👋🏡🎒day 1-10: goodbyes, campaign buzz & personal reflections

total km: 520.
money raised: €612

🇳🇱 Ik schrijf in het Engels. Dat is erg; ik weet het. Filip Freriks zou boos zijn. Toch vind ik het fijner schrijven. Het kan vertaald worden, maar dit kost tijd of geld. Het gratis programmaatje dat een vertaling maakt (zoals op de rest van de website) heeft een limiet van 2000 woorden. Daarboven moet ik betalen. Alles aan de campagne (website, plug-ins, kaartjes, software, lens) heb ik zelf betaald, maar betaald vertalen kost mij te veel geld. Mocht ik ergens een grote hoop geld vinden (ik ben bij allerlei fondsen op zoek om mijn kosten te dekken), dan kunnen jullie deze in het Nederlands verwachten! Tot dan: woordenboek erbij?

🔗 Nederlandse vertaling gemaakt door Krit van XR (bedankt Krit!)

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Sunday, August 11th, 2024. Close to Kassel, Germany.

Just now I phoned up Erik, one of my closest friends. He was delighted to hear me. After the call, I needed to start on the blog. To give those of you who have withstood the pull of Meta - the company behind Instagram - a sign of life. Erik had made an Instagram account specifically for me, because, in his words “it seems awfully dead on my website”. To his surprise, he saw that I was avidly posting on my Instagram page.

Yeah, sorry Erik. You were very right. Time to set that straight!

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👋 the goodbyes

Should probably start with the first few days of feeling loved by each and every one of you. I planned my ‘goodbye’ trip through the Netherlands, and said that if you wish, you could wave me goodbye. Well, that happened, and it was overwhelming in the best way imaginable.

On the day of leaving, Friday the 2nd, two of my Syrian friends who live with me made snacks for all guests to eat in the garden during the goodbye. Another friend made her amazing iced tea (black brewed tea with sugar, lemons, mint.. delicious). Someone brought sage (the dried herb), to cleanse my bike of evil spirits, another brought a Syrian keffiyeh for me to take. There was also some press (who wrote quite the mediocre article, but then again, I probably also wasn’t the sharpest that morning, so it probably was me), though luckily they left before I stumbled on words that I told everyone (speech sorta thing). I’ll also take the space here to reiterate what I wanted to convey:

I can only do this because of you.

The individual doesn’t exist. We live by and only through each other’s grace, support and love. This trip is not my own project, it’s our project. From the emotional support I’ve gotten, to being fed and cooked for, to getting help on my bike, video making, researching. I’m in awe of the power that our community holds. Not for one second do I want to pretend that this work is all mine. My heart fills with excitement to see the strength of cooperation so clearly.

Then, after enthusiastic waving we (mom + 2 friends) left towards Utrecht. There, again, you showed up. Then, in Zutphen (my hometown), the same story. I won’t fall into repetition: if you were there, I saw you, I appreciate it immensely. There was not enough time to appreciate each one of you and honour your presence with a fully present conversation: I hope you understand and forgive me (i know you probably all do, through all the chaos and business i really enjoyed you all a lot).

staying hydrated is key! here i was practicing some new techniques to achieve hydration.

day 4: the first ‘wild camp’ of the trip somewhere close to the german “border”.

🎒 finding routines

So, yeah. After Zutphen it was just me and Sav (see photos) left. She’d still join me for an unknown amount of time (turned out to be around a week). Game on: time to earn some money to abolish borders and make some kilometers! Life on a bike. First time, ever. There’s bags. 4 of them, 2 small and 2 large. There’s a bag on my steering wheel, there’s a bag on the toptube, there’s a big bag on top of my 2 back bags. That’s so many bags. Inside of those bags, I have more bags! But what do I put in which bag?

It’s been fun to slowly build a routines, figuring out where to put which item. Me and my bike (still unnamed, was hoping a name would appear form the sky, but nothing was sent down yet) are building a closer relationship as each day passes. I’ve found out that the rhythm a bike brings you is very pleasant. The days usually look like this:

• 8:30 wake up, make coffee and breakfast

• 10:00 leave, bike.

• 13:00-15:00 lunch/coffee somewhere

• 15:00 bike

• 18:00 setup camp, dinner, work, sleep

this seems to lead to immensely rewarding days. there’s still lots to change on my bike, as i’m getting used to it all, but that’ll all come in due time.

🗞️📸 campaign buzz

Over the past week, the campaign “exploded” (in relative terms) in popularity. Press from Parool, AD, Stentor and NU.nl all covered it, which led to a small (but exciting) surge in engagement. Hi new readers! I’m really glad to have you along. By the end of the first week we reached a mind-boggling number of €50,- per 100km! (and now over 1350 followers on the instagram). It also means my hair will be millimetred (I’m thinking 5mm?) soon to celebrate (I’ve set the next goal at €75,- per 100km). What I didn’t anticipate, though, was how time-consuming it’d all be. Picture this:

• you’re on a bike and you want to cycle halfway across the world (you have to make kilometers, otherwise you’re stuck)

• you find out you cycle an average of 17km/h.

• you’re a human and need to drink (find potable water), eat (groceries + cook), shower (find fresh water), and sleep (look for wild camping spots).

• you want to maintain relations to the people you’ve left behind (calls, texts, and so on)

• you want to read, listen and learn about borders and bring others along in that process

• you want to maintain the campaign and have a presence online

day 6: wild camping every night makes for an intimate relationship with skies. i’m expecting you’ll see many photos of them.

💖 my reflections on expectations, time and sanity.

Yeah, maybe some adjustment of expectations needs to take place. I didn’t anticipate how intense it would be to try and do all of these things while on a bike! While I’m loving trying to combine it all, it’s also figuring out what I can and want to do. Sav has helped me out immensely with being able to put time towards the campaign: a lot of time she’d help create or brainstorm videos, and cook for us while I edit/write. <3. thanks, Sav.

It’s quite the serious question, though. I’m just a boy, 24 years old, trying to understand the world and slightly change it. Necessarily as part of that, I’m also trying to understand myself. When I’m constantly preoccupied with this passion project of mine (sebbiebikes and all meaning I’ve imbued it with), there’s not a lot of time to read, daydream, reflect, wonder, connect and simply be in the places that I travel through. After 24 years of living with myself I know I like to take what I do seriously: I take pride and joy in what I put out to the world, including this project. Yet it can’t be that I end up overworking myself for the greater good, right? That leads to only one conclusion that I refuse to accept: admitting that I can’t do everything.

So, the next weeks will be interesting to witness. How will I cope with reckoning with my limits? How will I delineate and border off ‘campaign’ time from ‘journey’ time? And how will I inevitably deal with the guilt that comes from choosing ‘me’? Stay tuned, and send some wise words my way (email address below) if you have some.

🔮 the week ahead

I’m writing this on day 9 (saturday August 10th), which means week 2 already started. After enjoying the what I assume to be marvellous ride from Kassel down to Würzburg where we follow both a river and a local train track (trains are fascinating), I’ll be taking a shortcut to Vienna. A 5 hour train ride should bring me there in time to see somebody who’s very dear to me before they leave on their own holiday. Then, Alina, my best friend, will be ready to be picked up to join me for a whole month! There’ll be a gathering of our friend group in Croatia, and afterwards me and her will take our time and make our way through the Balkans, following the migration route (and hopefully visiting organisations that do local work there) down to Thessaloniki, where she’ll go home again. From there on, it’s really a solo-adventure, and Turkiye lies beyond.

I’ll have to develop my relationship to creating ‘learning’ content in the coming weeks. I ask for your patience and trust in me figuring this out. It’ll come, with time.

<3, seb.

(🎞️the other photos)