SOLO Ukraine – London By Bicycle day 3 (part)

Day 3 has been one of the toughest so far.
I started the morning saying goodbye to the amazing people who hosted me last night. they fed me, showed kindness, and gave me a small dose of warmth before I hit the road again. But as soon as I started riding, the mental walls came up.

In this video, I open up about the mental and physical struggles of this solo bike trip across Europe. It’s not just the distance or the hills, it’s the loneliness, the self-doubt, and the weight of doing this all on my own.

This is Part 1 of Day 3. There’s still a long way to go.

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Okay, good morning. It is day three of my cycling trip and we’re going to get ready. Got to pack up all this, make my bed, and then get out on the road. Yeah. Yeah. Um call me. Yes. Call me. Yeah, I have for many years. I’m going the complete opposite direction right now to where I’m supposed to be going because we sat down and they were like, “Right, you got to go this way.” Like trying to help me, you know. It’s good though. It’s okay. But, uh, I’m going to ride down here and then I’m going to turn around. Oh, mate. Starting to rain as well. Might be nice in the rain. Mate, my backpack is like twice as heavy as it was when I started this journey after being with uh Babushka and Dushka. I just couldn’t say no to anything. And they’re not like being horrible or anything. They’re like trying to give me food and water and bottles and like protein powders and dude, you name it. So, my backpack now is is honestly twice as heavy as it was when I started. And I’m trying to I was trying to tell them like the more the more I say no, the more like um they just like no no it’s not a problem. Like it is a problem. It’s heavy. I’ve got jam. I’ve got like this huge bottle of like uh this huge jar of like homemade jam. Uh oh god. I got I got but I guarantee when I get to uh when I get to wanting to eat, I’m going to be happy that I have it. And once that’s eaten, my bag will be lighter. And I’ve also got like this. It’s not a Vashivanka. It’s like a decorative like piece of like I don’t know like towel or something. I got that as well. I didn’t want to say no to that cuz it’s really cool. But here we are. It’s day three. So day one was pretty good. I done about 71 km. Day two I stayed with those guys. They took me on like a little excursion around their little village. Um and we ate food and we drank some of this homemade like vodka which was like strong and delicious. Then they got this other batch of homemade vodka which was just strong and like violent. My god, I couldn’t I couldn’t even sip sip it. It was so strong. And we set fire to it and we drank it anyway. But Oh yeah. Okay. So, day three on the road again. Bro, I got to do something about this backpack. I’m carrying too much loot and it is absolutely killing my back, mate. Oh, mate. I’m not happy today. I thought having a rest would make me okay, but not feeling it today. I’ve eaten too much food and it’s like making me feel like uh almost like heartburn and don’t know. I’m just not feeling it today, boys. There some some jets, some rockets flying over. Well, I think they were jets, actually. I don’t think they are rockets. You can kind of hear you can hear the difference. Um, but uh I mean so far so good. I’m not really enjoying these gravel tracks and these like off-road tracks going through the the farms and stuff. Oh, I might have to um I might have to switch it up. I’m going to I’m going to continue today on the track that I’m on, but I think I might do some road cycling next. Although the roads in not much better as you can tell. Absolutely done him with this top hill, bro. Absolutely done him. They don’t make them like me anymore, boys. Oh, they don’t make them like me anymore. Right, we’re just stopping for a little break in the middle of nowhere. Bro, these fields and these farmlands are like uncomprehendably big. Uncomprehendably. Is that a word? This field or is it this field? Oh, no. That’s got a divider. So, this field here on the map, bro, it just goes for like as far as you can see. And all that I’m surrounded by is literally just fields. The nearest city is Kahalik and that’s like 20 miles away. So apart from that, apart from that city, the rest of fields, bro, I’m struggling today. My lower back is killing me. Um, my legs aren’t like too bad, but like I’m just not feeling it. Just not feeling it today. It’s hard today. Morale is low. So, I’ll show you where I’ve been cycling. I’ve come from down there. Um maybe I’ve been on there for about 5 miles now. Some guy drove past me earlier and like literally you can see like I’m in the middle of the road, right? There’s no one here. There’s no traffic. I think this is like a road for people to use, but because this is just farmland here, it’s just farmers that drive along here. Anyway, I was coming from down there and I was I was keeping tight, you know, keeping tight to the side here and this guy drives past me like as close as he could possibly get to me, right? I’m surprised it didn’t hit me. And he hit his horn like really loud and really hard. And I’m like, bro, like why didn’t you just go in the other lane? Like, what the hell are you doing? I got really angry about it. Like, what’s the big what’s the big deal? You know, if I was all over the road then, yeah. All right, fair enough. But I wasn’t. There’s plenty of space. I mean, look. Been talking to you for like 2 minutes now. Not a single car has driven past. Like, you can’t even hear anything. I hear the trees and I fly. So, I don’t know. Some people are some people are idiots. I get really aggressive in those situations, though. Like immediately I just started thinking like what if I just like put the middle finger up, made him turn around and then when he got to me, you know, I can uh not my mind was imagining what I would do to him cuz it’s pretty deep down here. Just uh break his face here. Throw him in down there. He’s not down there, by the way. Just just He’s not down there. Anyway, I’ll show you the bike. The bike is so dirty. It’s looking good though. I’m going to have to go and get a um get a clean, I think. Oh, we got some we got some kill. We killed something. Maybe we got a few kills. That’s my trainers. I put it on the side now so uh it doesn’t interrupt interrupt with this which sits on my lower back. Bike’s looking pretty good. So as of now I think we’ve been cycling for Oh, I can tell you exactly actually. I’m measuring on Strava. Been cycling for one hour, dude. Oh, mate. I feel like I’ve been doing so much more than one hour. Done 17 km. So, I’m doing 17 km an hour. Oh, mate. I wish I didn’t look at that. I I felt like I’ve been cycling for much longer than an hour. So, that’s going to be my snack. I’ve already eaten one of these. Two more cars. They were military. Yeah. Again, driving sensibly. I don’t know what that guy’s problem was. He must have been drunk or something. Oh, well. It’s in the past. So, we got some cucumber from the garden from Babushia’s garden. Babush in Italia. and some clip bread. Oh, I say oh in Ukrainian or I think oh maybe I know I keep moaning and complaining. I really can’t be asked to do this. I don’t know why I wish I never started it. I could have spent all my money to go to Southeast Asia or something and just go and chill. So, we’ll do a little update. I am here somewhere. I’m currently surrounded by lakes, which I think have some pretty big fish in them cuz I keep hearing these huge splashes. But there’s a lake over here. There’s a lake over here. And I’m pretty sure there’s a lake here somewhere. Uh, but actually, this is a little bit of complaining. I’m going to do a bit of complaining now. Obviously, my back is sore. My legs are actually okay, but my knee has started hurting for the last hour or so and they ain’t feeling good. I had problems with my knees anyway um from work. I hurt them at work. I hurt my knees at work. So, I’ve been trying to look after them. I take collagen, eat lots of eggs, stuff like that. I did have collagen this morning. Nad coding yesterday as well, but I don’t know. I’ve done something this morning. Today on the bike, maybe on the bike, I’m not sure. And I’ve hurt my knee. So, from like that corner there, I’ve been walking maybe for like only 5 minutes. But I’ll do some more complaining for a bit and then I’ll calm down. Morale is low, boys. I don’t think this road is being used by anyone. Oh, my ass, bro. My ass is so sore. Like where the coxic bone is. So painful, bro. Ow. Just got bit by an ant. So Babushka gave me some chocolates. This is a Sumatra baton chick. It’s got protein in it. It’s got peanuts in it like an energy bar. So, dakabusha babusia. So, let’s check out this samatra baton chick. Chocolate bar. Baton chick is like bar. It’s like an energy bar. We used to get them um homemade for us. Smash no button check this ne I’ve got I’m just thinking so negatively at the moment like I’m just thinking everything’s so negative and this pisses me off about me it does my head in like I hate that I’m like right now just thinking like just give up like oh you know you’re a failure it’s failure it’s it’s it’s like you know you can’t do this and then like when I start thinking like that it’s like my body like starts hurting it’s like oh no yeah remember you told yourself you’re a [ __ ] failure like just give up dude my back is killing me because my bag is heavy this bike is heavy I I mean, maybe I like underestimated like the challenge a little bit. I kind of like uh shoot towards the stars all the time. But that’s part of the challenge, I guess. I guess everyone goes through like stress like this. Well, maybe something stupid. Oh, yeah. But Busia gave me 100 grievance as well. He said, “So, she she she fed me, she gave me a place to stay, she gave me food for the road, and she gave me 100 grievance.” She was like, “Go and get yourself some food.” So funny, bro. Like, I said no so many times. I said no. I like Babusia, it’s okay. Cuz they’re not poor, but I know that they don’t have a lot, you know? And it’s the same with all these Ukrainians. Like, they just want to keep helping you. They just want to help, help, help help. And you say no and they’re like, “Well, I’m going to help anyway.” Such good people. It’s funny when you got people who have loads of money, they don’t want to they don’t want to help you. They don’t want to do anything to help you. And then when there’s people like me, like like them, like I don’t want to sound like rude or disrespectful, you know, when I say that they don’t have a lot of money, but they don’t, right? And they are just so helpful and nice. And look, they give me money, they gave me food. I didn’t ask for anything and they’ve done everything for me, you know. just go to show you what kind of people they are. Really, really good people. I’ll show you the map that they made me. So funny. So look, so we are here in Kamanka. Go to Bisakva and then go down to a desert. Just simple. So that look go from here turn left and that’s it. We did talk about it in more detail. So like I do understand it but it’s just funny you know. And then uh they gave me a map of Ukraine. cuz my phone is not good enough. So, I’ve got a map of the whole of Ukraine from 2023. It needs a bit of updating. Oh, it’s a bad joke, but um I got that just in emergencies. I really thought I was going to enjoy these um these like back roads, these gravel roads, but to be honest, I’m not enjoying it. Maybe it’s just my mood today. Um I’m kind of mentally exhausted as well. Like don’t get me wrong, Babusia and Dusia, Volva and uh Natasha amazing people, don’t get me wrong, but I cannot speak Ukrainian very well. And like and I’m like, yeah, okay, I do kind of understand, but my brain is like working in like a whole another like I I don’t think in Ukrainian, you know what I mean? I don’t think in another language. I think in English and I’m thinking like, right, okay, what does this word mean? What does this word mean? So, it’s taken me like it’s taking a while for me to understand what they’re saying. And by the time I understand what they’re saying, like the topic has like kind of changed a little bit. So, now I’m like trying to catch up. So, that’s like mentally exhausted me. I had two days of that. Well, one one full day of that. Um, and again, it’s not it’s like not me [ __ ] talking about them because they were incredible people. It’s my brain. My brain was not able to process the information that was coming through, you know. Uh, and it was hard. It was really hard. Like, as far as I’m aware, the conversation would change. Uh, and we’re like, we’re talking about one thing and then like I’m like, wait a minute. What has this got? Like I need to practice. I need to I need to get better at Ukrainian. I really want to speak Ukrainian. Oh man. But my brain does my brain does not allow me to to speak Ukrainian. But uh I slept well last night at least. That’s a good thing. The yoj didn’t wake me up last night. The hedgehog didn’t wake me up. Can’t even fart, bro. I want to fart, but if I like try to push it out, it uh like my lower back hurts. What the [ __ ] What the hell? Like my low Oh, my computer’s shutting me. My lower back hurts whenever I want to like uh squeeze some gas out. Oh, excuse me. Nitrous. I should have used that on the bike. I could have gone faster.