A coffee with Philippe Robin | Pedaling to the End of the World (and Back)

Setting out by bike on June 10, 2023, Philippe Robin crossed the entire continent to Patagonia, at the tip of South America. How to cope with returning from such an excursion? Alexandre Pratt discussed it with the young adventurer.

Philippe Robin spent his adolescence in the second ring of Montérégie, where public transport is as rare as banana trees. To get around, he got on his bike.

Once, he went as far as Longueuil. Another time, to Montreal. “I quickly realized that if you have the time, there are no real limits,” he explains to me as he starts a double espresso at Moineau masque, a charming café on rue Marie- Anne, in Montreal.

Before the age of 18, he already had a P’tit Train du Nord, a tour of Gaspésie and a Quebec-Montreal trip under his belt. “Traveling by bike is perfect. We go fast enough to cover great distances, but slowly enough to appreciate what is happening all around. » He loved it so much that he started thinking about an even bigger project. Crazier. Excessive.

Cross an entire continent by bike.

So after his baccalaureate in journalism, he left his student apartment in Montreal for the farthest place he could reach by bike without taking a plane: Ushuaïa, in Argentina. With what? Three times nothing. His savings, three sponsorships, three jerseys, pants, shorts and a tent. He traveled the 28,000 kilometers in 462 days.

It wasn’t a Sunday stroll. He was often afraid. In South Texas where, without a home, he feared being taken for a migrant. In Mexico, where the customs officer did not stamp his passport. In Colombia, where he had the misfortune of traveling on the roads of drug traffickers, who stopped and questioned him for several hours. He saw beauty, too, particularly in the Rockies and Peru.

Philippe Robin is a good storyteller. He has a sense of anecdote. You will be able to see it when his book is published in a few months, or by attending one of his conferences. However, if we are meeting over coffee today, it is also to talk about a delicate subject among adventurers.

The return.

Climbing Everest, traveling around the world by boat, covering 28,000 kilometers by bike, these are lifelong projects. It’s exciting. It nourishes the soul. I guess it must even be a little exhilarating. But what happens after the intoxication of the moment? During the withdrawal period? The daily routine must lack spice, right?

Several adventurers have reported experiencing depressive moments upon returning. Documentary filmmaker Maryse Chartrand addresses the subject in her touching film The trip of a lifetimewho returns to the suicide of her lover, a year after completing a family tour of the world.

Philippe Robin describes his arrival in Ushuaïa as “the most absurd moment” of his trip. “In the port, there was a sign with the name of the city. It felt like I had just won a soccer tournament in an empty stadium. The people around continued their lives. They obviously didn’t know who I was. I called my girlfriend on FaceTime and I told him: hey, I’m done! »

Then… nothing.

“A big cliché in the travel industry is that we don’t care about the destination. It’s the journey that counts. Except that when you reach the end, it’s still the end of something. »

He offered to volunteer at a hostel at the front desk. “I did some parts of the trip with other cyclists, my friend Alexis in particular, but I also cycled alone for long periods, listening to podcasts 10 hours a day. There, I really wanted to socialize. And then I wanted to keep busy. For 18 months, every day, I had to think about where I was going to sleep, eat, find drinking water. I was afraid that by finishing the trip, and doing nothing, reality would hit me suddenly. »

These three weeks have been beneficial. “They allowed me to come back to Earth. To digest everything that happened,” notably the episode with the drug traffickers in Colombia, to which he returns several times in our conversation. His return to Quebec was greatly facilitated by the behind-the-scenes work done by his girlfriend, to whom he is grateful. But his journey still haunts him.

“The return to reality remains complicated. » Especially since Philippe Robin has time to think about it, while waiting for an employment contract.

Does he dream of leaving again soon, then?

“It’s a bit of a trap to try to want to go back and rediscover the feeling of traveling. If every time I come back I want to leave, I will never be happy. I don’t think travel is the solution to everything. »

“What I was looking for when I left,” he confides, referring to curiosity and the quest for happiness, “I can also find it in Quebec. Routine doesn’t have to be poison. There is a way to find a stable place to flourish and be happy. And I would like the solution to come from me rather than from a trip. »