My most surreal / memorable travel experiences: #7 See full map
I was spending part of a summer in London, and towards the end of my stay had yet to explore much beyond the city itself. I knew Oxford and Cambridge were reasonably close to London, so either would make a suitable destination. I had begun riding a bicycle again, and the idea of cycling the English countryside seemed like a fine way get to one of these towns. With one final weekend left in England I had to act. That evening around six o'clock I made my way down to a bicycle hire on the banks of the Thames, picked up a sturdy yellow bike and paid for a day's rental.
After dallying for a few hours and taking care of odds and ends, it was nearly nine at night before I set out for Oxford. One of the travel guides in the hostel indicated that Oxford was 65 miles northwest of London along the M40 highway. With no more directional guidance than that, I pointed my bicycle roughly northwest and set out from Notting Hill. I carried a backpack containing a t-shirt and (of all things) a McDonald's cheeseburger - no helmet, no lights, no map. I've had better plans.
After several miles of pedaling I saw signs indicating the way to boroughs in northwest London, which I had assumed were already long behind me. This was not a good sign. Nevertheless I pressed on, through increasingly derelict areas of the suburbs ringing the city. I remember cycling past farms, seeing the surreal sight of horses rearing up and sparring gently in the moonlight.
At one point I was coasting down a deserted village street when an ambulance pulled up beside me. The paramedic looked at me through the open window: "Are you looking for a ride in an ambulance?" he yelled. "Because you're going about it the right way! Dressed in black with no **** lights on!" With that he sped off into the night. Duly chastened, I took the white t-shirt from my pack and tied it on my back, hoping that the fluttering cloth would at least provide some margin of safety.
As I was trying to parallel the M40 I followed a lane marking that appeared to take me in the right direction, but I soon realized I had accidentally strayed onto the highway itself. Imagine a cyclist on the shoulder of I-95 in the US or the German autobahn. Suddenly this lark of a trip took a very serious turn. I became extremely wary of vehicles on the road next to me - after all, these were highway speeds. At the merest sign of headlights behind me I would pull onto the shoulder and wait in the grass until the car was safely past. This meant I was continually looking backwards, while simultaneously speeding downhill in the night.
It was one of these backward looks that caused it. The darkness, the speed, the incline - I was vaguely aware that I was breaching the white shoulder line, reflexively grabbing the brakes - and the rest happened almost instantly. I flipped over the handlebars, flew through the air and slammed squarely on my chest with enough force to expel the air from my lungs and knock the eyeglasses from my face, which I heard clattering on the asphalt in the dark somewhere in front of me.
