L'APPEL DU VIDE
A tale of adventure, friendship, and the call of the void.
Chapter One.
London to France and Beyond
A few years ago, I met Tomasz at a bar called Happy Bar in Kaş, southern Turkey — a beautiful place. I was alone for the night, chatting with a woman about London and how I live in the northwest of the city. A man arrived at the bar and chimed in on our conversation. “What’s this I hear about how nice it is living in West London?” He said it in a semi-obnoxious manner, clearly trying to wind me up. I thought to myself, Who’s this prick? Tomasz is Polish, but has lived in East London for years, and he’s definitely not a fan of the west side. Nonetheless, we got talking. He introduced me to his partner, Zeynep. The three of us got on really well. Several cocktails and a lot of laughs later, we exchanged numbers and agreed to meet back in London.
Idioma’s offices are in Hackney Downs Studios, and they lived nearby in Stoke Newington. Over the years, through beers, exhibitions, and after-work hangs, I got to know Tomasz’s deep love of cycling and touring Europe by bike. He’s clocked thousands of kilometres, most notably cycling from London to Istanbul. That’s a serious achievement. Hearing his stories always made me think: I’ve got to give this a go some day.
2025: A Rocky Start
Flash forward to 2025. The year hadn’t started the way we’d hoped. I’d been living in Berlin for a year and a half, trying to bring Idioma back to Europe after the Brexit catastrophe. My first meeting of the year was with a lawyer to set up a GmbH, an official German company. We’d tried all other options; this seemed like the only remaining possibility. Our stock was already in Leipzig, ready to serve the EU market again. But then we hit roadblocks. German bureaucracy is ... complicated to say the least. Not fun. In January, I returned to the UK to downsize our London office and enable the Berlin setup. It was supposed to be a quick one-week operation, then I’d be back in Berlin. But the universe had other plans.
Back in the UK
While prepping the office move, I found out our warehousing partner in Bristol had gone into administration. They’d been acquired by a capital investment firm, and the service quickly became abysmal. So, we jumped ship. We made the difficult decision to bring our fulfilment back in-house. If you’ve noticed an improvement in our service recently - that’s why. We ran our own warehouse for years and, honestly, always felt like we did it better than the “experts.” So instead of downsizing, we moved into a larger warehouse unit. That’s how 2025 began. And if our collections feel a little lighter this season, it’s because we’re still a very small team, and this transition absorbed us completely.
The Call of the Road
Back to the present. We're fully operational again in London, but the months had flown, and I needed an escape. A longing to be somewhere else, doing something different. Around this time of year (ideally earlier), we usually do a summer shoot on location. So, I’m with Tomasz at an exhibition, and he’s telling me about his upcoming month-long cycling trip through France, ending in Spain. I’m listening, thinking, I need to get involved in this. But my brain is also shouting, No way. We’ve got products to shoot, work to do, boxes to tick. Then it hits me - photoshoots are expensive and tricky to organise anyway. And we’re a brand rooted in adventure. So why not combine the two? I’d had a couple of drinks by this point, which helped. Despite all the reasons not to go, I was more excited by the idea of doing something different and getting out of the city. My dad lives in France, and I figured we could stop in with him too. Of course, cycling to France sounded intense - especially since the farthest I’d ever cycled was from northwest to east London. Tomasz was reassuring though. “Yeah, it’s gonna be easy.” I had no bike. No gear. No clue. I was clearly trying to find excuses. But by the end of the night, under pressure from multiple friends and the ever-persuasive Tomasz, I agreed.
Hackney Downs Office
Getting a Bike
The next day, I woke up with a sinking what-have-I-done? feeling. But Tomasz was already texting me bike recommendations. I had to admire his enthusiasm. Bike shopping was fun, but I had roughly a week to find a bike, sort a place for my dog Ouzo, buy gear, plan the shoot, and keep Idioma running. Not ideal. It took me four days just to find the bike. And I refused to order it online — I simply don’t trust couriers or warehouses anymore. Lol
Eventually, I found this lovely touring bike, a ‘Cinelli Della Strada’. It was in Leighton Buzzard, and the frame sounded like my size. It came with a front rack, which I thought would be perfect for my heavier items. I didn’t have time to go and see it, so I just took the chance after reading the reviews and deciding if we didn’t fall in love, I’d sell it upon my return to the UK.
So, I drive up from London, about an hour in a car, to a place called Chicken Cycle Kit. Yeah, I was suspicious too, and the bike was half price. It sounded pretty sus, was it a chicken shop that also sold bikes? I was confused. So, I get there and it’s a warehouse and the bike is in a box that says Cinelli on the side. It all seemed weirdly legit. They had my receipt and even helped me to the car with the box.
I guess I thought some assembly would be required, but it wasn’t until I got home that I realised this bike certainly wasn’t even close to road-ready. This was to be an exciting, if nonetheless quite funny, next few hours. I’m quite handy, and I’ve had bikes before, but I’ve never built one from the box, and there were no instructions.
Nonetheless, after putting the handlebars on back to front and upside down and faffing around with cables and brakes for the next 3 hours, I had something that looked like a bike, and a rather beautiful ride at that. I didn’t trust it to ride, though, so the next day I took it to Halfords, where they offer a free bicycle health check. A nice man checked it over for me and assured me I hadn’t done a terrible job, and it was indeed safe to ride. Job one complete, I had a bike, and I liked it. It was smooth to ride, had enough gears to get me up the hills, and had chunky tyres to absorb any gravel paths.
Packing the Shoot
Setting off - En route
Packing the Shoot
This wasn’t just about cycling; it was also a work trip. A mobile Idioma shoot. That meant taking my camera, laptop, all the products we wanted to shoot, my own clothes, and the cycling gear. I’d never carried this much on a bike before. Tomasz advised me to test-ride the load and ditch anything non-essential.About an hour before we were due to leave, I packed both panniers, strapped a backpack to the front rack, and did a loop around the block. It felt fine. The ride to Waterloo was smooth - along Regent’s Canal, through Hyde Park. The sun was out, spirits high. I met Tomasz at The King’s Arms near Waterloo for a quick pint before catching the train to Portsmouth.Tomasz had been reassuring me for weeks how “easy” this ride would be. I believed him. Almost. Though I did notice, when Tomasz lifted my loaded bike outside the pub, that he looked... concerned. He said “this is gonna be interesting”.
Written by Seth Banks. Director and Designer.