why!?

There’s a list of questions people ask when you do something like this. For me they were repeated by almost everyone I began a conversation with and it made me feel like printing the answers out and simply handing out a F.A.Q sheet instead.

That sounds really cold… it is. But it’s really boring repeating yourself time and time again. It’s even worse when you realise you’ve started saying the same crap joke to each new person who asks. This happens to me when I fall into “customer service mode”, a mode that I accidentally fall into when I’m no longer engaged in the conversation. Which is a shame because a lot of people don’t deserve that. But these questions get real boring real quick and you hear them an awful lot.

“Where’re you from?” I sound like the queen, I’m very clearly English. Sometimes this gets followed up with “Are you Australian?” No. No I’m not.
“Are you on your own?” Evidently.
“How far have you ridden?” About 0.2 miles.. you stopped to question me before I could get anywhere.
“Where did you start?” and subsequently…
“Where are you going?” Who knows! Mostly I’m lost.

And of course the most difficult one….

6. “WHY!?”

This one changes. Sometimes I lost sight of why, sometimes it became clear, sometimes I decided I simply didn’t want to tell the person the real reason why.

Before I answer this it might do to give you a little bit of background. First things first, I had never done a tour before, I had also never camped and never been abroad on my own. So why do it?

DISCLAIMER: This is probably not a sensible idea for everyone. There were some very real dangers and I put myself at risk so I’m not suggesting this as a viable option for most people.

Although it was a trip of “firsts” I also need to let you know I’m a good cyclist. I’ve cycled everywhere my whole life and knew I could handle at least 40 miles a day (this is how far I used to cycle in a day for work- I know! That was a long way for a shit job. And it was a shit job too.) I also knew I could fix my bike in a squeeze and that I’m pretty hardy when it comes to be uncomfortable. And maybe (most importantly) I can be on my own for long stretches of time and be ok with that. But I still haven’t given you a decent why…

I was very unhappy and realistically I needed it. That is probably the most honest and root cause of doing it.

I also knew I wanted to do something big, I knew America was the home of a lot of my favourite influential artists, I knew I needed time to think, I knew I needed to push myself. I needed to prove to myself that I was worth something. That life was worth it. That I was worth more than the sum of the actions brought against me as a woman or a girl and I needed to know I could stand up for myself on my own. I needed to know I was stronger, I needed to know I was determined.

So I cycled around America. And this is my story…

Getting survival shit in the post, I am Bear Grylls. (Disclaimer: I am not Bear Grylls)