Intrepid man of pedal and metal Jamie Thomson tells the tale of his mission to cycle to the Roadburn Festival: featuring ferries, dykes, windmills, heaviosity, rude signage, useless national cycle trails, and 345 cheese & ham toasties.
“But why?” That was the incredulous response I frequently received when I told people I was going to cycle to Roadburn this year. Well, I never planned to go in 2010, but many of my friends did – some were stranded in Holland for days due to the Icelandic dust cloud; some never even made it over and spent their Roadburn propping up the bar in an airport waiting for the all-clear that never came. What, I thought to myself, would be a cast-iron way of getting to Tilburg without relying on planes or trains? (The ferry, of course, being the exception, but in the event of modern civilisation collapsing, I’m sure I could have sailed across at some point.)
To augment the journey, I planned to listen to music by the bands I’d be seeing in the flesh – and hopefully happen upon some serendipitous soundtrack to my journey. For this I bought a neat little speaker to hang over my shoulder from my rucksack, as listening to music on my headphones while cycling has long been a no-no. This has been the case ever since I lost a nice pair of Sennheisers to the spokes of my front wheel after a car roared up behind me – which of course I couldn’t hear – nearly sending me over my handlebars. I was so incandescent with rage that two drunks broke off from their fight over a can of Special Brew to come over and calm me down.
Originally, the plan had been to cycle door to door, but my tried-and-tested path out of east London had been scuppered by Olympic building works, and as I didn’t really fancy taking my life in my hands on the Eastway, I arbitrarily chose Chelmsford as my starting point. It’s just as well I did, as with even only an extra 10 miles tacked onto my journey, things could have worked out very differently.
Continue reading: The Quietus | Features | The Quietus At Leisure | Get On The Dyke & Ride! Jamie Thomson Cycles To Roadburn In The Netherlands.
Tags: Jamie Thomson, Roadburn, Roadburn 2011, Roadburn Festival, Roadburn Festival 2011, The Quietus
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