#bikelife vs #vanlife

Last year, researching my latest book, I cycled 6,000 miles from southern Spain to Nagorno-Karabakh, the war-ravaged and disputed region of the Caucasus. Despite government warnings not to go anywhere near the place, you should have a look at Nagorno-Karabakh if you get a chance. It's truly gorgeous. But conflict zones are not what this post is about, unless we're talking about the one that was inside my head.

During the majority of my five months on the road, I suffered truly awful weather. I would've been better off on a jetski. During yet another abandoned day on a sodden French campsite I downloaded an e-book about #vanlife, y'know, the concept of converting a van into something habitable and then living on the road. The idea suddenly appealed, having all the freedom of cycling but with the ability to remain dry even in the worst of weathers. In the weeks that followed, every time I sheltered drippily in a shop doorway, which is to say several times each and every day, a van would pass by as if to mock me. "Ditch the bike, son," its engine seemed to purr. "Get yourself a nice, dry van."

So this year I did, a Transit. I used plastic storage boxes and sheets of wood to create a very modular bed and seat arrangement, and I covered the whole lot with cushions. It was very comfortable. I even hung a photo of my girlfriend's dog on the wall to make it feel like home.

I decided to tour around Britain in my new mobile home. Things started well. The first time it rained, I smiled to myself. Ah-ha! This was better than cycling. The raindrops bounced off my windscreen rather than my forehead. The ends of my fingers remained entirely unwrinkled. Van 1, Bicycle 0.

But over the coming weeks, I learnt some other stuff.

Somewhere in England's south-west, I came to the top of a steep hill. I slowed and looked down the slope. Something was missing from this situation, I thought. Ah, yes. The exhilaration! When you reach the top of a hill on a bicycle, there's a sense of achievement but also the expectation of a fast and joyous descent. On this occasion, however, I drove down the hill feeling dead inside.

Of course, I might have been glad of the engine at the bottom of the next hill, but over time I realised the van robbed my journey of its highs and lows. Yes, I could drive sixty miles in a single hour whereas on my bike the same distance would take me all day, but it would be a day full of challenging ups and delicious downs, of country smells, of feeling the wind in my ever-thinning hair, of rain showers and sunshine but mostly rain showers and, importantly, of being able to guiltlessly fill my face with pizza, cake and beer at the end of it all. In short, on a bike, it would have been a day full of adventure. The most adventurous thing I did in my van was attempt to listen to Radio One.

To be honest, in my van I still guiltlessly filled my face with pizza, cake and beer but without the expended calories I just got fat.

But that wasn't all. Often in end-of-tour blog posts, cyclists write about what they learned on their voyages. One typical conclusion is that the world is full of kind and wonderful people. I wrote the same thing after my 22,000-mile European capital tour six years ago. When you're on a bicycle, the other people you meet show their best side. Perhaps because they see you as adventurous or eccentric or penniless or, at the very least, unthreatening - after all, cycle-by shootings are rare - they open up to you with smiles, warmth and generosity. Well, let me tell you, that's not what they bloody well do if you travel in a van in the UK. In a van, they look at you suspiciously, ask why you parked near their house and are thirty seconds from calling the Paedo Hotline. After some of the looks I received, I wondered if my new, fuller beard had them mistaking me for Charles Manson. I started to get worried. Maybe I was a monster. Perhaps my mind had blacked out that time I'd shanked a pensioner or kicked a puppy to death.

Maybe it doesn't matter what other people think of you. Still, I'd rather someone see me as an eccentric, unthreatening peasant than a highly punchable pariah. Life is better from a bicycle seat. This is just a roundabout way of saying my van is back on the market and next year I'll return to touring slowly and damply on a bicycle. It's only water after all. Lots and lots of water. #rainlife

Indestructible Cycling Celebrities

As I was on my way out of Greece, Sean Conway was cycling in from Turkey. We met not far from Asprovalta. Sean was one of nine cyclists who set off from London on 18th February to race 18,000 miles around the world and attempt to claim the record for the fastest time. Before the race, the record stood at an amazing 106 days. It once took me that long to cycle from Preston to Burnley. (There was a lot of traffic.)

Unfortunately, Sean's attempt was scuppered when he was hit at 55 miles an hour by a truck in America. It just ploughed into the back of him. He spent a couple of weeks in hospital and then another week being kindly looked after at the home of one of the hospital's medical staff. With such a delay, as well as continuing back problems, the record was out of reach but he decided to finish his trip.

Sean and his, erm, heavily laden bike

I noticed that he wore a helmet. Because I don't, and because my mum always tells me off for not wearing one, I asked him if it had helped during the accident. "Without the helmet, I would have been dead," he replied. Hmm, that really wasn't the answer I was looking for. The extremely dense, centimetre-thick foam at the back of the helmet was crushed to a couple of millimetres, and the top of the helmet itself had been cracked in two. I hope my mum doesn't read this one.

The existing world record had been completed as a supported tour, in other words with a lot of help from a team and a car to carry the cyclist's gear and keep him refuelled. Like everyone else who set off in Februrary, Sean's attempt was self-supported, which made it even more challenging. I couldn't believe how little he was carrying. I've carried more than that on a ride to the pub. Compared to his, my bike looked like something with advanced elephantiasis. From this handlebars, his sleeping bag hung like a tea bag. "Smallest sleeping bag in the world!" he said. "And the smallest ground mat." What, that bag included a ground mat as well? He was wild-camping most nights, setting up a sheet from the top of his bike wherever he happened to be at darkness and sleeping beneath it. God help him if he ever passes through Blackburn come sundown.

Although I massively admire Sean's athleticism and sporting ability, it's not the way I'd like to see the world. He was cycling from before dawn till after dusk. Now that the competition is over he can slow down a little but he's still pushing it. Even since the accident, he hadn't done a day of fewer than one hundred miles, whereas I hadn't done a day over one hundred (well, maybe one, but with a non-functioning cycle computer it's hard to tell). But with such a punishing schedule there's no time to see the sights, to rest for a snooze on a pretty hillside or to chat to the people you cycle past. I'm pretty sure that our conversation would have been a lot shorter had the record still been within reach. And I couldn't have blamed him. Paula Radcliffe doesn't stop for a natter during a marathon, does she? I suppose we're different animals. He's a top sportsman and I'm a lazy sod.

Mike Hall, one of the guys who set off with him, won the race and the record, slashing the time to just 91 days. That's an average of nearly two hundred miles per day, which is simply mental! Sean still hankers for a record of his own. He's thinking of trying to beat the current fastest north-to-south-Africa time. I hope he manages it. He's a fine bloke and he deserves a record of some sort. Although if he can't manage a record using his bike, as his photo shows, he may be in with a chance of World's Most Ridiculous Beard. And bear in mind, this is coming from someone's whose own stupid beard killed a woman in Bratislava last year.

I said goodbye to Sean and continued towards my home for the evening. I knew that it wasn't far but I passed right through the town where I thought it was. I asked an old fella if the campsite was nearby. He pointed up the road and said in heavily accented English, "Fifty kilometres!" No, surely not. I'd already done a hundred kilometres today. For Sean, an extra fifty would have been trivial, but not for me. I was ready, nah, desperate for a cold beer. Then the old fella showed me his forefinger and, with his other hand, slide a finger halfway down it. Ah, not fifty kilometres, but half a kilometre away. That's better. Even me and my stupid, fat bike could manage that.

Today My Beard Took A Life

The Lovely Nina has cursed me. In her crazy attempts to inject spirituality into my existence she's gone too far. All these occasions when I've been forced to visit temples and churches to satisfy her challenges, or perform incantations beside gravestones, have turned me. My beard has become enchanted. It's gone thoroughly evil.

First off, its length has got seriously out of hand. Every time I look in the mirror I grab the phone and immediately start calling the Sex Offenders' Hotline. But it's gone beyond that. Today, while casually walking through the centre of Bratislava, a young woman whizzing past on her bike glanced at me. I thought nothing of it, and then - thump! - I turned around and there she was, picking herself up off the floor, while a middle aged woman lay unconscious in the middle of the road. My beard did that! Distracted by the idea of Peter Sutcliffe walking unshackled around her hometown, the girl's only option was to terminate the life of a tourist. Bad beard!

But I can't shave it off yet. Many centuries ago I did a psychology A-level. I remember learning that there are times that we only remember things when we are in the same state we were when we learned them. So there are facts that you may have learned while you were off your tits that you'll never remember until you take your tits off again. And because I've revised for my planetary science exam on Monday with beard, what happens if I shave it off? Will I lose the knowledge? It's too big a risk. I'd have to sit in the exam hall for three weeks until I grew it back again. And there are other good reasons for keeping it. It's got so long now that I sometimes find snacks in it, and you never know when that's going to come in handy. This morning I found a 12" Subway.

I got lucky when I arrived in Bratislava. I turned up at the tourist office and asked for a cheap hotel and the nice lady there took one look at me and thought, "Where would Captain Birdseye like to stay in Bratislava?" and she immediately offered me a boatel - that's a boat that's also a hotel - a boatel! It's a rusty, old thing moored up on the Danube, but the room is great and the staff are super-friendly. Perhaps that's because they think I'm the skipper. I've even got the biggest cabin, and the only one with a balcony. We're all going to make Fish Fingers later.

But even though I've only been here for two days, it's time for me to leave. Slovakia doesn't get a proper exploration because it carelessly sited its capital right on its border with Austria and so there's no need on this trip to venture further inside. And that's a shame because the good stuff - Slovakia's amazing mountains, rivers and lakes - are all miles away, and time doesn't allow me to have a look. Maybe on a future trip. If my beard hasn't destroyed the universe by then.

Oh lovely, I've just found a Snickers. Good beard.