This story is part of our Your First Published Article series. A cyclist returns to Europe’s cycle paths after surviving a traumatic attack, discovering the restorative power of solo travel as she gradually regains her love for adventure.
The hill climb is sharp and short, and I stand on my pedals, absorbed by the dance between balance and momentum. Bright sunshine slips through spring leaves, patterns playing on the tarmac, the road curling through oaks so old that no one person can reach around their gnarly girths. These trees have seen it all.
But I did not see him coming.
He slides into my peripheral vision, riding a whisper too close. I glimpse little other than bony knuckles curled around his handlebars and the taut sinews of his forearms. Our pedal strokes synchronise and our pace is identical. He stays at my side, a declaration of intent I do not yet understand. But the menace that surges through his calculated movements makes my throat constrict. He squeezes me closer to the ragged edge of the road and the ditch of decomposing leaves. With absolute clarity, I know I must not end up in there.
We reach the open heath, and for several long minutes, I try to outpace him, but he matches me. I try slipping back; he does the same. I try to force space between us, but he devours it. My mind is working in millisecond bursts, razor-sharp and alert to any escape. But too late. With a surge of power, he closes in and gropes me. And again. And yet again.
I turn to face him, with a yell of outrage–and I see only absence. His eyes are voids on a pale canvas, unseeing and unblinking. He is unreachable, feeding a compulsion that is all-consuming. It is this that frightens me most, that I cannot read how this will end. All I can see is the ditch and his vacant eyes.
And then he is gone.
He vanishes into the fabric of the landscape, and I cannot see him ahead or behind. Frantic, I bolt for the safety of the pub I can see in the distance. Here, my garbled words tumble everywhere before the barman puts them in order and phones for help. I watch the road, searching for a man on a bike, crouched by an old red phone box that smells of vomit and urine.
For many months, I had no stomach for adventures on my own. The residue of terror washed through me with cyclical regularity. He had polluted the solitude that brought me such joy. Now everything set my nerves alight: whooshes and crunches; smells with an iron tang or salty fug; unexpected movements. I learnt where to hit someone and how.
But, as the moon waxed and waned, the magnetism of the horizon became increasingly forceful. I missed the riches of exploration, the places and people, but still could not shake the darkness that made me curl into myself. Something had to change. With deliberately little consideration, I set myself a challenge: four months on my own, cycling through Europe. It was a taunt, a provocation: where’s your spirit? I loaded my bike with four panniers and a tent strapped down with a hefty dose of denial.
My family gathered in our local, where everyone voiced their worry; I deflected their fear. I understood better than anyone what I would be hauling around with me. I was relieved when the circular discussion on safety faded away and we filled the remaining hours gossiping, arguing, and joking, our pitch rising as the glasses around us multiplied. At closing time, our goodbyes carried a false lightness; we could all see fear standing in the shadows.
My partner, deeply anxious about my plans, refused to drive me to the Cross Channel ferry. “It will be like putting down a dog,” he said. His brother took me instead.
***
There is normally a wildness to the first few kilometres of an adventure, an eruption of euphoria as you set off too fast, racing away from routine. The rhythm of a steady cadence is addictive, and within minutes, I would be intoxicated, swept up in the freedom of being beholden to no one. I might take this route, or that one; I might stop here, or maybe there. Every minute is its own universe, an intoxicating gulp of fresh smells, colours, and sounds to be distilled.
But this time, as I rolled off the ferry at the Dutch coast, my shoulders wouldn’t drop, and my breaths were shallow. I was cautious. My lack of detailed planning unnerved me, and my mood was sour. While I glowered at my map, being scoured by wind-borne sand, an older cyclist glided to a halt next to me. He pointed to the campsite I was looking for, then asked: “Are you lonely?” Startled, I spun to look at him, but the crinkles that fanned across his cheeks spoke of a kindness that I understood. “Yes, I am travelling alone,” I replied. The admission stripped away my shield of denial, and I was hit by a smack of panic. He slapped me forcefully on the back and peeled away, his shout of “Good luck!” whisked across the North Sea.
My days developed a tempo, slipping from one to two to three. Then the weeks passed too. I couldn’t escape the deep and persistent seam of unease, but small moments of kindness soothed me. Waiting by a chaotic highway and unsure how to get across, I was unaware of an elderly woman watching me from her house. She stepped into the biting wind, wrapping her cardigan around herself, and showed me the traffic lights designed for bikes. Days later, overcome by fatigue, I toppled into a deep bank of nettles by the side of a main road. A man pulled over, car lights blinking in the gloom, and lifted the 40-kilogram load pinning me flat. His decency eased my stinging skin and dented pride. Another kind traveller helped pull tent pegs out of the ground after seeing me weep with frustration; I had pitched my shelter facing into gale-force winds. She reoriented both me and my tent and then sprinted to retrieve my socks, racing gleefully across the campsite in the storm.
But, rising up under the good was a deepening paranoia. It had crept alongside me when I strapped my bike to the bulkhead of the ferry. The obsessive thoughts magnified the longer I was on my own, and I slipped into a loose madness. A distorted narrative consumed the dark hours and, as the weeks passed, the light ones too. At night, I tied my bike to my tent, but the slightest movement would leave me drenched with sweat. I tried bringing my bike inside, curling myself around it. But with no space, I was pressed against the tent fabric, fretful and awake because there was little between me and everything I thought I could hear.
After many nights, I gave in to exhaustion and napped in daylight instead, near family groups if I could find them, downing a beer to nudge me towards rest. I turned away from isolated places, where I couldn’t see between the dips and rises, where the air was too still and the birds too quiet. At the bottom of one track, which disappeared into the cool shadows of an evergreen forest, I sat in the sunshine for an hour weighing up whether the short route through its murk was worth the terror. Eventually, I avoided the anxiety and added an hour’s ride to an already long day.
In hostels, I heaped all my possessions against the door at night and, as a final bulwark against an intruder, would prop my bike lightly against the edge of the pile. I slept in bursts, waiting for it to crash to the floor. However stifling the heat, I would keep all windows locked, even if it was impossible for a hand, let alone a body, to slip through the open casement. I knew my behaviour was off kilter. After a particularly gruelling few days, I treated myself to a hotel as I crossed the Danish border. Having soaked in a long bath where I watched the dirt lift out of the cracks in my skin, I flicked on the television. I understood enough to know that a young girl had just been murdered in this pretty town and her killer hadn’t yet been caught.
I tried to pacify myself in places that were in some way recognisable, offering a little comfort because they mirrored my own community. I found bookshops wherever I went, drawn in by cover art and the smell of bound paper. I always bought a map. I visited tourist offices, rode trams around towns, and sat in leafy squares eating chips and listening to squabbling, gossiping, and laughter. I drank more coffee than I needed and bought pastries at bakeries where I chatted to everyone. A queue offered easy engagement with a focus, time limit, and getaway.
There was a restorative simplicity to these moments, in a world familiar enough that with time, I began to move within its boundaries with increasing confidence. My sense of him in these arenas would, for short periods, fade just enough that I could stand straighter. Although terror could still grasp me by the throat, it happened less often, and over the months, my instincts began to reset. Nights remained devilish, but my waking hours offered hope as I pushed against the limits of what was becoming comfortable. I talked myself into riding the shortcuts through gloomy forests. I was unfurling.
***
What is left of a grey day is fading when I stop on a hill overlooking a small German city. Leaden skies sit low, the damp air holding the sound of spinning wheels and bicycle bells. Cyclists flow around me on tracks that skim the edge of this old trading port, bringing a strange grace to the rush-hour chaos. I am lost again, but at ease. I can’t make sense of the signs or work out which of the many steeples marks the district where I am spending the night. I turn the map ninety degrees, muttering to myself, trying to marry paper landmarks to physical ones just as an older woman, deeply tanned and wiry, pulls up beside me with a squeal and a flourish.
She stands astride her bike, her short, dark curls bouncing, and demands: “Where are you going?” She is confused by my answer, but my German is not good. I try again to explain, our heads bent over my map. “Ah ha!” she exclaims, and a torrent of directions follows. I miss the detail and gesture vaguely towards a church, leading her to snort with exasperation. With brio, she jumps onto her saddle and shouts over her shoulder: “Follow me!”
I try to match her speed, but she outpaces me easily. She races up and down hills, over bridges, and through traffic, joy streaming behind her. I can’t help but laugh; her exuberance is contagious. She stops abruptly and, with an enormous grin, points out my final stop. She has taken me 15 minutes out of her way and must now head home. When I admit that I am on my own, that I am not meeting anyone else, she cries: “Liebe Gott! Liebe Gott!” over and over. But her big-heartedness has been the final act of restoration that I need. I squeeze her hand and reply: “I am fine.”
And I am. I brim with a familiar boldness, restored over the months by so many kindnesses given freely, each act of compassion quietly rebuffing the fear that had throttled me. They have formed a stronghold, rebuilding my sense of all that is good despite solitude and vulnerability. My before and after have blended into something more nuanced. As I push down on my pedals, heading in the right direction, I understand what it is to misplace your spirit of adventure and the triumph in discovering that it is more robust than ever.
