Day 1: Fredericia to Kolding

August 10, 2022

Today has been a very hectic first day!

We spent the morning getting everything ready, packing and loading the bikes, and also trying to get our house sorted to be left for two months. I found it a pretty stressful experience, which is unusual as I am usually the calm one at such times, but this time it was Dea keeping a level head and me running around like a headless chicken. I felt like I was having a nightmare where I kept doing things to get ready but time was ticking and I just wasn’t getting anywhere. But somehow come midday we had everything packed, or thought we did anyway, and were ready for the off. But then just before rolling our bikes out the door Dea remembered she had forgotten to feed Kevin.

And then I went and put the wrong Kevin in the trailer!!!

Once the right Kevin was full of milk and ready for his nap we put him in the trailer and said our goodbyes to the few members of our community sensible enough not to be at work at 12:30 on a Wednesday. We were also glad that our neighbour Clara was there with her good camera, so I have some nice quality photos to record our departure.

And then just like that we had begun cycling to Belgium. It had all been so hectic that I hadn’t really had time to think about what we were doing until we got on the bikes and then everything calmed down and began to make sense. We were really doing it now, we were out the door and on our way.

We were following the bike route eight on small country roads due to there not being any cycle paths on this stretch to Kolding. It was a route we have cycled many times before and we knew there would come a steep hill at one point. It was good we knew it was coming so we could both stop and bend down to move our chains onto the small chainring by hand. “Doesn’t your front derailleur work either?” I asked. Apparently not. Well, I’m not fixing it. Hate those things.

Struggling up the hill. It actually wasn’t that bad.

The hill wasn’t bad and the cycling was generally pretty great. We managed 13 kilometers in one hour, an average speed I was very proud of, then had a lovely two hour break in a park. It was a beautiful sunny day and we both agreed that this really was the life.

We were a bit worried that Kevin was getting hot in the trailer. We have a thermometer in there and it read 28 degrees, so when we continued we switched on a fan for him that we have attached to the roof of the trailer to keep him cool. It should come in handy over the coming days as a mini heatwave is forecast. It’s powered from a battery pack and we can switch it on and off from the back of the trailer without disturbing Kevin, so it’s a pretty nice option to have on hot days.

At one point as we stopped to adjust the fan we saw a family on bikes approach going the same way as us, but they didn’t stop to talk. We rode on a way behind them, but caught them up on a hill when the youngest of the three children got off his bike and sat down on the verge in a bit of a strop, halfway up the climb. The rest of the family didn’t stop and rode all the way up the hill without him. I asked him if he was okay and he said he was, but then threw his head in his arms and cried once we were past. He was not a happy little cyclist. It felt like a bit of warning to us that as much as we might want to cycle as a family, it might not always be easy or popular with everyone.

We caught up to the rest of the family at the top of the hill and stopped to talk. None of them seemed too bothered about going back for the boy, who couldn’t have been more than six or seven. I guess it wasn’t the first time this happened. They explained they were from Belgium and cycling the same loop in Denmark that half of the families in Belgium and Holland seem to be cycling this week. We couldn’t stop long because of Kevin but we told them about the camping place in Kolding we were going to and said we might see them later.

We navigated our way through Kolding on bike paths and headed out to the free campsite on the southern shore of a fjord. As we did so I realized that I had been here before in 2010 at the start of my big cycling adventures. I remembered I had cycled out here so excited to see the sunset which I had thought was so beautiful. It was nice to be coming back here now with my family, although it was a very public place to camp, next to a busy beach with a lot of noise.

It wasn’t long before we were joined by two German cyclists, Jonas and Zelina who would also camp here. They were in their mid twenties and on a tour of Denmark and seemed very friendly, but I couldn’t chat long because I had to cycle back into town and get some dinner from a supermarket. I opted for frozen veggie burgers, a choice I began to regret when I returned to the campsite and Dea asked me if I knew where the stove was. After a bit of a think I did know where the stove was. It was on a side table in our house 25 kilometers away.

This was quite a stressful moment but luckily Dea came up with an idea that was quite brilliant. Sara, a member of our community, would be coming to work in Kolding in the morning, and Dagny, another member of the community, had our spare key. A couple of phone calls later and we had a plan to get our stove back. And the Germans provided us with a solution for cooking our burgers by making a fire. I’m pretty sure I melted one of the handles on our pot, but we got some food in us at least.

The Belgian family also belatedly arrived and we had quite the campsite.

It was really nice to be back at this place again after so many years. I first came here in 2010 a couple of months into what would essentially become a ten year bicycle odyssey. To be back here now with the same bike, or the same brake levers at least, was special, especially at the start of our first real tour as a family. Who would have thought 12 years ago as I watched the sunset from here that I would be back again with my son to watch another beautiful sunset from the same spot. I mean, Kevin wasn’t interested in the sunset. Actually I missed the actual moment the sun went down because I was lying in the tent with him playing a fun round of pinch daddy’s nose. Life has changed a lot since I came here as a 25 year old at the start of a great adventure, but one thing is the same - I’m at the start of a great adventure right now too!

Today's ride: 28 km (17 miles)
Total: 191 km (119 miles)

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