Meditation or “why are we doing this trip and why are we doing it with a bicycle”?
Actually it should be “why am I doing this trip and why am I doing it with a bicycle”? I can’t write about Klaus’ motives.
That’s why there is only my story here, in which Klaus of course plays a leading role. Without him, this life would not be the way it is. A self-determined life, full of surprises and changes.
We are doing it again!
I have thought a lot about why we are doing this journey and why we are doing it again.
I met Klaus in 2007. We met at a small airfield in Bad Neuenahr in the Eifel. You don’t have to look in Google Maps now where that is, because it’s a really small insignificant area, albeit beautiful. Even most Germans don’t have a sense of where the Eifel could be placed in Germany in terms of landscape.
Klaus was doing his sailplane training there, I was training to fly single-engine aircrafts.
How it came about, the story may bore you, then just skip the paragraph “What actually happened”. Something not at all rare….. Work, too much work, relationship in in a mess, escape from the mundane and more. At least for me.
I wasn’t looking for a new relationship at that time. My life was too chaotic. Three dogs accompanied my chaos. They were also not what you necessarily bring into a new easy to lead relationship.
Klaus and I went on a motorbike ride. It somehow ended in disaster because it was far too cold and damp. It was raining, twisting rain and finally we were completely soaked. Surprisingly, we still had a lot of fun. We went our separate ways, but we met from time to time, often at the airfield. In 2008 we decided to travel the world together. My 3 dogs were to come with us, but we had no idea how to do it.
In the meantime, one of my dogs died of cancer. My life still felt like perfect chaos. No one but myself was responsible for it. I had no one to blame and I was looking for ways that these feelings in me would change again.
We found out that a couple was travelling the world by bicycle with their dogs in a trailer and so we quickly decided: we will travel by bicycle. Once to Egypt and back. That wasn’t the plan, but that became the journey. Every day on the journey I hoped that this terrible feeling inside me would change. Eventually it did. I felt free, self-determined and liked people again.
What actually happened!
I remember a day on the terrace of my beautiful quarry stone house in the Eifel. Surrounded by pure nature in a small village at 500m above sea level. We were working in the converted barn with some employees. And there I was, busy with my broom, sweeping the leaves from the terrace and started to cry. I didn’t know why. Actually, I rarely cry. The next days, weeks and months it got worse. I was powerless, I didn’t enjoy my work any more, I was tired all the time, frustrated and cynical towards my fellow human beings.
The latter was as new as all these other emotions.
My partner at the time and I had met during our studies (photo engineering) and founded an IT company together. It was about data and controlling work performance in other companies. Photography no longer had a place there. And my 3-year training as a photographer (at that time still a craft) was suddenly completely useless. Success and money were now the driving forces for a fulfilled life. I was literally on fire for our company and my life.
A daily struggle not to lose sight of the competition, the installation of monitoring and control programmes for employees in the companies, data control, all just tools to make even more profit. The human being was not an important factor in this system. A hamster wheel? Even when we stopped our work, which happened from time to time in the context of my terrible feelings, it didn’t help. The cage remained, only the wheel stopped. So I continued to run, to function.
Flying was supposed to provide a balance, give a new meaning to my life, but I think actually it just drained more energy. I wasn’t ill, but I ignored little things like severe allergies in the spring, frequent stomach aches. I didn’t want to be sick. All my life, as far back as I can remember, there were always extreme ups and downs in my sensitivities and I liked that. Energy-sapping, but the tingling, I was addicted to it. And somehow I also enjoyed my work. Or maybe it was just the recognition? I don’t know exactly.
I had a great life. But now it was too much. Payday!
I left my partner, the company, the house, the Eifel, the country. Klaus and I went on a bicycle (world) tour.
There would certainly have been other ways, but I didn’t know any. I felt that I had failed in what I expected of myself. Despite being independent, I was 100% determined by others. Selfdetermination and heteronomy in conflict.
We set off. 2 bikes, 2 trailers, 2 dogs into self-determined life. We decided the route, the speed, the solutions for impassability, the duration. I do not want to go into detail here about the word self-determination and its meaning. It can mean something different for each of us. I don’t want to experience something like that again, but the experience is now part of my life. The change of status (from businesswoman to globetrotter) was as much a part of it as learning to recognise the symptoms early.
2022
We are on the road again. 11 years after we returned from our first trip. Back then, we first went back to the Rhineland and I felt my stomach tighten as we crossed the border into Bonn. The fear of the old feelings. We stayed for two years and then moved to Berlin. I continued there the life we had worked out on the journey, outside the cage.
I liked the people, my work as a bike guide, my workshops and classes in photography, working in a bike shop. It was the kind of self-determined life I wanted to lead.
So why are we on the road again?
In 2019, the thought came back to me to go on another trip around the world by bicycle. Klaus was startled for a moment, because we had set everything up perfectly. Even our flat was a dream and that’s not so easy to find in Berlin. But what could I say when I was on my deathbed? Life is over, but I had a great flat?
So we thought about it and finally decided that we would try again in May 2022. This time without dogs. A trip around the world.
What were the reasons for “breaking out” this time?
Did we break out? A definitive answer, if there is one at all, will probably only be available after the trip. But one reason is our age. Klaus is 59, I am 54, and even if we don’t want to admit it, our bodies are losing a lot of their capacity. Every day, kilometre after kilometre, up and down mountains, cold, heat, in and out of the tent. Will we be able to do this for much longer? We know how hard it can be with wild dogs, crazy drivers, unpleasant people. So why? The daily worries, where do we pitch our tent tonight, do we have enough water, where do we get something to eat. The basic survival tasks for every human being.
Does that sound like paradise?
We have left behind our conflicts with authorities, landlords, neighbours, Berlin street ruffians, unfriendly coffee owners, impatient tourists, overcrowded squares, dirty districts, rubbish problems and so on.
If you read reports from us, you will learn about many other impassibilities on our journey. The difference is that we have the power to decide when to change things. To change ourselves. How long we want to endure it is up to us.
For example, we eventually left Iran. We didn’t want to travel any further this country the way it was.
Now we are in India, expecting it to be very difficult based on the reports and experiences of other travellers. It turned out differently. We have been travelling here for almost 4 weeks and enjoy every day. The people, the landscapes, the food.
We are in no hurry, it doesn’t matter how many kilometres we manage in one day. It’s not about making it. It’s about the experience. It can happen that after 5 km we take a tea break, after another 5 km the next one and after the next one again. Then we sit somewhere, enjoy and maybe talk again about why we are doing this journey.
Meditation
Here in India in the tourist places many go to a retreat. Brothers Ayurveda and Yoga Retreat, Earth Yoga, Palm Trees Yoga, Spiritual, Meditation, Healing, Detox, Hiking, but I recommend: Cycling Retreat. This is what happens when we are on the road. Long periods of silence, meditation, mindfulness, self-awareness exercises and reflections.
We are adventurers on a bicycle. We want to experience our earth, learn about cultures, meet people. And I use cycling for meditation. Unintentionally and unconsciously.
I am a passionate advocate of cycling to reconnect with nature and firmly believe that meditation and breathwork can improve the quality of our life experiences.
But I have no idea about meditation!
Riding in the moment – not actively thinking about what’s in front of you or being distracted by other thoughts – is exactly how I would describe finding my flow and it’s been a great breakthrough in building confidence and learning more cycling skills. When we’re on a climb where I immediately think “you can’t do this” I bring to mind an image of a yellow flower on the tarmac and hold on to that image. I manage most of the climbs after all. But if we have been in the saddle for a long time on a day like this and this climb comes at the end, then my mind doesn’t manage to hold on to this image either and I probably won’t make it.
There is a point where challenge, mind and skill come together and that is the point where flow happens. It just goes on, on and on.
When I feel safe and have everything under control, then I can move forward pedal by pedal. It’s not my challenge to do as many kilometres as possible. My challenge is to feel and enjoy every second on the bicycle. Even if (or especially then?) the sweat drips from my chin.
I wouldn’t trade a Ferrari in the world for my bicycle and the experiences that come with it.
