West Pomerania Bike Tour 2.0. Tribute to Ania.

From gritting her teeth through five layers of clothing to picking up the mirrorless camera and making it her own. This one's for Ania.

The last story in this series is not about the trail, not about the fancy glamping hotels we stayed at, not about the weather that changed faster than the price of Bitcoin.
The last story is about Ania.

She totally deserves a chapter of her own. From the very beginning she showed resilience and grit. Adventures like these can stretch one's ability to adapt and tolerate the conditions. Just consider the fact that we stayed in nine different hotels. Each day the same routine: packing, riding, unpacking, packing, riding, unpacking — on repeat.

The level of uncertainty was sky-high. She didn't know what the trail would be like, what the hotel would be like, what we'd eat for lunch.

To survive in this environment, you need to develop a kind of distance — from yourself and from whatever life throws at you. Ania did just that during the trip.

Even in the lowest of moments, when she realized she hadn't plugged in her battery, she bounced back quickly and basically caught up with our plan by getting to Słupsk on her own just two hours after me.

I was impressed with how she handled the hardships of such a gruelling trip. The pace of changes, the physical strain, the disappointment about the weather.

It was cold. But like, really cold. At one point Ania had five layers of clothing on to keep warm. But she was well prepared. She gritted her teeth and kept on riding.

Before the trip she said: "There's no way I'm riding more than 70 km a day." But then, when the situation required it, she did over 100 km without breaking a sweat and without making a scene about it. She understood there was no other way.

She was also a brilliant model. On the trail and later in hotels, she patiently followed my directions — "Move a little to the right," "Can you stand here?" — and put on a smile even when I knew she was already exhausted from the ride or the fight with cold and rain. That takes a kind of generosity that's easy to overlook but hard to fake.

And somewhere along the way, she picked up the camera herself. Not the phone — her own mirrorless camera. She asked for advice, experimented with settings and compositions, and took every opportunity to shoot. We even used one evening at the seaside for a short photography training session. Watching her grow more confident behind the lens was one of the quiet highlights of the trip.

It's important to choose your travel companion wisely. Not everybody appreciates the same way of spending time, the same level of physical exertion, the same level of uncertainty.
Ania is a great travel companion. She kept her cool and maintained good spirits throughout the trip, even when we had to take a van because the rain was just too much that day.

You know what men are like. We care less about cleanliness, hygiene, and order on occasions like these. For a woman, that can be a true test of character. Sleeping for nine days in the same pyjamas, for example.

So in the end, let this be my tribute to my brave wife, who showed true grit on our first big bike tour of 2026.