maybe a fitting last post then:

Ian Hibell
Sep 11th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Ian Hibell, a long-distance cyclist, died on August 23rd, aged 74

IN A man´s life there comes a time when he must get out of Brixham. He
must leave the boats bobbing in the harbour, the Devon cream teas, the
holiday camp and the steam railway; he must bid farewell to the nine-to-five
job at Standard Telephones and Cables, up the A379 in Paignton, and hit
the more open road.

Some might get no farther than Bristol. But Ian Hibell went so far in one
direction that his eyebrows crusted with frost and his hands froze; and so far
in another that he lay down in the hot sand to die of dehydration (as he
expected) under a thorn tree; and so far in another that the safest place to
be, out of range of the mosquitoes, was to burrow like an alligator into black,
viscous mud.

In the course of his 40-year travelling life he went the equivalent of ten times
round the equator, covering 6,000 miles or so a year. He became the first
man to cycle the Darien Gap in Panama, and the first to cycle from the top
to the bottom of the American continent. He went from Norway to the Cape
of Good Hope and from Bangkok to Vladivostok, wheeling or walking every
inch of the way. Every so often he would come back, showing up at STC
(from which he had taken, in the beginning, only a two-year leave of
absence) with vague murmurings of an apology. But pretty soon the
panniers would be packed, the brakes checked, the tyres pumped, and he
would be off again.

His cycle, loaded with 60-80lb of clothes, tent, stove, biscuits, sardines and
water, was sometimes a complication. In the Sahara it sank to its hubs in
fine, talc-like sand. In the Amazonian jungle he could not squeeze it
between the trees. Crossing the great Atrato swamp, where the track
became a causeway over slimy logs and then a mat of floating grass, the
bike would sometimes sink into nothingness. He became expert at feeling
for it in the morass with his feet. Every tricky traverse in mountain, stream or
forest needed doing twice over: once to find a way for himself, then to collect
the steed, often carrying it shoulder-high through sharp palmetto, or water,
or rocks.

Yet Mr Hibell´s love for his bikes was unconditional. He took them, muddy as
they were, into hotels with him, and clung fiercely on to them whenever
tribesmen robbed him of the rest of his things. His favourite had a Freddie
Grubb frame of Reynolds 531 tubing on a 42-inch wheelbase, reinforced to
take the extra weight of goatskins holding water; Campagnolo Nuevo
Record gears front and rear; Robregal double-butted 14-16-gauge spokes;
and Christophe pedal-straps. It was so lightweight, as touring bikes go, that
a group of boys in Newfoundland mocked that it would soon break on their
roads. Instead, it did 100,000 miles.

Bikes rarely let him down. Escaping once from spear-throwing Turkana in
northern Kenya, he felt the chain come off, but managed to coast downhill to
safety. He crossed China from north to south-in 2006, at 72-with just
three brake-block changes, one jammed rear-brake cable and a change of
tape on the handlebars. In his book, "Into the Remote Places" (1984), he
described his bike as a companion, a crutch and a friend. Setting off in the
morning light with "the quiet hum of the wheels, the creak of strap against
load, the clink of something in the pannier", was "delicious". And more than
that. Mr Hibell was a short, sinewy man, not particularly swift on his feet. But
on a good smooth downhill run, the wind in his face, the landscape pelting
past, he felt "oneness with everything", like "a god almost".

A teapot in the desert

Human company was less uplifting. His travelling companions usually
proved selfish, violent and unreliable, unappreciative of Mr Hibell´s rather
proper and methodical approach to putting up a tent or planning a route,
leaving (sometimes with essential kit) to strike off by themselves. But there
were exceptions. One was the beautiful Laura with whom, after years of
shyness towards women, he found love as they skidded down rocky tracks
in Peru. Others were the strangers whose kindness he encountered
everywhere. Peasants in China shared their dumplings with him; Indians in
Amazonia guided him through the jungle; and in a wilderness of sand a pair
of Tuareg boys produced from their robes a bag of dates and a small blue
teapot, which restored him.

In a career of hazards, from soldier ants to real soldiers to sleet that cut his
face like steel, only motorists did him real damage. The drivers came too
close, and passengers sometimes pelted him with bottles (in Nigeria), or
with shovelfuls of gravel (in Brazil). In China in 2006 a van drove over his
arm and hand. He recovered, but wondered whether his luck would last. It
ran out on the road between Salonika and Athens this August, where he
was knocked out of the way by a car that appeared to be chasing another.

At bad moments on his trips he had sometimes distracted himself by
thinking of Devonian scenes: green fields, thatched cottages and daffodils.
He would return to a nice house, a bit of garden, the job. But that thought
could never hold him long. Although his body might long for the end of
cycling-a flat seat, a straight back, unclenched hands-his mind was
terrified of stopping. And in his mind, he never did.

Gavin





--
Gavin Fleming
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