The opening day of Cycling Across Europe for a Future Without Cancer.
There are mornings that do not feel real until they are already behind you.
For months, this journey had lived inside conversations, documents, maps, messages, training rides, sleepless nights, equipment lists, doubts, and hope. It had been a sentence I kept repeating to myself and to others:
I am going to cycle across Europe for a Future Without Cancer.
Then, suddenly, it was no longer an idea.
It was Sunday morning.
The house was quiet in that strange way a home becomes quiet when you are about to leave it for a long time. The bags were packed. The bicycle was loaded. I looked at everything one last time, not knowing exactly when I would return, or who I would be when I did.
Friends and family had gathered to see me off. That meant more than I can easily explain.
Andrew, Laurence, Aman, Suzy, Boyed, Konstantina.
There is a particular kind of courage that comes from not leaving alone, even when the road ahead is yours to ride. Their presence softened the enormity of the moment. We took the train into London together, with the bike and the bags, carrying this impossible dream towards its first public step.
Big Ben was the beginning.
Standing there in London, surrounded by familiar faces, I felt the weight of the journey more clearly than ever. Not only the physical weight of the bicycle, which already felt as though I had packed my whole life onto it, but the emotional weight of what this ride means.
I thought of my mum.
I thought of the people I have lost to cancer.
I thought of all the people across Europe I have not met yet, whose stories are waiting somewhere on the road ahead.
This journey is dedicated to my mum, who I lost to cancer far too young. It is also a ride for hope, for cancer prevention, for community, and for the belief that everyday choices, what we eat, how we move, how we live, can shape our long-term health.
At Big Ben, the expedition became visible. A man, a bicycle, a few friends, and a continent ahead.
From there, we made our way to St Pancras.
Train stations are strange places to begin an adventure. Everyone is going somewhere, but most people are only passing through. Commuters, tourists, families, cyclists, people with coffee in one hand and luggage in the other. I was one of them, and not one of them. My destination was not just Dover. It was Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Warsaw, and far beyond.
But every vast journey has to begin with a small, practical step.
So I boarded the train to Dover.
On the train, the nerves began to settle into something quieter. I was moving. That alone changed everything. The months of preparation were no longer behind a screen or inside a notebook. The journey had entered the world.
There were fellow cyclists too, and already the road was doing what the road does best: connecting strangers. We talked about bikes, routes, ferries, plans, and the peculiar madness of choosing to travel slowly in a world that keeps telling us to hurry.
I have always loved that about cycling. It creates conversations. It removes distance between people. A loaded bicycle is an invitation. People ask where you are going, why you are going, how far you have come, and whether you are completely mad. Sometimes the answer to all of those questions is yes.
At Dover, the sea appeared.
That was the first real threshold.
London had been emotion. St Pancras had been transit. Dover was departure.
The ferry crossing carried me out of one chapter and into another. The white cliffs slowly disappeared behind me, and with them the life I had known until that morning. Ahead was France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and the long northern arc of the route.
I stood with the bike and thought about how many times I had imagined this moment.
The first ferry.
The first border.
The first evening on the continent.
The first unknown road.
When the ferry arrived in Dunkirk, I rolled off the boat and into the beginning of Europe.
Dunkirk greeted me not with drama, but with calm. The kind of calm that comes after a day of emotion, and logistics. I cycled through the town with the loaded bike, still learning how it handled under the weight. Every turn felt new. Every street felt like part of the first page.
There was also something quietly beautiful about arriving in Dunkirk. It is a place with deep history, a name many people associate with evacuation, survival, and crossing water under difficult circumstances. For me, arriving there marked a gentler crossing, but still one filled with meaning. I had left home, crossed the Channel, and arrived by bicycle on the European mainland.
The expedition had begun.
That night, I stayed with my first host, Pauline.
I will always remember that.
On a journey like this, the first host matters. The first act of kindness matters. It sets the tone. It reminds you that, although you are riding alone, you are not really alone. There will be people along the way who open a door, offer a garden, share a meal, make space, and turn an unknown place into shelter.
Pauline welcomed me at the end of that first day. After the emotion of leaving home, the train to London, Big Ben, St Pancras, Dover, the ferry, and the first kilometres in France, her kindness felt like a landing place.
Not just physically, but emotionally.
I had made it.
Day one was complete.
The bicycle was safe. I had somewhere to sleep. The journey was no longer something I was about to do. It was something I was doing.
That night in Dunkirk, I felt tired, grateful, and quietly overwhelmed. There was a whole continent ahead of me, but for the first time, I did not need to think about all of it. I only needed to think about that day.
Leaving home.
My friends.
My family.
Big Ben.
St Pancras.
Dover.
The ferry.
Dunkirk.
Pauline.
The first host. The first kindness. The first journal entry.
I do not know yet what this journey will ask of me. I do not know how many hard days, beautiful days, lonely days, generous days, and unexpected days are waiting on the road. But I know why I started.
I started because cancer took my mum far too young.
I started because I believe her memory can travel further than grief.
I started because I want to meet people and share their stories.
I started because I want to tell people about the life-saving work the World Cancer Research Fund is doing.
And on the first day, from London to Dunkirk, all of that became real.
The road is open now.
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