Margate To Bruges by bike, ish.
One of the biggest selling points of moving here was the ease of accessing the European mainland, and at the end of August I had a couple of days off to explore by bike.
Planning (None)
The first thing to point out up front is that this trip was a complete failure from a cycling perspective and I actually travelled about half of this distance by bike.
The whole trip was very spontaneous and poorly planned. Firstly, I planned to camp somewhere in Belgium, but remembered the day before I left that some friends had taken my tent to Green Man, so I booked an Airbnb in Ostende.
I took the fixed gear (which hadn’t been used in months and had been covered in dust from sanding floors until the day before) with no gloves, no panniers and a large North Face Base Camp Duffel (which I don’t rate) on my back and set off.
Day 1 - Bad
Fortunately I was running late for the 10am ferry from Dover to Dunkirk that morning, so I had to get the train to Dover. Thank god, as there is no way I’d have made it by bike.
The weather in Dover was absolutely awful, sideways rain for hours and the ferry was slightly delayed. As soon as we departed the UK though the weather started to clear up, and I arrived in the port of Dunkirk to blue skies. Once the barrier dropped, I popped a cheeky skid and off I went.
It wasn’t even 30 mins later that I realised I was not gonna have a good time of the cycling. My chain ring felt like it was lubricated with treacle and the bag on my back quite quickly made my neck ache. My knees were already starting to grumble before I even got to Dunkirk beach, a whole hour away from the ferry port.
I struggled on up the coast, luckily with the wind at my back, past De Panne. Things were at their lowest when I took a wrong turn around Plopsaland Theme Park (literally a place) and had to double back to get back one of the only stretches of main road, at which point my knees were screaming for me to stop.
At Niewpoort I decided to pack it in, I stuck my bike on the KT tram and took it most of the way up the Belgian coast to Oostende, defeated. I found somewhere to eat by the sea, ate a pizza, then hobbled home to the Airbnb barely able to walk.
Day 2 - Ostende and Bruges
The next day I woke up and I didn’t feel too bad, but knew I wouldn’t be able to do any cycling if I wanted to make it home. I spent the day exploring Ostende and Bruges, which was only a 30 min train ride away. The whole time thinking to myself “How am I going to get home with this Bike”? There is no foot traffic allowed on the ferry, so leaving the bike behind somewhere was not an option.
Day 3 - The return journey
I woke up on the last day feeling well rested, but I feared the worst. I left super early in the morning and got straight on the KT tram and took it all the way to De Panne and attempted to get a bus. The driver said something I didn’t understand other than the word desolé and he made a walking man motion with his fingers. Fucking hell, I had no choice but to cycle back to Dunkirk ferry terminal, 3 hours ride away.
The ride home was absolutely wonderful, I felt full of energy, I built up pace slowly and didn’t lock the back wheel to slow the bike at any point, taking care of my knees. I could have gone twice the distance, even with the wind in my face the whole way.
I learned a lesson
The moral of the story is, using a fixed-gear as a touring bike in your late 30s is absolutely doable and quite freeing, just don’t pop any skids.