I was down at my local library filling some hours in research of my sometime-in-the-future Europe trip when I happened across Stephen Fabesâ new cycle touring memoir Signs of Life: To the Ends of the Earth with a Doctor. What an awesome book and a happy chance I came across it.
Released in 2020 about a journey from 2010â2016, and filled from cover to cover with amusing anecdotes and frank observations of the different cultures and places Fabes found himself, itâs easy to assume this book is like every other travel book ever written. However, I found his self-aware and down-to-earth manner quite refreshing. He doesnât âtackleâ the world like a cocksure adventurer with a sense of âconquestâ or other adversarial, heroic language: he slips by, humbly sneaking in and out of peoplesâ lives, and manages to stay true to himself to the end.
His intelligence, education and worldview as an English emergency room doctor are plainly influential of his outlook and greatly influence his judgement of the various challenges he witnessed. It was very refreshing to read a well-written, thoughtful summation of an extraordinary journey.
Near the completion of six continents, end to end, and tallying some serious statistics â over 50,000 miles (85,000 kilometres) in 6 years; 75 countries; from -39°C in Mongolia to 46°C in Ethiopia; 221 punctures, etc. â he recoils at the idea he has done anything heroic. Quite the opposite: he admonishes himself for spending six years not âparticipatingâ in the world.
Throughout the book he displays a dislike, bordering on disdain, for what he terms âsocial media blowhardsâ. He visits a personal hero, Heinz StĂŒcke in Hövelhof, Germany in the closing weeks of his journey. Heinz is famous for being the worldâs most prolific cycle tourist, spending over fifty years on the road before returning home to meticulously catalogue every moment of those five decades. StĂŒckeâs own journey made him misanthropic, untrusting and seemingly reinforced strong right-wing political views. Fabes, in contrast, comes home even more compassionate and hopeful about humanity than he left.
Fabes judges StĂŒcke to be simply obsessed about clocking up miles and passport stamps, without truly appreciating the beauty and diversity of the world. The reader gets the impression (through Fabesâ disappointed perspective) that StĂŒckeâs odyssey would have been vastly improved if there were no people at all on the way.
I think it was this aspect of the book: Fabesâ struggle to find a deeper meaning to what he was doing, to understanding other people despite his own biases, and to the human condition in general that makes this book worth the read. Yes itâs interesting from a cycle touring perspective but thatâs not really what the book is all about. Some reviewers found the random jumps forward in time and skipping of places and events disappointing. For example, Australia warrants only four pages, scant on detail.
For a bloke on the mission of traversing every continent but Antarctica, effectively skipping over one of them in the narrative entirely seems antithetical. But the last section of the book gives one the answer why: Fabes isnât interested in listing places and statistics as personal trophies in this book. He has a blog for people interested in those aspects. He keeps the book focused on the people he met and the things he learnt. He had to compress six years into a few hundred pages.
His bike was just a means to a greater end: seeing the world. Understanding the world. Doing it for himself, not to crow about it later. He doesnât fill pages with lists of gear or recommended brands of bike. Again, he leaves that kind of thing to his blog.
I loved this book for many reasons and highly recommend it. A great read, a great trip well described, a good way to spend your COVID lockdowns and other free time wherever you are.