“Bring them Back”: London to Athens on Two Wheels

Elginism (ĕl’gĭnĭz’əm) n. 1801. [f. the name of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin (1766-1841)]. An act of cultural vandalism. A term coined by the destructive actions of Lord Elgin who illegally transported the Parthenon Marbles from Greece to London between 1801 and 1805.

At 5 a.m. on 5 August I was standing alone outside the British Museum wondering where the others were. That was the time we were to begin our race to Athens to bring attention to the theft and refusal to return the Parthenon Marbles to their rightful home in Athens. This was a very unusual bikepacking race: one with a very important purpose, and as I was to learn, highlighting an issue of very deep importance to all Greeks.

Some Historical Context

On the Acropolis Hill in Athens sits the Parthenon, one of the most iconic and recognisable buildings in the world.

The construction of the Parthenon began in 447 BC and was completed in 432 BC. The building project was overseen by the statesman Pericles, who saw it as an opportunity to showcase Athens’ wealth and power to the rest of Greece.

Dedicated to the goddess Athena, the Parthenon was built in thanksgiving for the Hellenic victory over Persian Empire invaders during the Greco-Persian Wars. Like most Greek temples, the Parthenon also served as the city treasury. In the centuries since its construction, the temple has been used as a Christian church, a mosque, and even a gunpowder storage facility which, when hit by a Venetian shell blew the roof off and damaged much of the building.

Not only was the architecture amazing, so were the sculptures which adorned it. Below are few examples. The broken corners are from when they were damaged when looted by the British (see below).

The British Connection

There is a fantastic podcast “Stuff the British Stole” which is based on the theme:

“Throughout its reign, the British Empire stole a lot of stuff. Today the Empire’s loot sits in museums, galleries, private collections and burial sites with polite plaques. But its history is often messier than the plaques suggest.”

My British ancestors were incredible thieves, starting wars which would pay for themselves (Benin) and causing incomprehensible cultural vandalism such as the destruction of the Summer Palace near Beijing [then Peking] in China. They were totally shameless. Queen Victoria was gifted one of the Chinese Emperor’s dogs [the breed that is now called ‘Pekingese’] after the looting of the Summer Palace. What did she call it? Looty of course. You couldn’t make this up…

Thomas Bruce was 7th Earl of Elgin, and is known as ‘Lord Elgin’, even though there were others after him. In fact, his son James (the 8th Earl) was the one who ordered the looting and destruction of the winter palace. James was just following in the family footsteps, hence the term ‘Elginism’.

In the late 1790s Lord Elgin was told by another looter (Sir William Hamilton) that there was amazing ancient Greek buildings, artefacts and sculptures. He encouraged Elgin to get an appointment as Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (which at the time controlled Greece) where he could produce plaster casts and drawings that would be “beneficial to the progress of Fine Arts in Great Britain”.

Elgin went further. He got a counterfeit ‘firman’ from the Ottomans to “to take away any pieces of stone with old inscriptions or figures thereon”. It’s generally recognised as counterfeit (except by the British Museum) since all firman’s had copies in the archives in Istanbul. None exists.

From 1801-1812 Elgin’s agents removed about half of the Parthenon frieze, fifteen metopes, and seventeen pedimental sculpture fragments, in addition to a caryatid and a column from the Erechtheion, sculptured slabs from the Athenian temple of Nike Apteros, and various antiquities from Attica and other districts of Hellas. After an eventful trip—one of the boats sank and the artefacts had to be recovered by divers—the arrived in England where they were eventually bought by the British Museum. Even at the time this was controversial—Lord Byron considered Elgin’s actions vandalism or looting.

Since 1893 the Greeks have been trying unsuccessfully to get their return. The British don’t want to let them go and hide behind a variety of smoke screens. They won’t even lend any of the marbles to be displayed in Greece, even though they were prepared to lend one of the sculptures to Russia in 2014 for the 250th anniversary of the Hermitage Museum.

The full story on the Parthenon Marbles and attempts to repatriate them is a must listen to on the podcast “Losing Your Marbles: Stuff the British Stole”.

Bring Them Back: the Bikepacking Race With a Purpose

I got a message from my friend Vasiliki Voutzali that she had organised an event to highlight the theft of the Parthenon Marbles calling for their return to Greece: “London to Athens on two wheels” is the first ultra-endurance challenge with a historical background!

She knew I was planning on racing Poland-Spain and wanted me to come. I had to decline as I had medical tests scheduled in Washington D.C. at the end of August. Her reply was ‘I have rescheduled the race for 5 August so I expect to see you in London.’ Vasiliki is a very hard person to say no to which meant I had a 3 week recovery between my two races… of course I was going.

After holidaying in Denmark my wife Lis and I flew to London. I used the last of my frequent customer points from my World Bank travelling days to stay in a lovely hotel across from Parliament. I enjoyed being in London again and a real treat was to attend the ‘ABBA Voyager’ concert. It was an incredible experience which I’d highly recommend to any fan.

Vasiliki and her partner Steffen Streich joined us for breakfast. I had last seen Steffen in Krakow in June—he won the event to Spain. He’s one of the top ultra-endurance riders in the world and came first, crushing the ride at over 315 km/day (I was fourth with about 250 km/day).

The night before the start we met in the British Museum where we held a protest in the room with the Parthenon Marbles. We were joined by Chris, who in 2005 rode to Athens to protest the theft of the marbles, as well as a number of others from the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles who have long been campaigning for their return.

Of the 16 who expressed interest, only four of us actually made the start. In the above photo myself, Steffen, Vasiliki, Chris (who wasn’t racing) and Dennis. I forget the Greek woman’s name but she was not riding! Paul was a fifth, but he was only going as far as the first check point in Mons (360 km) as a two-day out and back training ride for Paris-Brest-Paris. After a delightful dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant, we returned to the hotel for an early night as we were leaving 05:00.

The Route

Ultra-endurance events typically have two formats. One is that you need to follow 100% of the route, and the second is that there are ‘Control Points’ (CPs) which you need to check in at. You are free to follow any route that you want between the CPs. This event was the latter and we had five CPs: Mons Belgium, Munich Germany, Budapest Hungary, Kastoria and Trikala in Greece.

There was a ‘recommended route’ which was prepared by Steffen using Komoot. This is a cycling program which is based (in theory) on where people ride. Steffen gave the caveat that there was no guarantee that it would be a particularly good route—and that was very prescient! Below is the actual route that I did.

At a macro level it followed Steffen’s original route, but with a couple of surprises and exceptions.

Before Karlsruhe in Germany I arrived at a very wide river about 18:30. There was a ferry, and another cyclist told me that it was the last one of the day (thank you Mrs. Genno for my high school German lessons!). The only other option was a bridge which would be about a 100 km detour. Since Vasiliki and Steffen were behind me, I called them and had him explain what to do so they would not have the diversion. Yes, I know I should have let them arrive and then do the detour, but it just seemed bad form not to warn them. This fellow was a trail angel: as we crossed the ticket collector came and asked for Euro 3 for the trip, and I had no cash! The cyclist paid for me, not that they would have turfed me into the river…

South of Budapest the route cut west across the Danube. Unfortunately, when I got to the bridge it turned out to be a ferry which was not running that late at night—Vasiliki and Steffen called me just as I was arriving to tell me I need to do something different. This was a fortunate turn of events because it transpired that the route turned into a forest track and was miserable. Steffen and Vasiliki who were riding together suffered to no end to reach the village where they stayed the night, while I had an easy ride to a room I rented further south.

As I followed the route to the border between Serbia and North Macedonia the road turned into an unpaved road which turned into a track which went through a gap in a fence … into no-man’s land between the two countries! I figured that this was a unique place to ride so I covered about 500 m before I saw cameras and decided it was time to head back. I tried another crossing before getting through on the expressway.

When I got to Kastoria Steffen and Vasiliki who were riding together were ahead of me. The route had a ‘dog leg’ to Larissa. I worked out that if I took a more westerly direct route to Trikala I would gain about 4 h on them. This is what I did. Unfortunately, they saw from my tracker what I was doing and so deviated as well and we ended up in Trikala at the same time. So much for my 4 h advantage!

The route was typical of Europe with lots of lovely scenery. The worst part of it was when we passed through the hugely developed Stuttgart area. We were often on narrow busy roads with no cycle paths, so I jumped onto the footpaths as a survival mechanism. I far preferred the countryside with the villages, churches, and very empty roads!

One special surprise was this statue that I came across around 03:00 on my last night. It is King Leonidas of Sparta at Thermopylae: the site where the 300 Spartans held off the Persian army some 2500 years ago. As a student of Greek history (my passion when I was younger) it was marvellous to be here. Especially with my bike

The Weather

New Zealand’s winter cycling where we live is about 12 degrees C with rain. That was what we basically had for the first two days from London to Luxemburg. Then, like flicking a light switch the weather changed and summer arrived. Although I’m originally Canadian I really don’t enjoy being cold and wet …

We had a great run of good weather through Germany, with temperatures hitting the low 30’s—my kind of riding weather. As we approached Austria I saw some nasty looking weather forming in the afternoon. I then got a lightening storm warning on my phone! Not fun. I put the hammer down as it started raining and then the lightening started. I’ve been in these situations before and it usually isn’t too disconcerting but when the time between the flash of light and the sound of thunder got down to less than 2 seconds it was dangerous. Fortunately I sprinted to a petrol station where I spent the next hours sitting inside refuelling and watching the heavy rainfall.

The forecast was for this to continue until late at night so I decided that it was prudent to get to a hotel, rest up and then start early. Vasiliki and Steffen were behind me so I told them what was happening and my plan to stay in a village 10 km away. The hotel was great and the proprietor asked ‘why are you on a gravel bike’? He knew his bicycles   The skies opened after I arrived with a lot more lightening so I was pleased to be inside.  Vasiliki told me later that they decided to press on but stopped 20 km down the road when the next set of storms hit.

As we went further south it got hotter and we had quite a few days in the low 40’s. On the second to last day in Greece it hit 44 and I decided that was a bit too hot to ride safely. I found a bench by a roadside church with shade and so had a 2 h nap until the temperature dropped to about 40 when I could ride again.

Food

One of the best thing about riding in Europe is the availability of food—especially quality food.

South of Karlsruhe I stayed at a hotel and had a delightful dinner with my former World Bank colleague Andreas and his wife. As ultra-endurance riders know, when you get to a nice restaurant you make the most of it so I ordered a salad, pasta, omelette and large order of sweet potato fries. In some restaurants they ask ‘when is the other person arriving’ and when I say that it is just for me they look confused since I’m not a large guy!

Often one has to rely on petrol station food, but again in Europe you can actually get something decent. Like lovely bread rolls with real cheese and yoghurt. Below is a typical lunch. Last year when I raced across Canada I would have killed for this sort of petrol station fare. There it is 100% artificial junk food.

There are also the serendipitous encounters. I was in Austria on a 35+ C day heading along the Danube and ran low on water. In the middle of nowhere I found a solar power refrigerator with an honesty box for buying drinks. Yes, they were over priced but I was grateful to be overcharged!

Regular followers of my races know that my favourite fuels are chocolate milk and ice cream. The former were often hard to get, but fortunately not the latter!

Control Points

As I mentioned, we had five control points and each were unique.

The morning of Day 2 all four of us were in Mons Belgium after 360 km. Paul had got there late the night before and I met him about 10 a.m. on his way back to England. Great riding companion and one seriously strong rider. A local Greek cyclist George Galanopoulos met me on the road and led me to the hotel where we got the group photo below with the requisite Greek flag. Vasiliki is making fun of the flag on my shirt. I bought a New Zealand shirt but the manufacturer printed it with the Australian flag! It was an ANZAC shirt …

The next CP was Munich and I was really happy because I was ahead of Vasiliki and Steffen. Until about 10 km from the CP when they caught me! We got the CP about 23:00 and took a photo. They then came to the hotel I had booked because their hotel’s check in had closed.  They left before I did in the morning and I didn’t see them again until I caught them in Austria.

The Hungarian Parliament in Budapest was CP3 and I got there a few hours after they left. My card was signed by another patriotic Greek Niki Hristodoulou and I headed south.

We had two CPs in Greece. The first was in the lovely lakeside city of Kastoria where I had a Police escort from Ioannis Ioannou and offers of repair from  local bike mechanic Filippos Papadopoulos.  This was followed by Trikala, where I had caught up with Vasiliki and Steffen and Aristotelis Tsogas signed my card.

Riding

I had a quite different riding approach to the June Poland-Spain event. In the former I did a lot of long pushes, often overnight, and bivied over half the time. I averaged just under 250 km/day—held back in part due to a major mechanical failure in Slovenia.

This time I decided to stay in hotels and avoid all night rides. I ended up averaging 285 km/day, except for the one short 145 km day when the lightening storm held me back.

The ride out of London was not fun, even though it was 05:45 when we finally left. We rode as group but dropped Dennis soon. Later we dropped Vasiliki and Steffen when one punctured so it was just Paul and I. There has to be a better route to Dover, but there were some nice country sections. Paul then punctured so I got to Dover just in time to catch the 12:00 ferry. It was delayed so Paul also made it. Vasiliki and Steffen followed a few hours later, and Dennis got the ferry much later to Dunkirque.

Dennis was a novice bikepacker and did incredibly well on his first event. He had way too much gear but was one seriously tough rider. I didn’t see him after Mons until he finished a day after the rest of us.

France and Belgium were pretty flat and the weather was poor. The first evening I had dinner before Lille with my French teacher and good friend from Golden Bay New Zealand. Aurore was visiting her family not far away and it was great to see her. I felt bad because she nicely dressed while I was a wet, smelly cyclist. She had kindly brought a towel for me to dry off!

I ended up leapfrogging Vasiliki and Steffen for the entire ride, which was a lot of fun. We carry trackers so we *sort of* know where we are. I say sort of because this event used a cell phone tracker which was exceptionally unreliable. Sometimes it would show Steffen stayed in the town they slept while Vasiliki was busy riding. You couldn’t rely on it to tell you accurately where people were.

I’d be cycling along and suddenly they would appear and pass me! It was a reflection of their riding styles. They rode much faster than I did but had more stops. I’m kind of like a diesel: I can go long at a moderate pace. Another time in Belgrade they told me they were having breakfast at a cafe “at the top of the hill” so I enjoyed their company before they blasted off.

You could divide the riding into two ‘zones’ when it came to traffic. Sublime and terrifying. The former was everywhere Austria west. After that it was tough going, with driver craziness increasing as you moved further south. Having said that, unlike Australia nobody through beer bottles at me. I didn’t find open antipathy to cyclists, just aggressive and crazy drivers. It didn’t help in places like Hungary where there are busy roads with often poor condition and limited cycling infrastructure. At least further south the traffic was light (on equally poor roads).

It was also schitzophrenic. Below are photos from Hungary. It is the same Euro Velo route, and the second photo had the ‘path’ end suddenly at a bridge with no footpath. Anyway, I survived!

The one exception to my no night riding was the last night. I can do long pushes, my longest distance in a single push is 536 km and I’ve done 38 h in another one. So when it comes to the last day of an event I just ride to the finish. I left Grevena in the morning and met up with Vasiliki and Steffen at CP5 at lunch time. They took off before me and I was sure that I wouldn’t see them until they met me at the finish line.

However, about 23:00 I saw that they had stopped for the night which I knew gave me a chance to finish before them so I kept on going. However, I reflected that having duelled with them all the way for 3100+ km it wouldn’t be much of a victory if I finished while they slept the night away. So at about 02:30 when I passed them I sent Vasiliki the message ‘Got ya’ with a screen shot showing I had passed them. Steffen told me later that this had my desired effect—it was like a rag before a bull—and they rushed out the door to catch me.

It was about 200 km to the finish line and having sent the shot across the bow I started riding hard. Where there was short cut on a gravel road that would reduce the distance by a few kilometres I took it, in spite of the risk. I knew that they are much faster than I am so I set myself the goal of travelling 100 km before they caught me. My stretch goal was 125 km. Anything beyond that was incomprehensible. Steffen told me afterwards that when he didn’t catch me he wondered if I had stopped [great vote of confidence in my cycling abilities!] or changed routes. But after 154 km he finally ran me down and I got the photo below. He’s smiling because he finally caught me; I’m smiling because it took him so long!

Finishing

After 3,350 km—with a 438 km final push—I finished, some 40 minutes after Steffen. Vasiliki came in not much longer after me. We got this great photo with the Acropolis behind us.

We were going to be interviewed by the television news so while waiting I did what every self-respecting ultra-endurance rider does. Lay down on the road and had a sleep. The normal social conventions do not apply! I woke up to find this fellow lying next to me—Vasiliki had put him up to it!

The television crew came and we chatted over lunch before they got shots of us riding our bikes with the Acropolis behind. I was interviewed and gave my candid view that my ancestors were a bunch of thieves and should return what is Greece’s. My wife Lis said that I won’t be able to visit England again after that interview—but they actually don’t care.

One of the sponsors of the race was Coco Mat and their owner gave me a room in his 5 Star hotel overlooking the Acropolis. Below is the view from my room. Talk about being spoiled. It was great to be able to decompress, eat and sleep in such luxury. Steffen and Vasiliki spent time with me as well which was a treat.

The next day we welcomed Dennis when he finished. Given it was his first race, I think he had the best performance of any of us. Vasiliki would have done a lot better had she not had to stop so often for media interviews etc., and Steffen would have smashed the ride in less than 10 days but he was supporting Vasiliki.

We were given a private tour of the Acropolis Museum by the museum staff.  What the British hadn’t stolen is represented by plaster casts. Hopefully one day the British will lose ‘their’ marbles to their rightful owners.

We had a finisher’s party which included a large number of supporters of the event. I was undeservedly given the winner’s shirt since Steffen had not raced. I will cherish it.  As I went to exit a table of woman called me over and asked for a selfie. They had seen me on the television news and thanked me for supporting such and important cause. My fleeting touch of fame…

So ended a great adventure. Thanks to Vasiliki for giving me no choice but to ride. It was the most fun and memorable ultra-endurance race I’ve done. Now if the British would only Bring them Back!