Earlier this yr, Bicycle Touring Professional awarded its annual scholarship, a monetary increase for younger individuals heading out on their first bicycle tour, to 24 yr previous Polish-Canadian bike owner Kasia Szewczyk. Kasia’s plan was to cycle throughout Europe, from Barcelona, Spain to Istanbul, Turkey, combining her first ever bike tour with a fund elevating mission – that of elevating $10,000 for Canadian charity “World Literacy Canada”
Now, after finishing the experience, Kasia shares her tales and experiences with Bicycle Touring Professional in a 3-part sequence of articles centered round biking, fund elevating and life classes gained on the highway.
For info on the biking side of Kasia’s Experience to Learn bike tour mission, click on right here. For her earlier article on fundraising, click on right here.
What if we checked out bicycle journey as a metaphor to life? What if we are able to perceive and relearn some profound life-lessons whereas on the market on the highway?
Bike journey is concerning the journey, not the vacation spot. Life on the highway, within the sweat and dust with the locals, may be fairly humbling. It’s a actuality verify, and we pedal on in awe of the uncooked and actual experiences that we encounter alongside the best way. Should you’re like me, eternally curious of the world and of individuals, journey feeds your spirit and your thirst for understanding like nothing else can. Now, after the Experience to Learn, I’d say that touring by bicycle makes the journey that rather more full.
It’s not that “I used to be blind, and now I see.” It’s not as if there aren’t different methods to expertise and glimpse moments of understanding. Merely, touring on bike and being alone for a lot of the time throughout the Experience to Learn, I used to be blessed with ample alternative to suppose and to ponder. And a few classes, extra so than others, actually hit dwelling.
1. Life strikes continuously ahead (change is the one fixed)
Prefer it or not, life won’t ever stop to maneuver ahead. The streams stream steadily on, flowers bloom, wilt and die, the highway continues on into the horizon, and take a look at as you would possibly, you’ll by no means fairly attain the top of it.
Journey will at all times be concerning the journey inside – as we cross by means of completely different cultures, international locations and cities we’re the shifting wheel, the locations we go to the axle. Change is constant, and all we all know for positive is {that a} new city will at all times come after this one.
Isn’t it curious that each bike owner, and I imply each single bicycle traveler that I’ve met to date, has both consciously or with out realizing it adopted a singular rule when on the highway: by no means flip again and experience the identical method you got here. Whether or not you’re misplaced, want water or are drained and need to relaxation, it all of a sudden turns into paramount, some pressure deep down inside us rears it’s head and cries: “by no means flip again!” Loop round, take a aspect path or preserve going ahead in hopes of discovering what you want… however don’t look again.
2. Irrespective of how small the step ahead, it’s nonetheless a step ahead!
Nice feats are actually a compilation of quite a few not-so-amazing feats. Biking throughout a continent sounds very grandiose, as in comparison with biking 20 km from one city to the subsequent. However all that the trans-continental stuff is, are 20 km segments repeated a whole lot of occasions. Each step, even the smallest, is critical, for it performs a significant position within the creation of the entire. Throughout my experience, there have been days after I confronted robust winds, rain or steady uphill. These have been days when situations each inside and round me have been so discouraging that I must get off the bike and stroll. Essentially the most demoralizing side of all: at sundown, I had a lower than thrilling 30 km to indicate for all my efforts. Watching my odometer on the finish of the day in disbelief, I’d sigh and do not forget that, I had, nonetheless, made some progress.
3. Do what you like & use the ability of intention to get you there (Go on that dreamed of motorcycle journey now!)
No matter occurs, don’t delay your goals for an indefinite future. Go after them now, plan them into your busy schedule, meet with buddies and inform them of your “loopy” concepts. Now they will maintain you accountable; they’ll telephone and ask how your plans for the bike tour in Tuscany are coming alongside. When your thoughts is targeted and your intention formulated, circumstance actually does align itself together with your goals making the seemingly unimaginable miraculously doable. By signing up for that travel-Italian class and getting out the rusty bike for a weekend highway experience, you’ve made the primary steps in direction of attaining your purpose. Have religion that different perceived limitations may also resolve themselves sooner or later.
With out your prodding issues alongside in the precise route nevertheless, you present no actual want for change, no actual pursuit of your goal. Observe your goals nevertheless wild they might appear, and don’t hearken to those that let you know in any other case. Whereas planning the Experience to Learn and properly into the primary weeks of my journey, I heard many occasions over that it was irresponsible and harmful for a younger lady to traverse Europe alone on her bicycle. As you might have guessed, these warnings didn’t cease me from finishing the Experience. Not as a result of I’m reckless, however quite as a result of I felt that I had ready to the very best of my capability, knew find out how to face future obstacles, and that no further quantity of sedentary analysis was going to assist. It was time to behave. In my intestine I knew that what I used to be doing was good and that I’d make it by means of alright. Trying again on it, I see how time and time once more in the middle of the mission I used to be helped alongside, inspired and supported in precisely the precise moments. It was a robust reminder that when intentions are clear, the celebrities actually do align in our favor.
4. Don’t take individuals’s phrase for it, go and see issues for your self (Journey and discover!)
That man’s opinion you met on the highway could also be spot on – it actually was a awful campground, a tough highway to navigate, you suppose to your self afterward. However generally your eyes see otherwise, you’re pleasantly shocked or mildly dissatisfied since you had anticipated one thing completely different…
Transfer ahead with a clear slate freed from expectations. Take heed to others, their recommendation is perhaps useful, however take all of it “with a grain of salt.” Go and see it for your self, and should you nonetheless need to decide, achieve this based mostly on no person else’s opinion besides your personal. Throughout my experience I used to be shocked to search out Serbia so bike-friendly; I used to be in awe on the exceptional hospitality of the Turks. Had you requested me earlier than embarking, I’d have by no means guessed that locals would reward me with contemporary fruit and occasional of their houses, that upon my arrival in Istanbul an ideal stranger would drive me, my gear and my bike clear throughout the Bosporus to my WarmShower host’s place – all as a result of I used to be misplaced, overwhelmed and in want of help.
I problem you to cycle and journey with an open thoughts and coronary heart – it’s the one solution to see the world by means of your personal eyes 🙂
5. Be affected person, do not forget that every thing is non permanent (the hill received’t final eternally!)
An understanding that every thing, fulfilling and unsightly, is finally a finite expertise, makes for a more healthy outlook on life. It helps us to as soon as once more glimpse the larger image and acknowledge the small print for what they’re. That 23 km climb over a mountain cross is tough and it hurts, however it won’t final eternally. Nor will the wildly enjoyable downhill or these countless fields of golden sunflowers. Get pleasure from them now, absolutely. A telephone name from an previous pal, a free sandwich at a restaurant, a flash summer time storm that you just wait out below an historic fig tree. Expertise all of it within the second, keep in mind persistence and perceive that this too shall cross.
Click on right here to be taught extra about Kasia’s Experience to Learn bicycle tour.
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