London - Wrocław

Kacper on the yellow bicycle in front of a cathedral.

My original plan was to stay in the United Kingdom for six months at most. Because of the pandemic, though, that stay stretched to more than a year and a half.

In the meantime I bought a new bicycle and waited impatiently for the borders to reopen. When in May 2021 that finally became possible, I could not imagine returning to Poland any other way than by bicycle. I treated this route as training and as the first more serious test of the equipment before a journey I had been thinking about for a long time.

I still remember the moment I boarded the ferry at Dover. I was genuinely moved. I felt enormous gratitude, and I had the sense that after all those months of waiting I was closer to realising my big plans than ever before.

The next day I was already in Belgium. I rode to Bruges, where I happened to meet some lads who restored old shoes. They hosted me beautifully, offered me food, and at the end gave me a pair of beautiful, restored Dr. Martens, manufactured while they were still made in England.

The following day I entered the Netherlands. Thanks to cycle paths stretching across the whole country I moved very efficiently and covered the kilometres quickly. The next day I reached a mate of mine in Amsterdam, covering 160 kilometres, the most I had ridden in a single day until then.

I spent three pleasant days in the capital of the Netherlands, then rode on through Germany, already heading straight for Poland.

The tent and bicycle by a river. — Nights by the water.

The tent on sand beside a lake. — Nights by the water.

The view from the tent into the woods. — The view from the tent.

In one of the smaller German towns I laid the bicycle down on a lawn clumsily, pinning the rear derailleur under the weight of the whole bicycle. It was Sunday and every bicycle shop was closed. I started asking passers-by whether anyone could help. In the end I was given a contact for Heinz, who apparently knew about bicycles.

I wrote to him and went to his flat. Heinz efficiently dismantled the damaged derailleur, and from that moment my bicycle became a single speed. In that configuration I rode on to the border, and a moment later to Wrocław.

The damaged rear derailleur. — The derailleur and the border.

A Polish state-border sign. — The derailleur and the border.

The whole journey took me about 20 days, during which I rode roughly 2,000 kilometres. It was my first longer trip on the new bicycle, and at the same time the last bigger test before the journey that was going to change my life.