I met a hero today. Or at least that's what I think he was. He'd set off from Warrington in the north of England some five weeks ago on his bike. It was the one he'd built himself but it had a design fault: the front panniers kept wobbling. So much so that he could not fill them but he still needed the storage space for all his stuff.
His solution was to take along a trailer. He'd built that himself as well. But it broke after 100 miles so he bought another, a proper one. That broke later in Central France. He'd reached Clermont Ferrand on his way to Marseilles, which is a curious route to take because it takes you over the Massif Central, which lives up to its name. I think its presence took him by surprise.
He also brought along a pop-up tent shaped like a huge ring that was too big to fit in any pannier, or the trailer, so he tied it to the frame of his bike. Except it kept hitting the front wheel when he tried to steer. So he'd rigged up another contraption to fix this.
But none of this mattered as it turned out that he'd run out of money. So now he was heading home on the train.
I learned so much about him in our short train ride together. Yet he never asked me one question about my trip. Perhaps he was still in awe at all the obstacles that he had managed to overcome. Yes, he must be a hero. At least I think that is the word to describe him.
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