This is the story that is worth 1166.6 kilometres,
it is a story that shows how easy
it is to get along with people when one goal
has to be accomplished for a good cause and
is a true story that inspires growth, friendship,
intelligence, physical fitness and a
stance against racism. This is a story of three
rather normal guys from three different backgrounds
with three different life stories, but
this is not what the story is essentially about.
Instead, this story is about reaching a common
goal for a good cause. The mission was
set in July 2004: get to Paris and back to
Geneva. Easy enough, unless your bicycle is
what you’re going on, and you’re carrying
everything. What does this include? First and
foremost the litres and litres of water, two
tents, three sleeping bags, clothes for two
weeks, packs and packs of cookies, energy
bars, energy drinks and even more.
We left from Gex on the 19th of July 2005, a
day after we were supposed to leave, due to
heavy storm on the 18th if any of you remember.
The first day included 112 kilometres of
getting across and past the daunting Jura.
Seeing the Jura from the Swiss side looks
nice and perhaps easy to some, but actually
climbing range after range is another story.
It’s not that we didn’t have fun climbing it, it
was awesome, but it was the first day we
learned what physical suffering was and each
and every one of us had images of not making
it that day and questioning why we were
doing this trip.
Why were we doing this trip? The first reason
was because we all need challenges in life, and we, Rano Fisher (18), Taolo Tsimako (20) and Yoeri Goossens
(22) need physical challenges, not that we are macho, not by any means,
but these are the types of challenges we adore. The second reason, so
that our efforts wouldn’t end up being nothing, was to do it for charity,
and in particular all the money was going to an orphanage in Baghdad for
children between 7 months and 6 years old. At this point, we would like
to thank all of our sponsors very much, you know who you are.
If on day one we learned what suffering was all about, on day 2, we
learned that underestimating distances is not a good idea. It was our own
fault, as we set out from our camping at Lons-le-Saunier at 11.30 am,
rather than 3 hours earlier. We underestimated what the road was going
to be like, and how far our next stop (at Vitteaux) really was. That day
was also our second encounter with nice French people, who not only
allowed Taolo to call home, but also gave us good advice, that that night
was going to be cold and that getting to Vitteaux was too far. At this
point, it must have been around 8 pm, and we still had about 60 kilometres
to go, so it was unlikely to happen. We also had to ride in the dark
for the first time that day, finally reaching a camping we hadn’t planned
to stay at, but we were still a 50 odd kilometres away from Vitteaux.
This meant that on day 3, we woke up at 6 am, got on the bike at 7 am
and had to do this extra 50 kilometres. It was impressive in that we completed
this 50 kilometres in about 3 hours. After reaching Vitteuax, we
knew we had to start riding faster. We increased our average speed from
between 15-20 kilometres an hour to close to 30 sometimes even 40 kilometres
to get to our day 3 destination of Toucy, to the south of Auxerre.
What we learned that day was that after a certain point, you have to look
beyond the pain you’re experiencing, bite your lip and just go for it. One
of us didn’t think we would make it, but that day our team work worked
wonders. Much like we see the Tour de France riders on TV, we also
formed our own little train with hard-working wind-breaking tactic. At
one point we even reached speeds of 43 kilometres an hour in this train
formation, and it got us to our destination.
Day 4 was a day off. We all had injuries popping up, with Yoeri suffering
for the last three days with tendonitis in his right knee, and we
could all feel our quadriceps aching, not to mention our behinds. This
day of rest came as a big welcome and we had an interesting day filled
with eating more or less only cherries, and laughed and laughed until
we fell asleep.
Day 5 we were on our way to Melun, approximately 40 kilometres
from Paris. This was another long day of 156 kilometres long where
Yoeri found a limit. A couple of kilometres before we reached our
camp site, he lost consciousness, and this must have been due to the
amount of energy he used that day, without taking in enough. We all
realised at this point how important it was to eat better and fuel our
bodies if we wanted to continue the trip. We were all so tired, yet
excited to the point that we wanted to go to Paris that day, even though
we had just done 156 kilometres. We also realised at this point that the
closer one gets to Paris, the more stressed and impolite people
become. We had had good souvenirs of meeting people in the countryside,
but people in or close to big cities just seem to be too hurried to
take their time to help you out.
Day 6, the 24th of July was also the day that the Tour de France came
to Paris, but we still had to get there. We had been told by several people
not to take the bikes into Paris, but we tried in any case. We were
about 20 odd kilometres from Paris, when, in the pouring rain, Taolo’s
back tire exploded, it was awesome to hear and see, but the consequences
were a new inner tube, which we had, but we didn’t have any
of the tools to fix it with that day, we had left those at the camp. So we
had to enter into Paris with the RER train instead, and from Gare de
Lyon we eventually made it to the Eiffel Tower to get our group picture,
although we first waited to see Lance Armstrong and co. pass us
by eight times. Later that evening we had dinner at a friend’s of Rano’s
mother’s house, who also allowed us to take her son’s tire to replace
Taolo’s tire, although her son was reluctant.
After getting back to the camping at around 2.30 am due to the train
having been late, we all had slept less than 5 hours when we woke up
at 7 that morning and were off back to Coulanges, 166 kilometres
away. We started off the day in a positive mood, as we all knew the
way back, all we had to do was trace it back, right? Easier said than
done, as our biggest enemy that day was the wind. We had wind in our
faces for 166 kilometres and from 8 am to 11 pm, when we finally go to
Coulanges in the dark. What we learned that day is not only how efficient
wind-breaking really is when you face a heavy oncoming wind,
but we also learned that all those signs indicating how far there is left
to go to the next town, is not always correct. Rano also did a very good
job of finding the house we resided at that night in the dark, despite
only having been there once before, four years ago.
The following day was one of chaos. This was because we had initially
been told that we could stay at the house for another evening, before the
lady of the house had had some news beyond her control that meant that
we had to leave, as the house was not big enough for another 11 people.
So, we set off at around 2 pm that day from Coulanges to Arcy, a very
small village 21 kilometres away, and en route to Avallon, on the N6. This
was a small, but complicated camping that required us to pay for everything
upfront, meaning that anything we wanted at the camping that day,
we had to tell the manager about as soon as we got in. an example was
our washing, which we had to pay for as soon as we got in, not when we
decided we wanted to wash. Arcy was an interesting small village and we presume that the houses on either side of the
river was all there was to this village.
The 27th of July meant that we were now on
our way from Arcy to somewhere close to the
camping in St. Marie-sur-Ouche. This was possibly
the worst planned day, and I think this
lack of planning meant that we were ahead of
schedule for the most part. Not only did we
break our previous record of how fast we
could go from 59.6 to 70.5 kilometres an hour,
we also started running into mechanical problems.
The fact that Taolo had been carrying
both tents since day 3, meant that his carrier
was now starting to give way, and we had to
repair this, which we did at Vitteuax. It was
obvious that at Vitteuax we knew the day had
been a success, and with only another 40 kilometres
to go, we decided to relax at a lake in
Grosbois-en-Montagne. Unfortunately, we did
not foresee what was going to happen next,
which included going up another very steep
hill, as well as Rano’s bike suffering from several
problems. This was then followed by not
finding the camping at Vandenesse, and when
we did find it, there was no more space for us,
so we ended up camping in a farmyard, which
we thought was surrounded by the farmer’s
dogs and wolves from the close-by forest.
We woke up at 5 am the following day in
order not to get shot at by the farmer for trespassing
his land. As you can tell, spending endless
hours on a bike can really get the imagination
going. In any case, we were going back to
Lons-le-Saunier that day, 113 kilometres away
and yet again, we knew the route was going to
be more or less easy and straight ahead, but
this time, we rode in temperatures of over 37
degrees Celsius that day. Taolo and Yoeri suffered
the most as both of us almost collapsed,
due to a lack of water and dehydration, and we
were both starting to feel a touch of sunstroke.
When we finally got to Lons, we knew
that our adventure was coming to an end. We
had learned to work together and deal with
each other’s differences day in and day out,
and we still had another day left.
The 29th of July 2005 will always be
remembered for two reasons. The first is
that we knew we had several ranges of the
Jura mountains to climb, and the second is
that it was our last day of the trip. We left
from Lons with a full supply of energy drinks
and were told by Rano not to wait for him
while going up the mountains. At this point,
Rano knew that his body was lacking energy
and climbing hills was not his forte, so he
left it to Taolo and Yoeri to go as fast as they
wanted and wait for him at more ‘flat’
ground. That day we rode in sun, lots of
wind, rain, hail, thunder and lightening, but
we still prevailed, and when we saw a sign
indicating Col de la Faucille, we knew we
were not far, but we all seemed to want to
prolong the trip as much as possible. The
next 25 odd kilometres to la Faucille was
done at a relatively calm speed, and possibly
the slowest of the whole trip. Once at the
top of la Faucille, we all felt a bit emotional,
and despite having gone through all that
physical pain and suffering, having achieved
this still did not really settle in, not even
when we had a heroes welcome at Gex from
friends.
Now that we are back from the trip, we
can assure everyone that we are still good
friends that simply know each other a lot
better. We ended up raising more than 3000
Swiss francs for the orphanage in Baghdad,
and we would once again like to thank
everyone who contributed to the cause and
believed in the three of us. We plan to have
another fund raising trip next summer, from
Geneva to a different European city and this
time we hope to raise even more money for
another area of the world.
