Every Day's a Dan Day

What follows is a typical account of a day spent cycling solo...

7am: Alarm clock goes off. Wonder why the hell my bed is so hard and why it smells of plastic, stale tuna and feet. Remember that I'm in a tent somewhere. Wonder vaguely why the hell I'm in a tent somewhere. Hit snooze violently.

7:09am: Hit snooze violently.

7:18am: Hit snooze violently.

7:27am: Decide I now need to get moving because I need a piss. Hit snooze.

7:36am: Get out of tent in a mood, bleary eyed. Do a piss. Find my cigarettes and light one. Stare at the horizon, then at my bike, then at the horizon. Then at my bike. Then at my tent. Eat a cereal bar. Eat another one because cereal bars are a pathetic joke of a breakfast.

7:45am: Start packing up my tent. Wonder how so much stuff could have been spread so randomly in such a small space of time in such a tiny area. Retrieve my phone from one of my socks and my cooker from up a tree. Pack it all up and swear quite a lot. Roll up my tent and stowe it on my bike. Realise that my ipod is still in my tent so unpack everything and retrieve it. Pack it up again.

8:10am: Put on my gloves. Get on my bike. Look at my compass. Start to pedal.

8:11am: Realise I haven't put my speedometer on. Stop the bike, dig it out from somewhere implausibly inaccessible, put it on, and start riding again.

8:15am: Immediately get lost. Try to remember which way I came when I arrived yesterday. Invariably get it wrong and cycle 5 - 10 completely pointless kilometres while I get my bearings.

9am: Wonder why it seems so hard this morning. Realise that, like every morning, I have forgotten to top up the slow puncture in my front wheel. Consider changing the tube, but, like every morning, just top up the tyre with my pump instead. Because that's easier.

10am: Hunger starts hitting pretty hard after 20-40km. I start looking for somewhere to buy food, because I have nothing in my bags suitable. (Tin of tuna in oil for lunch? Sod that.)

11am: Find somewhere to buy food, just as I'm losing hope of ever seeing any kind of shop for the rest of my life. Become so insanely excited that I only buy chocolate, sweets, fizzy drinks and cigarettes. Come out and realise I've spent a fortune on a load of crap. Go back in and buy sensible food.

11:30am: Start looking for somewhere nice to have lunch. Inevitably find myself in the middle of an industrial park, next to a motorway, or in the vicinity of a smelly sewage works at this point. Cycle at least 10 kilometres to get back to the countryside. Ignore several benches on the basis that they don't face the right direction, they don't have a bin, or they're underneath the wrong kind of tree.

Midday: Find the perfect bench for a nice lunch. Swear silently at the people sitting on it. Cycle onwards.

12:15pm: Have lunch at an inferior but adequate bench. Wonder why I care so much about what bench I sit on. Wonder why I bought the crustier rolls instead of the soft bread. Wonder why I'm here in the first place. Wonder why I'm wondering about everything instead of just enjoying myself. Stop wondering.

12:45pm: Finish my second cigarette, stick my headphones in, and start grinding out the kilometres.

1:15pm: Plunge down an exciting downhill road at 55-60kph. Get to the bottom and realise I've gone the wrong way because my camera case was under my compass and north is actually south. Get a bit angry. Ride back up the hill.

1:45pm: Album finishes. Have cigarette. Eat some haribo, but furtively, to ensure not being spotted as a grown man eating Haribo on a bicycle. I shouldn't care. Haribo are good.

3:pm: Near 100km mark (on a good day). Celebrate by stopping exactly when the milometer clicks over to 100. This will usually be in the middle of a motorway, or on a narrow section of path next to a huge pile of cowshit. Smoke a cigarette.

3:15pm: Start riding, and think about looking for a campsite.

3:45pm: Start actively looking for a campsite.

4:15pm: Start beseeching random deities to present me with anywhere safe to camp that isn't in the middle of an army shooting range or a crack den.

4:30pm: It starts to rain.

5pm: Boots start to fill with water. Toes submerged. This makes for a pleasantly squishy sensation, which soon becomes quite unpleasant quite quickly. Wonder if it's possible to get trench foot on a bicycle.

5:30pm: Find a campsite. Act overly friendly with the campsite reception due to relief. Get some funny looks. Wait until someone comes out who can speak a little English. Explain that I want to camp (which should be patently obvious, since I'm at a campsite, wet and talking at reception). Pay whatever they ask.

6:00pm: Finally finish putting my tent up. Put all my wet stuff into the tent, therefore negating the waterproof properties of the tent. Get out my cooker.

6:10pm: Smoke a cigarette while I wait for the water to boil. These two things take exactly the same time, which is nice.

6:30pm: Tuck into a delicious steaming hot meal. This will probably be a bowl of pasta with an oxo cube, and either tuna or some kind of dried sausage.

7pm: Wonder what the hell I'm meant to do now. Probably read a book, or listen to something. Adam and Joe podcasts are a favourite. Smoke several cigarettes in my tent. Try to avoid burning the fabric. Occasionally burn the fabric.

9pm: Try to go to sleep. Eventually go to sleep.



Repeat.


Buried in Pomposity is brought to you by Dan, who is actually genuinely enjoying himself, despite what the above may indicate.