WHAT, WHY, HOW, HOW

Apurimac, Peru

Letting go of fears

Adventuring takes guts. Or does it? 

Bikepacking solo can seem scary. How do you get rid of some of your fears? My answer is: by questioning them. 

I carried out a quick survey through an Instagram story, asking what people feared about (solo) bikepacking. Here are some answers:

-Being chased by dogs
-Getting kidnapped
-Only crossing villages with few or bad restocking option
-Running out of water
-Having to ride at night
-Slugs
-Having to pitch my tent in populated areas (e.g. Normandy)
-Getting lost
-Running out of time to cycle to my destination
-Getting injured (e.g. stress/overuse injury)
-Losing my passport and wallet abroad
-Camping alone
-Wild camping alone
-My bike’s safety at night
-Not having enough space for all my gear
-Eating my food too quickly and running out
-Getting my bike stolen
-Getting a mechanical I can’t fix in the middle of nowhere

Do you share some of these concerns? That's likely. Do you share every single one of these concerns? Probably not. We all have different fears. We can learn from one another. 

I am not proposing you confront your fears head on. I could not help you with that as I am not good at it. Instead, I invite you to question your fears. Make a list and go through every single one of them. 

If you have no fear and you are a 'let's wing it when I'm there' kind of person, this article may not be directly for you. However, it is full of tips for prepping and being able to keep going when an inconvenience arises.

First of all, if you say ‘I am scared of…’ but are unable to say why exactly, it is likely your fears are not as reasonable or serious as you expected. 

'I am scared of not knowing what to do if…'. Is this a hypothetical situation or can you pinpoint cases you'd be completely clueless for hours on end? If you have examples, then do some prevention: scared of not knowing what to do if you take a fall and have a bleeding cut? Take a first aid course. On a budget? Ask your mate who's taken a first aid course to lend you their manual and memorise it. 

Now, can you think of a past situation where you were completely clueless and unable to progress a situation for hours? What happened then; how come you are no longer in that same exact spot today?

Are you fear-free in your everyday life? What are things that used to be scary to you? Is it completely safe to cross the road, or is it a risk that you navigate routinely without thinking twice, that you have now accepted? 

Identify your fears, question them, weed out the easiest ones, and prepare yourself well for the ones that won't go away.

Here are a few questions to apply to your fears. Each question you answer will help put things into perspective and decide whether the fear was overblown in your mind, or whether it is a reasonable and persistent fear that you need to seriously prepare for. 

Ask yourself WHAT, WHY, HOW, HOW

WHAT are you actually scared of? Formulate the fear as precisely and as practically as you can.

WHY: where does this fear come from? Have you heard of this happening? Or is it a pure hypothetical you’ve made up?

HOW LIKELY is it to happen, especially relative to the 'at-home’ risk?

HOW TO HANDLE IT: walk yourself through the steps you could take to get yourself out of the unpleasant scenario.

There is a bonus question, but it is mostly directed at people who are not too anxious to begin with. I include it here because it has done wonders for me.

WORST: what is the worst-case scenario? Often, the worst realistic scenario you can come up with is less bad than what you expected.

If the fear still feels like an obstacle after all these questions, ask yourself how you are going to prepare for this eventuality. 

Applied example 1: dogs

Valencian community, Spain

WHAT: I am scared that a dog will chase me; I won't know what to do; I will get bitten.

WHY: I have heard that in many countries, it is common for stray dogs to chase cyclists and occasionally bite them.

HOW LIKELY: in many countries, dogs aren't the disciplined and precious pets with multiple beds and snack menus that many of us know. Reading blogs of bikepacking through South America, Eastern Europe or Africa, you'll find this scenario is indeed quite common. For most of my readers, and unusually in the list of bikepacking fears, this is probably far more likely when travelling than at home.

HOW TO HANDLE IT: to each their own. The most common techniques are: 

• Do nothing; eventually they will stop chasing you.

• Bark back and louder.

• Keep a small water pistol by your handlebars and spritz them (or use your bidon but you will likely waste more water).

• Keep a pouch full of tiny pebbles and throw some in the dog's direction.

Worst case scenarios: 

-A dog bites one of your bike bags; you are annoyed; you tape up the tooth mark (my taped-up tooth mark has been holding strong on my rear pannier since 2017. Just get good tape).
-A dog bites you. A dog can do real damage, but for cyclists, this will likely be to the leg, therefore not show-stopping. You go to a doctor; they may give you medicine. You have made a detour to get to the nearest town and now you may need to take a shortcut later on to compensate. This is an example where the worst case scenario barely sounds like a story to tell.

You’ve gone through WHAT, WHY, HOW, HOW and you are not reassured at all. That’s OK. Accept that the fear is not going to vanish straight away. All you can do now is prepare as best you can.

Preparation: 

Prep possibilities from most basic to most extra:

• Choose a weapon and you'll experiment on the spot (maybe barking will be yours; if not, you'll find pebbles or water pistols in any country). 

• Read one billion blogs of people who got chased by dogs and who are here to tell the tale and reassure you.

• Get a rabies shot before leaving (in some regions, this would actually be the most basic precaution). 

• Pack strong tape. 

• Get very comprehensive travel insurance.

• Whatever else makes YOU feel safer if this is a big fear.

Example 2: Getting a mechanical in the middle of nowhere

Scotland

WHAT: I could break a spoke; a wheel could get buckled; my chain could break; my bottom bracket may start to click; my frame might crack if I hit something really hard.

WHY: my cousin broke his frame at a MTB competition; I have heard of people breaking spokes.

HOW LIKELY: if you are riding a well-serviced bike, huge surprise mechanicals are unlikely. Parts squeak and click before they let go. The probability that you are somewhere where no one is there to help you is subject to debate. If you had a mechanical in the middle of London, how many cars would spontaneously stop to offer a lift? Now imagine you are on the side of a road and drivers know they may be the only person you see in a while. Many will stop and offer help (this is not a vague theory of mine, I have been both that stranded cyclist and that humane driver).

HOW TO HANDLE IT: so you are on the side of the road, hopeless and unable to go forward. If you’ve had an accident with another road user, there should be other people around or coming up to help you. If you have an incident on a dirt track in the middle of nowhere: are you really in the middle of nowhere? I've cycled on dirt tracks in Patagonia and the Atacama desert. The longest I've gone without seeing a car or another person is a couple of hours.

Worst case scenarios:

Your bike was under too much strain, you jumped a boulder you should not have; your frame is folded in two. If you have signal, ring for help, ring your insurance, ring a friend to help you calm down. No signal? Walk to the nearest road and hail a car for help. It may be a very tiring couple of hours getting your gear to a less isolated area. You may have to hitchhike to the nearest town. Your backpacking trip may turn into a backpacking trip. You may buy a cheap bike and continue your adventure. Your insurance may be more or less quick to help you get back on a bike. You may take a bus to go to a town where your options are better. It sounds like an adventure where you will meet people on the way. A decent story to look back on and tell. If hitchhiking is one of your fears, do another round of WHAT, WHY, HOW, HOW.

Preparation:

It's plain and simple; don't go bikepacking solo before you can confidently fix a puncture and diagnose brakes that need servicing. The rest is a bonus. The more you learn, the more eventualities you will be able to face on your own, but guess what? No one carries around the tools to service bearings or bottom brackets on the road side. Get your bike serviced regularly. Spare yourself a bit of time by carrying a couple of spokes that fit your wheels; you don't have to know how to change them yourself, but you know that the first bike shop you see will be able to fix your wheel without delay.

Having good travel insurance will relieve some weight. Carrying a satellite phone or a satellite chip reassures some people. If being stuck unable to move much in the middle of nowhere is your personal number one fear, then you can do those things. For me, realising that 'deserted' places are rarely truly deserted was enough reassurance. 

I will now offer a quick-fire round of my take on fears that people have shared with me. Do the WHAT, WHY, HOW, HOW and create your own reassurance.

-Getting kidnapped: use common sense and gut feeling. Avoid travelling in zones that the foreign office advises against. If you are a well-known multimillionaire who is actually at risk of kidnapping for ransom, I don’t know how you ended up on this page.
-Only crossing villages with few or bad restocking options: study the map carefully, set up your bike with extra carrying capacity.
-Running out of water: same as for running out of food.
-Eating my food too quickly and running out: carry one or two calorie-dense emergency rations on top of your planned meals. Review your shopping plan if you come to eat your emergency ration.
-Having to ride at night: plan carefully, leave leeway in your schedule. Always have decent lights with you just in case. If you have camping gear with you, just stop and camp when it gets dark.
-Slugs: if you have a phobia, it’s something you navigate every day. In this particular case, always camp in a tent as opposed to just laying your sleeping bag on the ground; choose dry areas.
-Having to pitch in populated areas (e.g. Normandy): see my article on The Art of Saying Yes.
-Getting lost: Phones have GPS signal when they don’t have phone signals. Ask locals. Use a GPS device on top of your phone.
-Running out of time to cycle to my destination: take a shortcut; take a lift; take a bus; change your destination; shorten your breaks.
-Getting injured (eg. stress/overuse injury): train for your trip; fill your route with detours so that you have lots of shortcut options; don’t be over-ambitious.
-Losing my passport and wallet abroad: Always keep them with you and out of sight; memorise the phone number of your insurance or the embassy.
-Camping or wild camping alone: try it in your own garden with a friend, then alone. Camp at the far end of a friend’s field. Camp at the far end of a kind farmer’s field. Camp in a forest, having made sure no one has seen you enter… Take baby steps to solo camping and camping in the wilderness. 
-My bike’s safety at night: carry around a solid lock; tether the tent to your bike so that movement would make the whole thing shake and wake you up; avoid riding an obviously expensive bike.
-Getting my bike stolen: Have a good lock; never leave your bike out of sight; go the extra mile to find a kind soul to keep an eye on it while you go to the shops.
-Not having enough space for all my gear: the classic mistake is overpacking. Take the minimum and buy extra gear only if needed. Try strapping bits and bobs to your frame with an old inner tube. Find space, make space.

Abandoned copper mine, Wales, UK

A note on gut feeling

There is a case in which ‘I am scared and I don't know why but I feel that I am right to be scared’ is enough. This is relevant in the adventure phase, not the planning phase. When you are in an unfamiliar environment, gut feeling goes a long way to protect you from uneasy situations. Uneasy situations can be settings that are possibly dangerous, or simply settings that make you feel uncomfortable. 

Can you think of a time you went against your instincts and regretted it? Most of us can name a few examples of 'I wasn't feeling it, I knew it was a bad idea, what an idiot I was for going ahead anyway’. Now, can you think of a time you regretted following your instincts? Most people struggle to come up with something.

It is much more common to regret going against your guts than to regret following them. 

Gut feeling, or instinct, whatever you call it, is not as innate as it may sound. To the Warlpiri people, cardinal points may seem instinctive: their language doesn't include left and right, or relative directions. They may talk about the tree east of the house, instead of to its left. To many wild campers, it is instinctive not to pitch a tent in a dry river bed. However, tales of flooded tents are easy to find. 

Instinct develops and can be perfected. When is our instinct solicited when most of our life is spent taking a bus that a phone app can track in real time, directing ourselves through streets with another app, getting an instant translation from a third app to answer a question a foreigner has just asked us? 

Most of us don't solicit our instincts very often to make decisions, so it may take some time. A first step is to stick with your guts when they send you a strong signal not to do something. More complex decision-making using your instinct may come later down the line. And remember, you can change your mind: accepting a lift at 3pm doesn’t mean you have to put your bike in the boot at 3.01pm if you are no longer feeling it. The driver may be annoyed, you may feel awkward, but at least you won’t be in a situation that makes you uncomfortable, and that’s what matters.