Long distance cycling is slow travel. Maybe it’s what I like the most about it. Many people who are used to go by car hundreds of miles a day don’t get it. From my point of view they miss almost everything of their journey. And they never get to meet the odd wondrous people.

So cycling is my kind of travel. And for sure it’s beautiful when you go through woods or remote lush countryside. But as much as you try to plan your route along special cycling routes like National Parks or sign-posted long distance paths like the North Sea Cycle Route, the Maasroute or one of those Eurovelos, there always come many miles that are very different.

Twice on my way to Krankenhaus I crossed the whole of London. Both times I cycled on drab, worn cycle paths along motorways with so much rubbish on the verge, pedaled on back roads and pot holed side streets through the sprawl of the famous city. Tourists never go there.

But even run down commercial sites have their glittering places where some obscure business still happens. The junk of civilisation is eventually still worth some quids to maintain a living. It’s like a strange wonderland with it’s heydays long gone. Agglomarations of workshops, rusty metal structures, abandoned cars, vans and prams. Half collapsed brick walls and buildings have overgrown with weeds. Behind fences rundown storehouses, padlocked gates, closed petrol stations, bizarre gyms of money making and second hand deals that have gone down the drain full of old plastic bottles, drink cans and rotten newspapers of not so long forgotten ages.

And right beside all that there’s the new shiny online dealer hub behind barbed wire fences and CCTV cameras as if it’s a nuclear weapons facility. Lorries and white vans rush by carelessly, pass you only inches away, while you try to get out of this mess as fast as possible. It’s definitely not beauty. But maybe the rest of beauty, spare parts of lost lifes.

So cycling long distances is not only slow travel, it’s some kind of deep travel too. You are always in the thick of things, everywhere you go you see things in depth, if you like them or not. As there are for sure always sewage works on the margins of towns and cities. There should be a Hitchhikers’ Guide to Sewage Works which gives you all the details about cleaning up our dirty waters. Maybe we would be a bit more careful with life’s most basic stuff, that we are all made of.

But besides the whole palette of developed areas and living spaces on the outskirts, there is always the odd person to meet, when stopping at red lights or to look on the map, because the road ahead is closed once more. Out of the blue people start talking to me, when they see my bike loaded with panniers, asking me questions, where I’m going, where I’m from, joking about my gear. And I always say: ‘I’m on my way to Krankenhaus.’ Most of them laugh, especially, if they recognise how many miles and how many days I still have to go. ‘Five days?’, an old man with bursting shopping bags in Derby once said. ‘I could drive there in five hours.’ So I give my best but lame parting shot: ‘But you miss your whole life.’ He laughs though, while I pedal round the corner.

And then way up north on a windy and rainy morning, I cycle out of Hawes on the B road up Widdale. There are road works and the wind is hitting in gusts while showers drench me. I pass some entrance to a track between hedges, and there’s suddenly another cyclist sheltering as best as possible in his colourful rain clothes and eating some nuts. He smiles at me and waves, as I struggle past. He looks like 70 or more years old, deep lined face with crow feet, shining grey blue eyes and an everlasting wizardy smile.

I cycle on though. The road work crew is setting up speed limit signs and barriers left and right. So their lorry passes by regularly, before I overtake again, while the men in their hi-vis work gear unload more signs and barriers roadside.

Around me the valley is beauty drenched in rain under low moving grey clouds. North Yorkshire is doing its best to accomodate me. It’s really cold. The rain has a musty smell. Around me green and grey and brown colours are blending into each other. And there is even the ocasional shaft of sunlight to put a glitter und glimmer to this doom.

So when another shower has swept away, I stop roadside. A track forks off up the valley side to a small wood. I eat some nuts and chocolate to keep the spirits up and take a breather. But not long and huffing and puffing up the road comes the old man, this irresistible smile engraved into his weather worn face, his eyes shining. He cycles an old Raleigh road bike, has well loaded panniers front and over the rack and stripes of rainbow colours on his dropped handlebar. He looks for sure as if he had done this all his life, cycling through Yorkshire dales with a hard earned but easy smile on his lips. He waves nonchalantly passing me, and on he goes in his steady pace that makes the day.

Intrigued by this old fella I pack away my nuts and chocolate and ride on after the mysterious old guy. But he is still doing a good pace and I can only just keep him in sight. Another short shower pours down, more gusts of wind hit us in the face and beside the road the Weddale Beck rushes past.

It’s tough cycling, but somehow it’s so good to do it together. It’s not competition that keeps me following the old cyclists with his yellow jacket and his rainbow colours uphill, it’s comradeship. And right on top just past the old farm, where the road to Dent turns off, he stops and waits for me. I arrive a minute or two later. He has already his bag of nuts out and nibbles happily smiling, when I stop out of breath beside him.

‘Tough cycling this morning’, he says laughing through partly bad teeth. Now that I see him face to face, I judge him even older than 70, maybe even over 80. ‘I’m Christoph from Germany’, I say. ‘Ay, Steve. Lovely meeting you.’ We shake hands, swap smiles, share chocolate and nuts. He’s heading for Ingleton, so our ways part at this junction. We chat a bit, tell us our stories in short.

Steve’s from Sunderland, on his way to visit his sister in Lancaster. ‘I cycle this way every once in a while’, he laughs. ‘It’s beautiful. Even done it in winter, as long as there’s no snow.’ But his eyes gleam as if even that wouldn’t stop him cycling across North Yorkshire.

Surprisingly Steve is all interested in Krankenhaus Festival, which I tell him about. ‘Ay, sounds like my kind of place’, he cackles and adds smiling: ‘Might go there next year.’ And then he’s off into the wind and another shower under low grey clouds and the occasional sunlight breaking cover. Slowly but steadily he is disappearing on the winding Blea Moor Road.

Finally I head on too, turn off the B road to roll under Dent Head Viaduct onwards to Dent and Sedbergh. Soon the final shower stops and it slightly clears into some sunny spells. I wonder what that was all about.

And since then I look out for the old fella cycling up to Muncaster Castle on his Raleigh road bike, the rainbow coloured stripes on his handlebar, smiling like it’s the most wonderful thing in life to do. And for sure he would be right. So maybe this year he finally turns up at Krankenhaus. Look out for Steve of Sunderland…

Christoph x