I'm sat here 3 months after the trip to Copenhagen, reading back my journals, trying to recapture how I felt. And through some underlying synchronicity in the universe, I'm dealing with the exact same thing in the present as I am in the pages. In fact, if you turn to any page in any journal of mine from the past 10 years, odds are its got me in it moaning, as I am now, about how shit I feel cause I'm quitting nicotine again.*
I had actually done really well on the first leg of the trip. I had long swapped from cigarettes to vape to gum to snus to lozenge, back to gum, back to snus, back to lozenge. None of which are particularly good for you, cause all the non-smokey options just give you mouth cancer instead. Finally cut the chord while cycling. I was starting to feel free - I'd started using that term in my journal - 8 days of "nicotine freedom", not "quit" or "without". Even wrote "[Hamburg is the] First temptation to smoke perhaps, although I really don't think I'll give in."
But like the year before in Lyon, and the year before that in Albania, and the year before that in Mallorca (and so on since the 2nd year of University) I got into a social situation where I feel a little anxious, and people are smoking, and then so am I, and suddenly it's two days later and I have a bag of rolling tobacco in my pocket, and my mouth is an ashtray, and I feel terrible, and my brain goes "maybe more nicotine will help?"
This time I caved after arriving in a cool Hamburg hostel, surrounded by 20 year olds bragging about their alcohol intake and inter-rail route. Two days of chain smoking was enough to remind me how trapped nicotine can make you feel and how not in university I am these days. Done moonlighting as a much younger man I escaped, by the skin of my teeth, leaving behind the tobacco and starting again. After all, I had a mission. I had to meet Ali Mills in Copenhagen.
Competitive Spirit
I Moin**ed my way through Northern Germany at break-neck speeds, straight to the Puttgarden Ferry on Fehmarn Island. Another huge border let down, they didn't even check my passport, 15 euros, and I'm suddenly in another country.
From the port I joined the EuroVelo 7. I thought I had gotten my competitive streak out of the way in the first leg, but joining such a major route from Berlin to Copenhagen tested my resolve. It's a thing people do, like Land's End to John o' Groats, with special guide books, a page for each day of the journey. I'd never been on a route with so many tour cyclists, and it was hard to accept in my post-nicotine state that I'm generally slower than all of them.
Some snapshots of the tour cycle crowd:
A family keeps overtaking me, getting lost, overtaking me again, chugg chugg as fast as their legs can go. Dad at the front, daughter glued to his tail, mum huffing and puffing to keep up. The 3rd time they chunter past me, I share a smile with the mum, who rolls her eyes. "Mein familia"
A stunning, artfully-tattooed Italian couple, guy flying out front with his cycle cap backwards, constantly blitzing ahead and checking back. So loved up they don't even notice we keep running into each other until the 5th time when I yell "we've got to stop meeting like this!". They laugh and wave, then proceeded to completely forget I exist.
A French group who fly past me, but are beaten by the following steep hill. I smugly steam past them, chomping on hardboiled sweets, a mad red-faced billow of nicotine-withdrawal angst and licorice.
Goodbye Germany
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| Denmark knows how to do hardboiled sweets |
During a cycle trip you have an almost religious connection to the weather. When it's bad it's bad, but my gods, when it's good you fly. I can see why so many religions centre around the Sun, with some minor wind gods thrown in for good measure. When the Sun is out and the wind is behind you, you can feel the universe aligning in a perfect way, propelling you forwards, as if just for your benefit. They call the Denmark section of the EV7 the sunshine coast though, so perhaps the weather is always good. Turns out the route is protected from rain by the Jutland peninsula and actually the universe doesn't revolve around me. Either way I'm not one to kick a gift horse in the mouth, so I spent every morning giving thanks to my new gods.
This year was a super harvest for fruit everywhere, but it felt like Summer in Denmark had been waiting for me too. Mirabelle plum, hawthorne, apple, sunflowers, bursting at the seams, so much fruit people were unable to collect all the windfall. Like the whole of Mon island was ripening at once. So much so that at times I was cycling through a sweet-smelling sludge of smashed flesh and pips.
The island of Mon heralds from an older time, where everyone is in the middle of fixing something. Old cars and tractors, boats in every yard. Half built DIY extensions, power tools out. Plastering walls and painting them to make every thatch-roofed house an idyllic yellow, red, or orange. Tempting to call it backwater and red-neck, except everything looks so picturesque in the sunshine that rustic is probably more apt.
I get a flat tire. Second of the trip, so I'm out of spares. And of course my little tube repair kit from Japan is well out of date - at some point over the last 10 years the cement to glue down repair patches has gone completely solid. I arrive at a motorbike mechanic's in the middle of nowhere, the shop really just an excuse for the owner to sit in his garage all day fixing up rusting old vehicles. He has the tube I need and pulls out a little notebook and pencil to write me a receipt. But of course there's no card machine and I have no cash. I go to the grocery store nearby, but they have no cash machine either. She says, "We are... a bit lost here!" lost, I assume, in the past.*** Thankfully its a slow puncture, so I spend the next day and a half furiously pumping my back tire every time I stop, raging despite the lovely weather.
Onto another ferry, which is just someone's fishing boat - and a line of 20+ cyclists, the only people still using it, desperate to follow their guide books to the letter. Thankfully I'm in the first 10, or I'd have to wait another 2 hours to get across. Absolutely rammed, so end up hanging out the window in the front, with a suspicious old boat dog barking at me the whole way. I have hit the peak of my nicotine withdrawal.
Flower of the Trip: Chicory 
Fruit of the Trip: Mirabelle Plums 
Probably where I got my flat 
The motorbike graveyard 
Queue for the ferry 
Smushed into the front seat
Wild Denmark
My first night in Denmark I arrived at a campsite where they charged me 210 Danish Kroner, basically 25 quid. Oh and its a 20 kroner coin to use the showers. Complete and utter highway robbery. I do tend to go a bit feral when I go cycling, but I'm always tied to campsites as an easy place to charge my phone, fill water, and grab a hot shower. This trip though, I was already resenting paying to be kept up all night by huge swarms of bronze blonde screaming children. The price and lack of free shower pushed me over the edge. Rather than give any more money to the clearly corrupt organisation, I took my shower in the freezing Baltic sea surrounded by jellyfish, and vowed to go completely wild.
Thankfully, unlike the UK, Denmark has an extremely healthy attitude to wild camping. To stop people like me clambering through the back of nature reserves and poor farmers fields, the Denmark Government has a number of free designated places to camp. There's no electricity, often no toilet or running water either, but you are allowed to be there and that makes all the difference. This fantastic website is a full map of the places you can wild camp. Apparently most European countries have them. Its just coming from the UK - where we love private property so much that it's illegal to camp just about everywhere.
Finally untethered, I meandered freely through the wilds, like a migrating bird cruising from free spot to free spot. A secluded firepit in a national park. Wooden lean-to in the middle of a village green. A lake at the back of a farmer's field. All free, all somewhere I was allowed to be. I didn't pay for accommodation again till I landed in the capital.
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| Found a nice sunset |
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| Found a nice castle |
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| Found nice? graffiti |
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| Free camping |
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| More free camping |
Copenhagenization
I arrived in Copenhagen on one of the most well-thought-out cycle systems in the world. The Copenhagen suburbs are largely car free, little flats set up with green spaces and parks. Wide cycle paths completely away from cars link each residential area to the city centre. As a result, 62% of all commuters in Copenhagen cycle. A collective 1.2 million km are covered daily - which is more cycling commuters than the whole of the United States combined. The design strategy has been so successful that it has it's own urban planning term, Copenhagenization, and just about every big city in Europe is trying to copy it.
For me, the cycle highway in was the real red carpet treatment, a fitting victory lap for conquering 4 countries in 2 weeks. Bang on time to meet Ali. Through no pre-planning of our own, we had stumbled on the busiest weekend of the year. Pride and Ironman were both in town on the same weekend, creating a heady cocktail of flamboyance and athleisurewear.
Ali is an old friend who know me right down to the roots. Some of my fondest memories of young adulthood are chatting shit with Ali, in a car, driving to a gig, to see a band we've both become completely obsessed with. Sat watching football, or making shapes in a club, all arms and legs and grins. Someone I can let down the mask with and just be, knowing he'll only judge me if I deserve it. The ying to my yang, he'd come with a map full of recommendations, sniffing out the type of gems I'd never find on my own (he also brought his camera and took beautiful pictures of me as you can see below)
We started the night with Beers on the banks of the Nyhavn Canal, feet hanging over the water. We finished it shouting out every word to a Depeche mode tribute act, which is where my memory mostly blanks out. We made it home somehow - a vague memory of being sat on the subway at 2am, flabbergasted that someone was going round checking tickets, and even more surprised to find I had one ready to show.
The next day we made a hungover trek to some trendy ex-industrial zone with a cool bar and swimming area bar (La Banchina, definitely go!), surrounded by tanned beautiful young people, soaking up the sun, occasionally throwing themselves into the freezing cold water. The longer I sat and watched, the more I wanted to jump in. Ali baited me. "You'll probably only be here once! You've got to!" Then some little kid jumped in in front of me, as if mocking me, then got out, and did it again. I couldn't let some 8 year old win, so took the plunge. And you know what, it was good and I'm glad I did it.
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| Franks, best hot dog in Copenhagen |
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| Pride |
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| The indominable Ali-Star Mills |
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| Cool building surrounded by sunbathers |
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| Prettay cool |
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| Finally someone to ride with |
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| Lookin at flowers |
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| Our Air B n B |
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| Church |
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| Kierkergaard |
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| Rest from the bikes |
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| Swimming |
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| Cold |
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| 2am underground |
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| Almost Depeche Mode |
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| Nyhavn Canal |
So It Goes
And then all of a sudden it was over. I embarrassingly had to get on the flight back with my filthy bike in a 15 year old cycle bag held together with ducktape, next to the triathalon-ers with their hard cases, dark tans, and fresh new ironman tattoos. Back to Manchester at midnight followed by an hour-long cycle in the dark through every park in Manchester. Stayed with some friends - full crash, watched the whole of UK Love is Blind Season 2 in one afternoon goblin-mode on the sofa. Accidentally started smoking again. So it goes.
Then the train back to Leeds just in time for results day. The excruciatingly painful boys I'd fought with all year got their 4s. One girl who hadn't been in education for 2 years before I met her, and in another life time could have taken the higher paper. But there wasn't enough time to quite catch her up and she got a high 3. Another who hated so much being bad at maths (or in actual fact had the most intense maths anxiety id ever seen) that she'd storm out the room yelling and refused to do any tests at all in class sat all three papers. Little wins.
Then to Leeds fest: Chapel Roan in all her glory. And Chapel Town Carnival: sound systems till 4am every night at the biggest celebration of West indies culture this side of Notting Hill right outside my front door.
1300km, 5 ferries, 4 countries, 3 inner tubes, 1 bezzie mate.
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| Chapel Roan |
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| Carnival |
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| Carnival Parade |
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| The beautiful passion fruit flowers in my back garden |
* I am now sat here editing another 2 months after writing that intro, and can confirm I am still nicotine free for the longest period since quitting in Japan. Go me. It's hard to work out when I started using nicotine as a mood stabiliser. I feel angry, or sad, or anxious, or even very happy, and my brain falls back on old tricks. "Maybe you want nicotine?". And so I take some nicotine, and get a little bump of dopamine, despite all those feelings remaining buried and undealt with. Brain goes "oh I was right" and makes more nicotine receptors. Suddenly anytime anything at all is wrong, including feeling thirsty or hungry, my brain goes "Nicotine please!", and I listen, and it does feel like it's what I needed because it gets rid of cravings for one of the most addictive substances going. Coming off it is always an emotional rollercoaster, because when I feel angry or sad or anxious I just have to sit with the feeling. And those are the worst feelings.
**Moin is a greeting used in Northern Germany, parts of Denmark, and Netherlands too. At first I just thought everyone was making noises at me. Then "Morning" which obviously confused me in the evening. Eventually had to look it up - Its got it's roots in Frisia, "moi" meaning good, so its sort of like saying "You good?" "Good mate". But unlike Guten Morgen, you can use it all day. Great thing to yell at someone as you cycle past each other in opposite directions.
***All the way through this bloody trip I have been punished for not having cash and forgetting my card at home. Always bring your physical card with you on holiday. And always get some cash out, especially by the time you get to Germany. In the UK we tap for everything, but in most places cash is still king.
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