Holidays, Travels & Cycling

Holidays and travels are two sweet words for a lot of people. But words are only labels, and their meaning depends on the dreams or nightmares we have in our brain. 

For a lot of people holidays have to be far away from their home; so most of the time holidays begin in an airport, with a lot of waiting lines in which people lose time and gain stress. And when people are very tired of waiting, they are ready to sit down on a narrow seat for a long, uncomfortable and boring plane trip. 

For me holidays have just to be very different from my usual life. They have to begin just when I close the door of my flat, because I don’t like to spend time in logistics.

Our world is complex and fast. We have a sedentary lifestyle; we spend our days sitting on a chair, confined between 4 walls, a floor and a ceiling. And the less lucky of us can’t see the sky during their work job. So during my holidays I want the opposite. I want something simple, with a slow pace. I want to move, I want to be outdoor. I want to see the sky, the sun, and the stars when the night arrives.

It’s the reason why this year, I chose to spend my holidays cycling. A bicycle is something very simple with a very slow pace. It’s a toy for children, an outdoor recreation. I dreamt of a bike trip for a long time. But there was always something which didn’t match: school, friends, family, job… And this year I said stop: I should live my dream right now. So I decided to leave my flat. But there was at least one problem: Last year I couldn’t practice any sport and I couldn’t spend an hour riding my bike; but anyway, I decided to go out of my home. 

The most difficult thing was to extract myself from my usual life, my habits, and blow up the walls of the prison that was in my brain.

I bought a bike. Then I bought luggage dedicated for a bicycle: a pair of front and rear baskets, and a big bag to tie down on the rear rack. I filled these with a tent, a sleeping bag, some tools and some clothes. Then I went through the “Promenade des Anglais”. I didn’t have a real goal but I had a dream: go North through the mountains and perhaps up to Strasbourg. And then go west to meet some of my family in Beauce, the wheat granary of France located 100km south of Paris. Then from the Beauce I hoped to reach the English Channel near Caen in Normandy.

And I rode my bicycle. I saw mountains: the Alps, first, then the Jura and the Vosges. I saw marvelous landscapes and cities.

Cycling is a humble way to travel. A heavily loaded bike triggers sympathy, so you meet a lot of people who ask you a lot of questions: Where do you come from? Where do you go? How long are your daily journeys? How much weight do you carry? Is it difficult? Did you perform some specific training before starting this bike trip? And they ask you a lot of other questions. And thirty minutes later, you are in a pleasant discussion with new friends. 

With a bike, you can go as far as you want, with little resources. You don’t need much money: a bike cost little and you don’t have additional charges like parking fees, mechanics, highway tolls, insurance, or petrol. And cycling is pollution-free.

Each day of my trip, I felt more relaxed than the day before. I forgot my problems, or I minimized them. Every day, I breathed good smells from mountains, forests, pastures, fields or flowers. Every day, I could admire wonderful landscapes. Every day, I met friendly people. Life was like a dream. I felt good, and it seems people detected this, because a lot of people came to chat with me.

During a month, I traveled through France with my bike. It was great, simple and slow.
To summarize, it was probably the best holiday I ever had. But 1 month before the beginning, when I revealed my plan, family and friends were worried. It’s the reason why I decided to write a blog on jagpacanice2016.blogspot.fr and jagpacanice2017.blogspot.fr. And after each journey, I posted a text and some pictures related to my route of the day.