People who rarely ride a bike don’t know (or don’t think that way) that it is easier to ride a bike than it is to walk, even uphill. Of course, under load and for a longer period of time, neither is easy.
Fine, I have about 8500 kilometers to travel, but I have no time limit.
The plan is for the trip to last 4 months, but I have no one chasing me and I have nowhere to be late. According to Google, an average man walks 3 times around the Earth in his lifetime. It is hard for me to approximate that into what I am planning to do, but it seems quite encouraging by the first look at it.
Anyway, calculations show that if I ride, on average, 8 hours a day, at a speed of 8 kilometers per hour, I will arrive within the time limit. In a period from May till October last year, I used to ride a bike for about 30 kilometers on weekdays, no exceptions (but when it was pouring rain), and at least 50 kilometers, more often over 80 kilometers, on weekends. I crossed Eastern Serbia up and down, went to Belgrade and back (and set my personal record of 140 kilometers in one day), climb from 250 meters to 850 meters altitude, under heavy load (fine, I was pushing the bike more than I rode it, but made up for the lost time on the way back, downhill)
It goes without saying that it is much easier to ride a bike in familiar surroundings, where you can call for help if you, God forbid, need it, but is there any reason I would not be able to do the same during the trip I am planning? I will be in Europe, at least this time, so we are not talking about a wasteland, are we? The other difference, compared to my previous experiences, is that I will be riding a bike every day, but as I said, I already did pretty much the same last season, for 6 months. If I had spent all that time driving in the direction of Lisbon, I would have been there a long time ago.
So, as far as physical strength goes, I expect no problem if my health serves me well (knock on wood), as it does now, and I am doing my best to keep it that way. I spend an hour and a half at the gym, every day, supervised by Gagi and the whole team of people training there for 10 years, or even more. I eat healthier than an average person, no doubt about it. I no longer use sugar and white flour, eat a lot of vegetables, drink 1,5 liters of cold pressed juice: carrots, beets, apples, pears, lemon and I practically drink it instead of water. I also eat a lot of raw or dried fruit. I don’t avoid eating meat, I have no intention of becoming Novak Djokovic, I just want to reach Lisbon. So far, I am not using any supplements, but I am considering it. I will definitely start taking them once I start the journey, it is not likely that my healthy food would fit in saddlebags. Once a month I check my blood sugar level and all the other parameters that can be determined at the gym. The results are within the range, I exceed the weight I should have for an ideal BMI by a couple of kilos due to the fact that my muscle mass has increased. I am 178 cm tall, and my weight ranges between 79 and 82 kilograms. I recently had a gallstone operation and, as before any other surgical procedure, had my heart, lungs and God knows what else checked. I am a boy, what can I say.
