Introducing Dr Dave: The medicine man

November 7, 2013

I spent the night in the woods near to Zurich airport. My friend Dave was due to arrive on a flight from London. To call him simply 'Dave' would be a terrible misjustice though, especially after all the long years he put in at medical school. In order to give him the respect he fully deserves I will from now on refer to him as 'Dr Dave', 'The Doc', 'Big Buff Dave The Doctor', or 'Idiot-man'.

Introducing Dr Dave - here he is trying to work out what a bike is

Dr Dave and I went to University together. Our friendship was mostly based on the fact that he would let me sit next to him and copy his exam answers. In fact I probably owe my degree to him. In order to return the favour I agreed to carry his tent and sleeping gear on my bike for him during our ride from Zurich to Munich. I kind of had to because Dr Dave didn't have any panniers or anywhere to put anything on his crappy little road bike. In fact Dr Dave cycled with me once before, in 2010 from Luxembourg to Brussels, on the same bike. In the intervening three years the man had used the bike a sum total of no times. Quite why he was so keen to join me again I cannot say, but here he was, and the countdown to get to Munich on time had begun.

For some reason Dr Dave was very fortunate with the weather. After several days of cold and rain his arrival coincided with a sudden heatwave and the man was able to cycle along in a t-shirt, which was lucky because he didn't have many warm clothes. We made our way north following the fantastic Swiss cycle routes on quiet back roads, the white peaks of the mountains visible across green fields. It was all very pleasant. Dr Dave was also very impressed with the big houses. I think he wanted to move to Switzerland.

Dr Dave setting off with impressive vigour

Oh, well, okay, here is one of Dr Dave walking up a hill

This slide, outside a school, was incredibly long and incredibly steep, thanks to being put on a hill

But it was okay because they made a bit of wooden fence so the kids could hurt themselves really badly

Oh, oops, well here is another one of Dr Dave walking up a hill

And here is one of Dr Dave walking up a hill

Unfortunately one of the things that Dr Dave had failed to do, despite being told to by me, was to take his bike to a bike mechanic before he set off in order to check it was okay. So it wasn't a huge surprise when he encountered problems towards the end of our first day. We were just passing some llamas when his chain caught in something and was damaged so badly that he couldn't cycle anymore. If I had a chain tool I could have fixed it, but I didn't, so I couldn't. Luckily we were in Switzerland so there was a bike shop nearby. We descended a hill down towards Lake Constance and found it and inside was a bike mechanic, who kindly charged the Doctor a small fortune to remove the offending links. Crisis over and we were back on our way, even cycling after dark to make the required distance.

And one of Dr Dave walking up a hill, past some llamas

Today's ride: 74 km (46 miles)
Total: 9,378 km (5,824 miles)

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