Cycling Home From Sibera, Rob Lilwall ( (2010)
An enjoyable account of crossing the frozen wastes aided by the Lord above
Hodder and Stoughton £10,99. ISBN 978 0340 979815 paperback 347 pages)
Rob Lilwall was teaching Geography at a school in Wales when he felt the need for something more adventurous. That urge brought him to Russia’s north eastern extremity for a winter bike ride across Siberia, and eventually – after 35,178 miles – back home.
There is real charm in this story of a hair-brained adventure, along with humour, self-deprecation and an underlying, indestructible faith in the Providence of God. Lilwall doesn’t proselytise; he merely refers to it as being something that’s part of him. He neither flaunts it nor apologises for it, but it’s there in the background – part of the picture. And it is as much of it when his adventure ends as it was at the beginning.
That beginning sees him arriving on a plane with his 10-year old bicycle at Magudan, where Siberia falls into the Sea of Okhotsk, with bears, wolves and the ghosts of a million or more victims of Stalin’s goulag haunting its God-forsaken hinterland. It is September, 2004, and he is 27.
On the first stages of his ride home, he is to be accompanied by his long-term friend Al Humphreys; they were students together, they became teachers, they have been companions on a couple of challenging long-distance rides, and Humphreys will be joining Lilwall in Magudan towards the tail-end of his own round-the-world cycling adventure.
Lilwall’s preparations tell us a great deal about him and his extraordinarily casual approach to the trials that lie ahead in the frozen wastes of Siberia: most of his equipment was bought at slashed prices from eBay, and includes a pair of enormous Royal Mail over-trousers and a tent, given by a sympathiser, which he has not yet tested to see if it works.
He and Humphreys find out that in minus 30 degrees it works rather badly because the extreme cold shatters its plastic window.
Luckily they encounter friendship and hospitality on a scale which means they rarely have to make use of it.
What adds charm to Lilwall’s account, in addition to his light touch and the quality of his writing with its vivid yet succinct descriptions, is his frankness. So, for instance, when he and Humphreys have an occasional spat we hear all about it, and endearingly, he takes the blame. He takes the blame for other things too, like his inefficiency at unpacking and packing and riding too slowly.
The one thing some readers might have difficulty with is the simplicity of his faith: his trust in God might seem to be vindicated by his survival, yet it is not challenged when disaster strikes a couple who had shown the pair of adventurers great hospitality. Lena and her husband owned a café, running it with the help of a close friend; Lilwall and Humphreys are invited to spend the night in an out-building, and they wake when the café burns to the ground, killing the friend and so injuring Lena’s husband that he eventually dies, leaving her to look after their two young children.
The chapters in this book are short, and Lilwall knows how to bridge the little gulf between the ending of one and the start of the next with a hint of what’s to come. He also adds value by giving a table of statistics, summarising each stage of a journey which took him through Siberia, Japan, China, the Philippines, Australia, Malasia, Thailand, Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, France and Belgium.
His ride was a triumph, and so is his account of it.
ST-B Jan 12