Day 1 (Eoin)

Got up, ate a massive breakfast courtesy of my mother, had an argument for the umpteenth time with my dad about the route I would take from Reading to Portsmouth, gave Greg a call to let him know that I was heading off, hopped on my bike and wobbled unstably down the drive and onto the road. And that was it - my life was now officially contained within the argos panniers and backpack that were strapped to my bike and body respectively. I was 25 with no set plans ahead of me other than to get to Budapest and take a CELTA course there, and after that who knows. Everything that I needed to achieve these 2 goals was being carried with me on the bike, assembled at a minimum of cost and effort. This was a large part of the appeal of this trip for both myself and Greg - the fact that we hadn't spent months intensively preparing, we didn't spend much money on bikes or equipment, and that we didn't really know very much about bikes actually seemed quite important. It felt like we were keeping things simple, and showing everyone that you dont have to be a pro or a devoted bike nerd to do a long distance cycling trip. What we lacked in equipment and knowledge we could always make up for in spirit! We were of a similar school of thought when it came to our route - in terms of planning all that we knew was that we would pretty much go straight inland from Le Havre (where we would arrive in France) and then turn right somewhere around Austria. It seemed that planning everything out meticulously would somehow kill the fun and adventure of the trip.
As I cruised through the familiar surroundings of the town where I grew up I felt a strange mix of excitement and self-doubt. Were we really going to pull this off and get to Budapest before our course started (26 days time)? Would we even make it to the ferry from Portsmouth on time? I had bragged to so many disbelieving friends about this trip, telling them nonchelantly about how we were going to cruise over to Budapest on our bikes just to get a bit of exercise, and I was going to feel like a right plonker if we then had to admit defeat and catch a train or something because we weren't going to make it in time. Not to mention having to listen to a million and one people remind me that Easyjet would have been a much more time and cost effective option! The embarassment would of course be doubled if something went wrong while we were still in England - or worse yet when I was still in Reading!
Other than the time issue, most of my doubts revolved less around my own ability to pedal the distance - after all both myself and Greg had done some fairly long distance riding over the much more mountainous terrain of Japan - rather I was worried that perhaps our bikes, bags and navigational skills were not up to the job. I had never ridden a bike as heavy as mine was now. I wondered how well the budget mountain bike I was using (which incidentally had laid unused in my parents garage for the previous 4 years) would stand up to the strain . In fact I had never ridden a bike with panniers before, and was not used to having so much weight piled on the back of a bike. The panniers themselves had only cost me 25 quid with a rack from argos, and after a few creaky noises during a practice run with them the previous night I had my doubts about how well they would hold.
I ended up navigating Reading easily enough, and was soon on an A road heading directly south towards the coast. For those of you who don't know, an A road is the next stage down from a motorway/highway in the UK, and this particular road was very busy. Three years in the Japanese countryside had gotten me used to winding country roads and cars travelling at slow speeds, but here I was getting badly blown about by the wind coming off speeding cars as they whizzed past me. As early as I could I got off the main road to take a parallel, slightly less busy route. Getting onto a quieter road really let me find my rhythm a bit better, and I was starting to get used to the feel of the bike a bit more. Trees also provided me with a bit of shade on a surprisingly sunny English September day, a good thing as unfortunately I had forgotten to bring any suncream with me. I later learned that while I was on this road my dad thought he had discovered a better route to Portsmouth than the one I had previously shown him, and set of in his car down the main road (which I had already turned off) looking for me so as to let me know. Upon not finding me he then returned home to inform my mum that he was sure I had just cycled to the station and caught the train to Portsmouth! Now there's faith for you!
At around lunchtime I rolled into a town called Alton and decided it was time to get some food. I had a quick look around the main street, but as I didn't want to hang around too long a conveniently located supermarket seemed like the best (and cheapest) option. As I searched for a suitable place to lock up my bike I suddenly felt intensely aware of how vulnerable to theft I was - even if my bike was locked up there was nothing to stop anyone taking my panniers. Part of the reason we had decided to do the trip on fairly cheap bikes was that we thought no-one would want to steal them, but I realised now that pretty much everything I was carrying on the bike was essential to my life on the road, and that if anything went missing it would be a major problem.
The weather was good, so having my supermarket lunch of a sandwich and a milkshake outside was no hardship, though I did feel a little lonely eating on my own on the street. I could not imagine doing a long trip like this without someone to share it with. Even at my first meal on the road I was already feeling the need for someone to talk to.
I finished up eating and headed on out of Alton on the A32, cruising south through some small villages and hamlets. After a while I took a left turn on to the B2150 (a quieter road) and ploughed on into Waterlooville, a town which borders Portsmouth to the north and is well equipped with cycle lanes. A few ascents and descents later I was entering Portsmouth, but the road signs seemed to indicate that the only way to the ferry port was by a several mile long stretch of motorway. I stopped with the intention of having a look at my map again, and as I was fumbling around in my backpack trying to find the thing I saw another cyclist approaching. I waved him down and asked for directions to the ferry port. The guy, who it turns out was on his way home from work, was kind enough to show me the cycle route to the port by riding with me. As I pedalled along behind him my anxieties about getting to the ferry port on time disappeared, only to be replaced instantly with worries about the state of my pannier rack. I had noticed a few stange noises coming from the back of my bike, but as I glanced back now I realized that one side of the pannier holder had actually ripped its fixture off from the stem of the seat pole, and that almost all of the nuts and bolts holding it together had loosened significantly. So thats why the Argos pannier sets were so cheap!
The man who was showing me the way said that he was going to turn off to go home and pointed me in the right direction for the short remainder of the journey. I asked him about bicycle shops in Portsmouth and he told me of one that was not too far from the port, so I headed on to there, found somewhere secure to leave most of my bags and darted back into town on my now significantly lighter bike. Finding the bike shop still open was a massive relief, and along with getting the panniers fixed up I also took the opportunity to get the guy in the shop to have a look at the bike as a whole, especially the pedal crankshaft which seemed to be slipping and clicking a bit when I was applying a lot of pressure on it going uphill. The repairs only took about 40 minutes, during which time I went across the road to get what must have been one of Portsmouth's greasiest burgers. Upon returning to the shop the man showed me what he had done: a new fixture to attach the pannier rack to the frame on the right side, all of the nuts and bolts replaced with heavier duty ones, and he had tightened up the pedal crankshaft. He said that ideally he would have changed the crankshaft over for a new one, but given the time constraints (i needed the bike that night) all he could do was tighten it up. He warned that it would probably crack at some point, but hopefully that would be after I arrived in Budapest. The repairs didnt cost me too much (about 20 pounds), and despite the warning about the crankshaft I felt a renewed confidence in my machine, ragging it as fast as I could back to the port.
I was arrived at the passenger terminal just in time for my rendezvous with Greg, but 6 o'clock came and went with no sign of him. I had called his Grandad's house, where he was planning to take a possible break on his way over from his parents home in the New Forest, but apparently Greg hadn't called in at all. While I waited I used one of the computers in the terminal to send out a quick group email letting everyone know that I had made it to Portsmouth, and shortly after that my travel companion turned up.
I was happy to see Greg for the obvious reason that he is a good friend, but exchanging stories about the trials and tribulations of our first day's travelling also brought home the fact that, apart from the first day, this trip was not a solo mission. We were in it together, and I felt that we would make a good team - both of us quite positive people, but in different ways. From my time in Japan I knew that Greg was someone that I could always have a laugh with when things went wrong - we were both quite willing to laugh at, and on occassion even celebrate our own stupidity. This was going to prove an essential quality on a trip where we were vastly underprepared and it seemed likely that mistakes would be made. Wheras other friends and acquaintances would get highly uptight about the possibility of having to do things such as sleep by the roadside if no campsites could be found, the prospect seemed simply comic to us. Just so long as we could have a few beers each evening it would all be fine. Even at this early point we were clear on what our priorities for the trip were!
After meeting up at the passenger terminal we headed over to the nearest pub for some food and beer. My mood was bouyant as we ran over the possibilities of what might happen in the weeks ahead - I felt a strong sense of our originality. It seemed unlikely that many other people had ever, or would ever attempt the same trip in the same manner that we were. Other cyclists have undoubtably traveled further, or even similar distances to different destinations, but the route we would take and the happy-go-lucky manner in which we would take it would be unique. When questioned about the trip I was always asked "why are you doing this?" before the inevitable "are you sure you can make it?" The reasons why are too many in number to list them all here, but the most important one for me was simply that it was not the obvious thing to do. In many ways the trip appealled to the perverse side of my personality that hates the idea of unthinkingly doing what everyone else does. With this trip we were striking out from the herd and doing our own thing. While an act of rebellion against social norms, our journey was also providing us with a very simple goal to focus on - to get to Budapest by bicycle before our CELTA course started on September 27th. In comparison with the myriad of conflicting considerations that exist in modern life this single goal was easy to deal with mentally. This "simplification" of life seemed to be the step back that I needed to take in order to move forward.
With our bellies filled with fried food and beer we headed back to board our night ferry. One of the boarding crew stuck "Le Havre" stickers on our bikes to indicate our immediate destination, and we decided that we would try and keep them on the bikes as long as possible to show off where we had come from. I was already imagining us proudly cycling into Budapest with our Le Havre stickers still intact, people staring in disbelief as we cruised past them. We boarded the boat, left our bikes on the car deck and headed up to our reclining seats - the cheapest form of reservation you could make on the ferry. Wheras in Japan the cheapest ticket you can get on a ferry buys you access to a communal bath and a space where you can sleep, we soon realised that this was not the case on our current vessel. We had held out hope that there might be a shower available for our use on the ferry (as we were certainly in need of a wash) - but as there was not we had to make do with brushing our teeth and washing our faces in the toilet facilities. The reclining seats actually turned out not to recline very much at all, and so we ended up sleeping on the floor behind the seats, still wearing the clothes we had been cycling in all day. Not the most comfortable night I'd spent in my life, but nonetheless we had crossed the first hurdle - we were out of England and on our way to France.