The trouble with cycling is… …the hills.
Bikes have always been a part of our travelling experience. Lizzy had been trying to encourage me to cycle more, with the idea of doing some kind of extended cycle tour. I was, as always, up for it, but I was reluctant to go cycle touring without the possibility of surfing too. That presented a dilemma.
I love the purity of cycling because it reminds me of surfing. There is something terribly authentic about it. The idea of cycle touring over long distances while being self-supporting is terribly romantic. That you could be completely independent appeals to me as an environmentalist too. All you leave when you pass through is tyre tracks.
The trouble with cycling though, is the hills. The painful, unforgiving reality of chugging up mountains is a price that’s too high to pay for the whizzing downhill afterwards. I am not afraid to say that I lack the moral fortitude to push one pedal after another, for hours on end, up epic passes. I know this because I have done it.
“Fuck this,” I declared at the first hairpin when we set off to cycle up the Col D’Aubisque in the Pyrenees some years ago, “I’m not doing this. This isn’t fun. Why would anyone want to do this?”
Liz waited for me to blow myself out. I set off again, because I can be determined, to a point, and didn’t want to be a complete failure. Partial failures are okay. Complete failures are not. I turned those hateful, bastard pedals and slowly made my way up the 10% climb. She waited for me again, just below the summit, when the sight of the final hairpin threw me off my bike in a fit of exhausted rage and self-pity. I was a mess. I pushed a bit and then remounted for the last flat-ish 100 metres so we could at least summit together. I knew I had failed but still declared myself Princeling of the Mountains. King might have been a bit rich.
Even though cycling’s simplicity reminds me of surfing, cycling just isn’t the same as surfing. It might give a buzz when freewheeling down a hill or weaving through single track berms in the forest, but you can’t sustain that high forever if you are trying to cover distances. If I were to set out on an extended cycle tour I would need something else. God I am so shallow. As if the serotonin of exercise, the passing of the landscape, the sense of achievement at reaching summits or places under your own steam wasn’t enough! I need a little more incentive to pedal my chicken legs off. That incentive would always be surfing. Nothing else would do.
However, when it came to the thought of dragging a board, no matter how short and lightweight, behind a bike for thousands of miles – and especially in the terrifyingly hilly terrain of northern Spain – I was circumspect. I doubted I would be able to do it without luggage as it was, never mind with panniers, a board and wetsuit too. It just sounded like a foolish idea.
Cycling and surfing are compatible, but only for hyper local trips. In places where there is no vehicular access, where parking is difficult or when you live so close that getting in the car seems wasteful and stupid, bikes are the perfect antidote. Lizzy and I did it during covid, taking our daily permitted exercise by cycling down the hill to the beach for a surf at our local beach.
Biking with a board is difficult, and also a little dangerous, especially if you ride a 9 foot longboard and transport it with a bike mounted board rack. They can wobble madly and catch the wind if you are not careful, sending you, the bike and your precious board into the nearest hedge.
Having done a little cycle touring I have grown to love it, but the idea of not surfing for long periods filled me with dread. Further to that, the idea of arriving at a beach and not having something to surf filled me with even more. Imagine having to sit on the beach watching amazing surf and not being able to paddle out? It would be torture.
It took me a while to get to the bit where I imagined we could cycle long distances and surf too. That happened when we met an English couple in Potes, in the Picos de Europa, who were riding folding electric bikes from home to Lisbon. I spotted them as we were parking up to go to the supermarket and accosted them before they could ride off. They were in their seventies and, so they told me, had done a lot of cycle touring in the past but now wanted the extra push up the hills from their ebikes. I could relate. I quizzed them doggedly about charging, luggage, distances and range until I could see the fear in their eyes. Or possibly the cataracts forming. Even so, I gleaned enough from them that it set my mind I motion. My synapses fired in all different directions all at once and my head fizzed with possibilities as connections were made, questions answered and likely outcomes examined. I was transported back to the reason I bought my ebike in the first place: my neighbour buzzing past us every day on his ebike, his board under his arm, as we laboured up the hill after another of our covid surfs. Of course!
It was a niggle that wouldn’t go away. Maybe, just maybe, a multiple day, long distance tour could be completed with an ebike. And with boards?
Let’s give it a go.
