“I cycled from London To Paris (L2P) for Breast Cancer Now”
Wondering why you haven’t signed up already? It’s not just about your personal experience but is also about helping others around you. This has been an adventure of a lifetime, and I see no reason why you should not register for it today! What reason is there not to? If you are still not geared up with excitement, then maybe this snippet of my experience will. It has been the central experience that has reshaped my personality, instilled in me the passion for challenging, and renewed my perspective on happiness. All this, within just three days.
While I am known as the ‘talkative one’ within the group, this experience has left me speechless. I am doubtful whether this narrative will do justice in expressing the joy I have felt during this cycling expedition. Each leg of each day has been a life-challenging, life-learning, and life-changing experience- L2P was just the tip of the iceberg for me! 2 years later, looking back on this trip, nothing has changed. It’s like they say, once you learn how to ride a cycle, you can never forget. At the end of this trip, I had made friends for a lifetime. Not just the ones I cycled with, but also those suffering patients we were able to help through this charity cycle. I might not have seen them, but I hope to have touched their hearts the way they touched mine.
Rearview mirror
I still do not think I have absorbed the reality of this situation. Sometimes, I lay there recollecting this experience and pinch myself. I can never explain to strangers, or even friends how I cycled from one country to another, a whole of around 250 miles within 3 days, without feeling chocked. Moments later, the aftertaste of pride seeps in. Proud, that despite having Thalassemia Minor, I I found myself at the finish line, cycling around the Eiffel tower, where my friends and family were cheering me on. The challenge was a triple threat- emotionally, physically and mentally challenging, yet I gained the courage to just keep peddling.
Day One: Befriending the ‘support van’
A few months before the start of this expedition, every participant was given a rigid schedule to adhere to. This schedule included a training and diet program, ensuring we are physically fit in time for this ‘impossible adventure.’ For some absurd reason I had the notion in my head that despite the lack of practice and training, I would be able to cycle across two countries in three days, with limited trouble and exertion. Imagine my devotion when just 10 miles down the first leg my body had already given up. Panting. Sweating. Panicking. Alone, I reached an eternal state of panic. I braked my cycle to a halt, got off my cycle and broke down. I lay on the side of the cycle track, one hand holding the fallen cycle, the other covering my head. There’s no rescuing us. I could see nobody ahead or behind me; every single participant had already peddled forward. One peddle at a time, and soon they were miles ahead of me. If by any stroke of luck I did see a cyclist, it would be for a brief moment, until they had overtaken me and disappeared ahead into the horizon again.
In the heat, with the sun glaring directly at me, I felt like it was the peak of winter, where my body was shivering, my muscles were frozen, and my brain was unable to think. Each minute felt like a lifetime. What was I thinking? If I cannot get myself to cycle even another mile, how am I going to cycle thousands of miles away to Paris? I do not know why I ever thought I would successfully be able to complete this challenge. A few long minutes later, the support van pulled up on the curb. From all the 300 participants, I was the first one to enter the support van. Watching my cycle being placed inside the van, and me being asked to sit in the front, only one word could describe this feeling- disappointment. What if I am going to have to sit in this van till the last day? All the bottled up stress and frustration was overflowing. The silence was piercing. I felt displaced.
Sitting in the van, staring at my reflection in the mirror, I felt hopeless. I was unable to calm myself down. I failed to get optimistic. I failed to see the light at the end of this road. At every pit stop, when all other cyclists would gather around the food stand to replenish themselves, I would still be sitting in the van, unable to move. After half a day had passed, after countless attempts by the guides to bolster up my confidence, when I saw the scenery around me, the water flowing below the bridge, I listened to the birds chirping and the stream flowing and was able to calm myself down, finally. I recalled, I accepted this challenge and, invested effort into fundraising and meeting the target, all because I wanted to find my Zen, my personal bubble. Away from the chaos, the confusion and the complications that University life can bring. Therefore, I decided to stop being my own hurdle in this challenge, I decided to just keep peddling!
Day Two: Befriending the ‘silence’
At home, my mother would keep eyeing me. I was continuously fidgeting or multitasking, I could never just sit still in silence and breathe. But, if my parents saw me today, saw me being blank and glad, they too would be blank and glad.
During every leg, I would be given a couple of minutes of a head-start. One or two miles into my cycle, the ‘professional cyclist’ group would have overtaken me. Then, a couple of miles later, so would the others. Eventually, I would find myself back at the end of the cycle chain. I was alone again. But, I was content. Each cyclist passing would be cheering me one, “come on Rhea. You can do it.” Halfway through the day I realised, I had cycled over 80 miles alone. I was cycling with nobody ahead or behind me. Breathing in the beauty, and breathing out the appreciation. I was neither panting nor overthinking, in fact, I found myself- for the first time in a long time- feeling genuinely independent, genuinely Zen.
At the end of the second day was when I realised that this trip has turned out to be more than just a charity cycle. Yes, the cycle covered a long distance, but the distance I covered emotionally has genuinely been the most inspirational one I could have asked for. I get what they mean when they say, it is going to be an “adventure of a lifetime.” This experience is not a movie, nor a chapter in a novel, but is sure filled with cliches. This experience is not magical and fiction, however, the facts still remain- I had not trained a single day before this challenge, I have medically been diagnosed with Thalassemia Minor, and yet here I was, cycling amidst fresh air, green leaves, and blue waters. This triple threat challenge of mind, body, and soul, now just became a single threat- body.
Day Three: Befriending ‘myself’
The most daunting leg of the cycle was cycling up the “B***h Hills.” Steep enough to feel like climbing up Everest. I walked up most of these ninety-degree slopes. Every time I would try to get on the cycle and balance my feet on the peddles, I would fall off and tumble down like Jill. However, the guides continuously motivated me. “We know you can do it. You have come a long way.” I decided to follow the books and use the oldest formula for success: hard work. I began to push myself. I might have stopped to grasp my breath about 10 times on every hill, but I ensured to cycle my way up the ones that followed after. I cycled up those hills, one breathe at a time, however long and steep. A few countless hills later, we had reached Paris.
This trip would not have been complete without the speeches! The guides elaborated on their experience, the memories they created and the joy they felt when everybody cycled around the Eiffel Tower. Their speeches still echo in my head. My favorite was watching strangers, family and friends cheer us on at the finish line. After a unanimous vote, I was given the “most determined (with heart and soul)” award. That moment, when all the guides and participants, when everybody stood up and clapped for me, I joint them, I clapped along too. This was when it began to sink in, this cycle was just the tip of the iceberg. This cycle has taught me how to stay calm, how to feel content and how to be myself. This cycle has taught me about how the wheels of life genuinely keep turning, and to move forward, you got to keep riding.
Before boarding my flight for back home, I turned to the lead guide Hollie and asked, “Did you ever think I would even make it?” She looks at me, smiled and gave me a reassuring pat on my back, “Didn’t even doubt it for a second.” She believed. They all believed. And now, even I believe.
