A Summer of Couch Surfing

The summer of 2022, I was couch surfing to lighten the load that travel put on the body before an important race day. Couch surfing allowed me to come the closest I have been – since leaving school – to reaching ‘the dream’ in reality. Formed in 2016 when I first competed abroad it has ebbed and flowed since. We all have a dream. We grow older exposing ourselves to reality which alters our value system realising what is important to us. We become wiser as a result. If a dream is steadfast through all of that, you’ve found a pretty good one for yourself.

In March of 2021, the reality of my dream dawned on me. The vision for my future wouldn’t quite be how I imagined. Brexit became tangible. Covid was still around. Although disappointed I quickly re-evaluated. How could my dream be changed to resemble its original form as closely as possible? In the last two years, I’ve written about ‘why I chose to study at university’. I wrote plenty about ‘Brexit’ and the challenges I would have to overcome. I wrote about ‘my time with covid‘, and what barriers one would have to leap to travel abroad consistently. Thankfully the latter is no longer posing the threat it once did.

Throughout 2022, I spent the majority of my time in Belgium at ‘chez Greg’ but due to the location I found myself on the road for a significant period of that time. As a result, I spent a lot of time in the home of some of my teammates, and friends that I have accrued over the last 6 years of Belgian racing. To have been able to sleep somewhere comfortably, knowing it is less than an hour car journey to the race, has been invaluable this season. Saving legs and energy. Couch surfing gave me more than just a place to sleep.

Family Values

In the ‘Goldbergs’, a hit American sitcom, there was an episode where the family ran a trial. They used a telephone or radio to inform other members of the family, who were upstairs in their rooms, that dinner was ready to be served. It was a means to prove to their friendly, quiet-spoken, neighbours that they, too, were capable of being a tranquil family.

In this way when I am couch surfing my way around Belgium, I am able to bear witness to various versions of ‘informing the family members that dinner is ready.’ These variations may come in the form of a family’s morning routine, bed time routine, breakfast structure and even how they do the washing up. This analogy from the American TV show can be applied to more ways of communication than just shouting throughout the house that food is on the table.

The process of discovering what an ideal morning routine looks like is one matter. Implementing it is another. I have been attempting to understand the morning routine for over 2 years. I had been performing a lazy and unstructured morning routine for sometime. I would get up at 8.30am before proceeding downstairs for breakfast. Whilst eating breakfast I would have Youtube on the TV or laptop and instead of watching a single episode I would continue on for around an hour and a half. I was pottering around for a good 2 hours after wake up before I got my act together and got onto the bike. The first question, then, to ask was “how did I wanted it to look?” After that it was a case of finding different methods for going about one’s morning routine.

I found that for the year and a half I was just doing cycling. No podcast, no writing. Nothing to keep my day busy except for riding my bike. As I got older I realised I wasn’t developing my character. I wasn’t growing up. Over a long period of time I would be planting little seeds in my head. Testing various wake-up methods and finding out how each one worked. For example some mornings I would test out a 7.30am wake up. Finally I came to a solution and have been on a solid bed-time, morning routine for several months now.

Breakfast – le petit dejeuner – is the most enjoyable meal of the day for me. Its contents have been a big influencer on setting up my day in the best way. Just starting the day with an enjoyable meal is crucial. In 2016, during my off season break in Oman, eggs were introduced to me as a potential meal to have at breakfast. I kept this for several years until the end of school, when my life changed and forced me to rebuild quickly. Since then my routine and everything about it has changed since that final fateful day. That’s down to eating across the table from many people in the last two years.

Recently, I’ve substituted my daily cereal for a smaller but far more filling bowl of granola. In conjunction with conversations between myself and my nutritionist, Charlie Mitten, we discussed and found a habit that could be formed. We succeeded. Cereals since have been a minor part of my morning routine, only to be had big training days.

Culture

Each country, town, village, household has its own way of doing things. Its own language. Its own routine. It can become difficult to break free of that when someone brings along a different culture. However, if you can free up the mind to acknowledge and witness the differences in culture, you can enhance yourself in more ways than one.

Culture is the major reason why I wanted to spend as much time at various people’s houses – if they would accept me. I wanted to be a witness to other people’s way of life from experiencing their morning routine to their bed time routine. From their way of cleaning – bikes – to their way of cooking. There is so much to learn from watching people in how they live their lives. What is incredible is, that if notes are taken, a small piece that is interesting from their routine can easily be implemented into my own routine. Picture your own routine and mentally cross out ‘how I am performing the task’ and input the new discovery in its place.

This is fast tracked when competing on a stage race when you are around 5 other teammates, and additional 5 staff members for 24 hours a day. That’s 10 people, from 10 different backgrounds to shadow and learn techniques to duplicate and drop into your own life. It’s possible to witness a teammates post ride routine. How and when they stretch, cool down, warm up and eat. These are the major changes that I witnessed in myself around the races this season.

I remember a speech by a European politician. The subject was regarding the abolishment of the Erasmus+ agreement. I believe it did the rounds on Twitter. In the speech, he referred to the cultural melting pot accepting British citizens into their university brings. He was petitioning that the European states should accept Britons into their education programmes because it was benefit them.

That told me how important culture is to improving society. Without the incoming cultural differences society won’t learn or move forward as quickly as it possibly could do with a more open world. That’s why, since I watched that speech, I’ve believed in experiencing as many cultures as possible to enhance my life. I hope along the way I can bring a hint of my culture too.

Language

The dream has always been wider than cycling. The dream is to become the best version of myself. To be in a place that makes me happy as much of the time as possible. Part of the dream has always been to be able to speak another language. This summer has boosted me up another step to being as fluent as I can. Considering I started learning French again in January 2021 when I knew I would be joining a largely French spoken team located in the Walloon region of Belgium. I was aware it would be invaluable string to my bow. I had a tutor for a long while to set up the techniques and pronunciation. During the winter of 2021/22, however, the sessions weren’t working quite the same as they were before.

I persisted well whenever I was with the team. I would commit as hard as I could to speaking French. Making as many mistakes as possible. They probably thought I was awful. However, by mid-August I was holding my own in conversation, especially when it came to conversation about cycling and the race at hand.

I still struggle with wider, more complicated, conversation about life just because it wasn’t as frequently used when I’ve been around French speakers. Language is all about mistakes and correcting them in your mind every time you make them. That is why people say the best way to learn a language is not through the classroom reading your books and writing your notes. The best way to crack the language barrier is to converse on the daily with fluent speakers who can correct your mistakes rapidly and with accuracy.

Personal Values

At the beginning of this blog I mentioned the reality of life forcing you to filter your value system, constantly re-evaluating what’s important to you. Later into this piece I then said my whole routine has an entirely new look about it, which I have developed over the last two years. Slowly, and steadily I’ve been building habits in my morning, and night time routines. I’ve improved my breakfast, and my understanding about the science behind it.

My life has evolved tenfold in the last two years. From the lows, I’m creating highs. A future that is incredibly exciting to be imagining at night under the stars. I can’t wait to meet new people and learn even more information and techniques. Hopefully couch surfing becomes less of a regular occurence in the future, because one thing is for sure it’s tiring. I want to extend my gratitude to all the families that have put me up this summer. I’ve enjoyed it immensely.