel, Phil dropped Jenny again before they’d even set off. Trust was always going to be tested on this ride. We were all going to be called upon at different times to dig deep and muddle through with our partners but that night, Jenny admitted to lying on her precarious platform wondering if she was going to survive the next three days at the mercy of her kamikaze partner. At the same time Phil was reflecting that while it might be ok to put herself at risk riding without her glasses on, when carrying a precious load her ability to distinguish between cycle path and mud really mattered. As we rode on that night, Phil told Jen about her beautiful but fragile Nana.
“She’s housebound now but I’d love to get her out. Maybe I could take her somewhere on a cargo bike!”
There was a pause as Jenny imagined how vulnerable Phil’s poor Grandma would be as cargo.
“From now on I’m going to ride like you’re my Nana, Jen! I should have been doing that all along”
They laughed and a huge sense of relief and mutual fondness replaced the anxious mistrust of before. There were still going to be tumbles and spills but they would never again feel like an act of carelessness.
We rode together for the rest of that night playing songs really loud from our portable speakers, a karaoke contest on four wheels, until cold and exhaustion overtook us and we focused instead on the km’s ticking down. As passengers that night, all bundled up and immobilised by our layers of down, we’d concentrate on our partners ragged breathing, while hedgerows and stars whipped past the tiny slits we’d made for our eyes.
We thought at the start of this challenge that we’d not stop to sleep but we hadn’t factored in the wellbeing of our stalwart (but human) media team and the psychological advantage of stopping and being horizontal to bookmark each day. Even if this was for as little as three hours all bundled into the same hotel room, we found this made a difference to how we felt about getting going the following morning.
On the fourth and fifth days we turned away from our easterly direction and started riding due north through Germany. The wind was now fully on our backs and on one night shift together, Phil and I found ourselves riding at 50kmph. Towards the end of the fifth day, we were all so exhausted that, despite the cold and discomfort, as passengers we’d easily doze off in the bucket as our partners muscles strained under the effort of forward movement. There was something very soothing about this. A throwback to being a helpless child no doubt, transported by people we knew cared for us with a simple, trusting ease. As rider, it was really disconcerting to watch as our passenger toppled steadily sideways. Remarkably, despite our deep fatigue, no one fell asleep so deeply that they fell off the moving bike, although I passed many silent minutes judging whether or not I’d be able to reach Alice before this happened.
Just outside Hamburg on the penultimate day, the Omnium's front tyre finally gave up. The side wall was torn and the inner couldn’t cope. What we didn’t know was that this tyre is an extremely rare size. What we also didn’t know was that this challenge was blessed and that the only bike shop in the whole of Germany likely to stock it was just around the corner from us. Despite having a spare Omnium that the media team were using to capture footage of us tucked in the back of the electric van, we wanted this challenge to remain as self-supported as possible and so Jenny went off to source us a replacement while we sat on the street explaining to bemused passers by what it was we were doing.
We lost two precious hours that day which squeezed us a bit for time that night. So when that tyre exploded at midnight only 20km’s from our hotel (we’d accidentally left too much pressure in it in attempt to seat it properly) we all sat by the side of the road, addled by sleep deprivation and the cold, and gave ourselves up to apathy. It’s in these moments that resolve is truly tested. We all slid off the momentum that had been carrying us forward and allowed ourselves a moment to wallow, then silently we began improving our situation. I got my repair kit out and started booting the damaged tyre while Phil helpfully held things. Jen checked the map to see how far we were from our end point, and Alice called James who wasn’t far ahead in the electric van. We all had a discussion on what it meant for James to return to us and swap out the Omnium’s front wheel with the spare the media team were carrying. In the end we all agreed that, as is the case in a more global sense, no one is going to achieve anything alone and that by hanging on to our egos and independence we would jeopardise the entire outcome. Our team in the van hadn’t helped us practically until this point but they were as much a part of every mile clocked up as those of us turning the pedals. This was a self-supported challenge but having a crew of supportive people in a van nearby inevitably changed the way we felt about things.
We were so grateful to have back up that evening but the bitter cold and our sense of independence didn’t allow us to just sit around and wait to be rescued. We got the bike to a point where it was rideable without any weight on the front and took it in turns to jog alongside it in the direction that James would return to us. Every mile the media team managed to charge to the van was sacred and we had to limit the miles he drove in order to ensure the team could continue to follow us the following day. When James arrived we swapped the wheel out and got back up to speed as quickly as possible.
The morning of 31st Jan began like all the others; cold, dark and too soon. The electric van was beginning it’s final push to Copenhagen with 40 unplanned kms already off it’s clock and the hotel had not packed us the breakfast we’d requested. The previous nights mechanical had left us all ill-rested and grumpy with one another. Over the last 120 hours we had hardly been further than a metre apart from our partners, and that night we’d even shared our three precious horizontal hours in the same bed. There was no escape. Tiny things were starting to niggle and despite all four of us being pretty emotionally literate and fond of each other, there was no extra time or energy to stop and clear the air. It was 6am, the scheduled time for departure but there was no sign of Phil and Jenny as Alice and I grimly readied our bike and got underway. Alice pushed off from the hotel car park tight-lipped and unsmiling with me riding backwards, cramped and uncomfortable in the bucket of the Bullit. We had to ride 20 km in two hours to reach the ferry that would take us to from Germany into Denmark for our last day on the road. Doable but not much room for error.
Jen worked hard to catch us that morning and with 10 km to go, I could just make out the Omnium’s front light two or three minutes behind us. We began crossing an exposed 4 km long bridge in fierce cross-wind shared with high sided vehicles but Alice didn’t falter and we made it safely to the other side.
We pulled over and waited for the others. And waited. Fifteen minutes passed and Phil and Jenny still hadn’t appeared. My heart was racing despite the cold. I was panicking that the other team (who were riding the lighter but more precarious Omnium) might have been toppled by the wind into the passing traffic. I started running back over the bridge battling images of them swept sideways off the bike and under the wheels of a close passing truck. They were nowhere. Something MUST have happened to them. I stopped and called the media team who were in a petrol station frantically trying to top up charge and worrying about missing the ferry. We were all holding valiantly to a schedule because we knew that without one we would slide off the pace and not reach our destination but at that moment the only thing I cared about was that my friends were ok. For the first time I was really struck by how precarious a position we had all been in from the start of this ridiculous challenge and I began cursing myself for ever having come up with the idea in the first place. I continued my laboured way on foot back over the exposed bridge when I caught sight of a tiny light far in the distance. As it got bigger and bigger I realised with a wave of relief that it was Phil and Jen and that they were ok. At least physically. As they drew level, it was obvious that something had happened. Their faces were grim and set.
“I’ve lost my jacket” said Jen.
This didn’t seem like a big deal. Between us we had enough warm clothes to make it to Copenhagen.
“It has my passport in it.”
Ah.
I’m still not quite sure how we got on the ferry to Denmark that morning. We arrived at the port at 7.45am, 15 minutes before sailing with three passports between four and no tickets. But we did. While everyone else was stopped by customs for a passport check and the media team turned back to retrace our route, hoping against all the odds that they might find Jen’s jacket and passport, we bought our tickets at the gate and rode right onto the 40 minute crossing without a second glance from any official anywhere. We all sat dazed and relieved in the ferry cafeteria drinking overpriced coffee and wondering how we were going to get Jen home from Copenhagen without a passport. It had been a stressful morning. But now, with the air cleared again over coffee and Danish pastries (which, as Alice pointed out, in Denmark are simply called pastries) we felt nothing but mutual care and understanding for the situation we, as a team, found ourselves in. No blame, no catastrophising, this was a shared problem. Then we got a message from Jack. The one chance in a million had paid off and the jacket and passport had been found in a hedge by the side of the road. Catherine and James were on the next crossing and would chase us down on bikes. Jack would be two crossings further behind in the van and would meet us just as soon as he could. We whooped then giggled with exhaustion and relief at our outrageous good fortune.
The ferry docked in Denmark at 9am. 15 hours remained of 2019 and we still had a relatively hilly 200 kms to ride to reach Copenhagen by midnight. On paper it was possible but we were all experienced enough to know that this was when it usually all unravelled. We agreed to stop once. We’d shop for everything we’d need to get us to the finish line then keep moving continuously after that.
The 31st December 2019 was a beautiful day in Denmark. Cold and crisp with blue skies and a fierce wind. Fortunately the wind was forecast to swing round in our favour that afternoon and so we rode that final day with a vague disbelieving optimism that we might just pull this crazy adventure off. We made good time and by 6pm we were 40km outside the city centre. Already the party was building. It’s a strange fact that in Denmark the sale and setting off of fireworks is illegal except between 26th and 31st December and so entering the Copenhagen suburbs sounded like you might imagine a war zone to sound. Fireworks in every direction and in the built up areas we passed though, entire families lined the streets and set them off literally in our path. We paused in a petrol station to regroup and grab coffee, calculating that we’d hit the square outside the town hall at 9.30pm that evening. Early? What should we do to build the drama? We weren’t used to arriving early for anything? There was the brief consideration that we should stay right there in that warm garage and drink beer for a while but then sense prevailed. We still had 40 kms to ride and anything could still happen to scupper our finale. It’s just as well we left when we did.
An hour later, whipping through the deserted streets, tunes blazing from both bikes while dodging fireworks, Alice took a roundabout a little too fast which resulted in her hitting the kerb at 25km an hour. With 65kgs sitting on top of a 20inch wheel that kind of manoeuvre was never going to end well. Both rider and passenger sailed through the air for long enough that I had time enough to think to myself that the deafening bang from the front wheel was so loud it might have been a firework. Then everything hit the ground and there followed a stunned silence. I remember concerned voices and gentle hands pressing me back to the concrete, encouraging me to take a minute, to tell them what I thought might be broken. I checked myself over mentally. My hip and elbow hurt but I could move them. I had hit the ground wrapped up like a burrito and yet through all those layers I was still somehow bleeding.
Sometimes, it’s important to ponder and reflect and make informed decisions about the most sensible course of action. At other times it’s best not to think too hard and just do. My hip needed a rub, Alice needed a hug, our tyre needed mended, the team needed to get to the city centre before midnight. We all sprung into action. While I got the dental floss and needle out and stitched the tyre back together as best I could, the others checked the bike over and sourced a new inner tube. Tentative jokes were cracked while Jen placed a silent, caring hand on my shoulder. Together we silently repaired the mess we had made and problem solved our way out of this.
We were 23km from the town hall but the Omnium could no longer travel any distance with any weight on it’s badly damaged front wheel. The situation was serious but solutions were being banded about with a certainty that never for a moment allowed us to feel that this ride might be over. We piled both panniers and the Ukulele on the Omnium’s platform then tentatively, I swung a bruised hip over the saddle. Alice climbed on the pannier rack like a kid being taken to the corner shop and performed the single most impressive feat I’ve ever witnessed on a bike. She rode for 23km on a pannier rack with only a hot water bottle as cushioning and without so much as a whimper.
And that’s how we arrived into Copenhagen at 22.55pm on January 31st December just in time for the city’s official firework display and with enough time to find our hostel and get a glass of Prosecco in hand before the bells tolled. We didn’t wash or change our clothes that night before spilling back out onto the city streets to watch wide eyed as its residents quite literally set the place on fire. We found a tiny underground pub and had one pint each which made us so drunk we could hardly focus on the menu in the kebab shop at 2am. What we had achieved wouldn’t sink in until we’d slept a bit and wandered the bike saturated streets of Copenhagen over the ensuing days. Only then we would marvel at our own courage which we still weren’t convinced hadn’t tipped over into stupidity. We’d taken a chance. One that many people had expressed so much concern over that we had begun to believe it impossible ourselves.
We spent the first two days of this new decade sitting on street corners sipping coffee under wool blankets and dimmed street lights soaking in the muted sounds of a city where the bicycle rules and where vehicle noise and pollution are kept to a minimum. Our novel cargo bike story faded among the throngs of commuters all taking their kids to school on them or delivery riders shifting huge loads in their buckets.
The humble bicycle and the spirit of the human being. Together, it transpires, we can perform miracles.
