Motivation

can you feel the heat?

…has two meanings here:

Why do that?

And: How to help to go on when this first question becomes relevant?

The first, the “why?” starts with my last, similar journey. As my brother, Markus, is living in Sydney I no longer wanted to postpone visiting him and Martina. And if going so far, I planned to combine it with visiting Couchsurfing friends in Armenia, Thailand, Singapore, China, HK and Taiwan.

I never had been a keen traveller and still am NOT, – I have my place in Vienna and that is good and enough for this life – , but it was great to see where and how my friends and my brother live, to experience so different landscapes&cultures, smells and tastes.

The big weak point was that I needed to take 10 flights, a complete no-go, that overcompensates my desired lifestyle of sustainability for years.

So the way out for a repetition of this tour was to do it my way, that is by bike. This idea grew directly on that trip, in Taiwan, when I thought this could also be a place to stay.

As a teacher in Austria I could take a Sabbatical, a great idea that before this new born plan was not on my radar. But soon after coming back from this trip I applied for a Sabbatical and started planning the travel.

It is not necessary, but it helps to be a bit crazy for intending such a venture. At the same time I really tried to plan profoundly and responsible.

The second question only sometimes came up before leaving, but sometimes I got palpitation when the idea became tangible real. It is too big! Of course, there are some things that continuously made me nervous, like ferries and cargo ships or currencies and such technical things. But my small bike in this big world! Leaving home for a year! Being always somewhere and having to adopt to everything every time! The last days were a kind of count down like before being operated on. You know it will have to happen, no one here instead of you.

And then I left. It was in several steps. Leaving one son in Vienna, the other 40km later, then staying overnight with a friend and finally leaving Austria. And then it was like leaving the orbit.

On the first day I motivated me with arriving at a known place and started calculations like:
when I arrive I have down 0,5% of all cycling days and cycling kilometres. By that the big thing became a bit manageable.

Number games like that helped me whenever it was big or too big. When I have to cycle 100km then after 20km I not only have 20% it is 1/5. But only 5km later it is ¼ and again after 8km it is 1/3. And when I have done half, then I know that 3-4h later I will arrive. And when I had done those 100km everything more that I do today, is something less on the next day. It is for free ?.
Be it the whole trip or a long upward slope, I do it like Beppo the road sweeper (Michael Ende) and concentrate on a smaller part (a country, a day ride, the next village, the next curve, the next 20m).

And I have a structure for the day and for the hours:
at 8, 10 and 12 there are breaks for eating. At 10 I put on sun protection and I lubricate the chain. And to have a kind of highlight, but also to get to reasonable drinking habits (not waiting to long and then really being thirsty) every quarter of an hour I sip three times at my water bottle. That can bring anticipation and the word “Drink” gets a nice sound. I tell myself: “in 3min you get something to drink!” and when it is time to drink I normally do it while riding but wait for less traffic. That can bring another 1-2min of anticipation and during that time I am not concentrated on exhaustion.

The same goes to eating: if I cannot find a good place for eating at 8 then I go on until I find it. Or, after a while, when I am too hungry, I make a short stop and have the good feeling that I have some break time left for later.

A village ahead can promise a shop for a piece of cheese, a town can have a park with bench and shadow and both can give direct motivation, but it can also make possible some deals like cancelling a smaller break in favour of a longer and more pleasant one later.

Sometimes I just say something like “do what has to be done” to tell me that is better to be brave now and something is inevitable. I needed that sometimes in the morning in the tent, when I feel safe inside and it could be wet/hot/cold/dangerous outside.

After some days of cycling I got something new: “you can do it!” mixed with equanimity. As I normally set 100km as a day limit I know time is surveyable. But besides saying “1 done, 6 left” and later “2 done only 5 left”, I also know that after each climb you can go down again and whatever difficulties I meet, they are limited (at that day) and: I can do it. If the climb is exhausting, I can divide it into portions, I can reduce speed, but I can do it and it is limited. If the road is big and cars dangerous, I know I will get to another one sooner or later (or to my goal of that day) and I can profit from better surface and go faster. When the road is nearly unpassable because of holes I profit from the nature around and maybe it is quite calm and if I have to push my bike for a while, I can do it. No normal day (without extra problems!) can be 100% negative by that and that makes it easier.

For me one thing is the most important prerequisite: having enough to drink (not only for my motiviation games!) and to eat. Btw another source for motivation, when I can say I need 2liter/100km (and 2000cal), show me the car that can cope with that 😉