61.8 km - Total so far 3,260.70 km - Route pedalled. Relive Video (with pictures)
Video of the day: Europe Day 58
We are safe, secure and drying out in Belgrade, Serbia.
We had a great start to the day. We had a super breakfast with strong Turkish coffee, eggs, homemade jams, etc.
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| Breakfast |
The plan was to bike (Hélène) and walk up (Daniel) the hill without panniers on the bikes and wait for Hasna to bring them up by car. Getting to the top was easier than either of us had anticipated.
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| Our host Hasna |
We got back on the route we had left yesterday and made good progress towards Belgrade. We made a stop on route to get picnic stuff.
We passed a few villages but couldn’t see any nice places to stop. We were now on a narrow country road, having given up on a nice places to stop when we stumbled on the place you see in the picture below.
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| Lunch spot |
Our narrow paved country road turned into gravel and eventually led us to a dirt road through grain fields and lots of poppies. Minutes after the picture below, our bicycles came to a dead stop.
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| Poppies |
It rained last night and that dirt road had a lot of clay in it. The clay stuck to the thread on our tires, then caked on the tires and all that clay on the tires jammed against our fenders. The wheels were jammed solid. We would clean the tires, roll the bikes 20 feet or so and everything would jam against our fenders. It was only after we decided to push the bikes through the edge if the grain fields did we make progress. It took us 1:15 to cover a distance of a bit more than a kilometre.
As we got near the paved road, Hélène noticed I had a flat tire. We stopped to fix that. At the spot we stopped, Hélène’s tire found the cutest little nail and now we had two flats to fix.
As we were getting ready to ride again, the rain started. That delay in the field and flat repair now had us in rush hour traffic on a busy road.
We eventually made it onto a less busy road in Belgrade. We found the bicycle trail system difficult to navigate and found ourselves unable to cross a busy road by using a pedestrian tunnel because of the stairs with no bicycle ramp.
Hélène’s RideWithGPS also had issues with the rain. The heavy rain falling on the phone would cause a reaction as if Hélène had touched it. We had planned to be nice and dry at the apartment by 3:30 pm but instead we got here well past 5:30 cold, wet and a tad miserable. That is why you don’t have a end of day ride picture.
Comme on dit: What a day! J'espère que ce sera le seul de ce genre durant le reste de votre voyage.
ReplyDeleteWe hope so too. It was like the butterfly wings, one event cause another event, then another, etc.
DeleteHasna sounds like an angel - offering you locally-grown cherries and driving your paniers to you at the top of the hill.
ReplyDeleteWe offered her money and she said no. I thinks she treats crazy cyclists differently then people who drive up the hill. Its quite a workout to get to the top of the hill.
DeleteThe photo of the poppy field reminded me of the deadly poppies from the Wizard of Oz story.
ReplyDeleteHasna sounds like an angel - offering you locally-grown cherries, Turkish coffee, AND driving your paniers to you at the top of the hill.
Helen, I was just informed that I did not reply to your comment correctly. With apologies see my comment below.
DeleteI know those poppies really screw with your head. Such a beautiful picture yet that dirt trail just wants to bring you to a dead stop. Thankfully our gear system was not jammed with mud, a faith that others experienced. A warning would have been appreciated.
ReplyDelete