NÖ idea

Planning - To organize a series of actions in order to achieve a specified outcome.

Yet for us at NÖ Endeavour, the outcome is only half the journey. The rest is, apropos, the journey itself. Ergo, taking a brief existentialist step backwards, one might say there is no actual outcome, and any given journey is in reality just a de facto subset of a definitive point to point. Our time. In which case, perhaps both members of NÖ Endeavour's individual peregrinations began just as each raised themselves up onto a saddle, and took those first elemental pedal strokes to another place.

For the most part, we all ride alone. Our tracks only feed back into themselves. We are but falling trees in the forest. Yet, as the ancient Chinese proverb goes, 'when two cyclists meet in a pub, a great journey will begin'.

And so, we plan.

Initially we apply a broad brush, sketching out tenuous tableaus, some unrealistic, others too simplistic. There will be issues, barriers, desires, resources and ability to factor in. Time, a very precious commodity in the modern world, must also be allocated with due consideration. And within this, a constant need to ensure we don't lose focus on what NÖ Endeavour is all about - the urge to ride a bike... and an independent freewheeling frisson. Many times, over the months, individuals who have heard of our proposal have stopped and asked "But you will enjoy yourselves, won't you?"

Our enjoyment is the early morning rain-soaked training run out into deepest Hertfordshire, the almost obsessive research into ways to travel lighter, new knowledge from listening to others, dietary trials and tribulations, the highs and lows of legwork, stacking up stats, the long lost pleasure of perusing a paper map, repeating a feat (with discernibly less effort than before), standing motionless in a hot shower draped in the comforting pain of a ride that hurt.

Yet above all else, it is the OUR in ENDEAVOUR. Great things can be achieved through union. We ride as one. The journey is ours. We own it. And the outcome, something we made, from just an idea.