Never pick a fight with a mountain. There’ll only be one winner. It took me around 4000km to realise this, and that effin’ and jeffin’ doesn’t get you up an ascent. Pick your gear, spin your pedals, get your head up and look around. The view gets better the further you climb, enjoy it.
Category: The Road (page 3 of 4)
English media would have you believe Greece is up shit creek with a turd for a paddle at the minute. It’s all bollocks of course. It’s business as usual. Granted I got there about a week after the bailout had been reached, but the news pretty much painted a picture of mass hysteria. People told me to take all the Euros I’d need with me, turning me into some kind of rolling cash machine for unsavoury types. In reality, if I’d have pedalled in with my head stuck up my arse I’d have never have known the difference. Obviously in five years time, when all the problems have time to take effect, it’ll be a different story.
Tirana — The home of reckless driving. There are no rules, just get your car from A to B. It feels as though you’re cycling through traffic that’s inches away from being a destruction derby, with most cars bearing the scars from previous battles. Overzealous use of hazard lights, beeping horns and lack of awareness is commonplace in this free-for-all. I found this out first hand, as one guy stopped in the middle of the road and reversed right into me. In Tirana, cyclists are invisible.
More than a month and a half cycling alone, regularly having complete conversations with myself, well versed in singing a diverse repertoire of tunes, whistling more than a boiling kettle, it was high-time I found some cyclists pedalling in my direction.
Bosnia. My first stamp in my new passport, and first impressions are; it’s hot, and it’s brown.
The North East of Bosnia is a pretty industrial place, not much fun for a cyclist really and if I’m honest, I was kind of questioning Robert’s judgement in telling me to head through the entire stretch. Was this a prime example of someone’s heritage impairing their judgement?
Veloroute 6 took me out of Austria, into Slovakia for two hours (the bridge over the river to the pretty stuff was cut in half) and dumped me in Hungary. If there’s one thing I like it’s cycling into different countries on cycle paths.
An accurate portrayal of how my arse feels.
As far as comical place names go, Hardegg wins. Hands down. I personally don’t think it will be topped. After camping in the Narodni national park on the Austrian border (and being rumbled by ticks and flies) this was the first village, and it was a zinger. Despite the early morning storm it still looked pretty, like a supermodel wearing a binbag, although like most places in Europe, it liked to don it’s religious beliefs on it’s sleeve, but let’s not get me started on religion, eh?
Trainspotting
Wild camping’s technically illegal in Germany. Strange that. As far as I’m concerned, if you can’t find a nice secluded bit of forest to camp in as a cycle tourer in Germany, you may as well pack up and go home (and that comes from someone who pretty much needs a sign with a big arrow to point out a wild camping spot). It’s littered with huge woodland with massive pine trees, I couldn’t get enough.
You know when you get that feeling where you think there’s more than meets the eye? Like if you’re at someone’s house and accidentally open the wrong drawer to find ball gags and whips. That’s the feeling I got from Luxembourg. The place is just too damn full of money, smug people and tourists, they’re hiding all the rough stuff, I know it. I bet there’s another hidden city in Luxembourg that’s full of boozers, betting shops, go-go bars and greasy take-aways populated by shit-faced ugly people who hurl abuse at each other and ralph up the side of a bus stop. So, Scunthorpe, but in Luxembourg.