A really stupid, stupid start

It is searingly hot – 35 degrees if I believe my Garmin, but it feels more like 40. We’ve ridden 55km from Krakow and have climbed more than 700m already, but, in terms of elevation, we have only done half of today’s work. Time is running out and an ominous black cloud lurks, close by and in the exact direction we are heading.

I round a corner, turning into a quiet country road. My Garmin shows advancing elevation, and I know there is a climb ahead of me. We are heading into the Tatra mountains after all. But then I stop dead. In front of me is the nastiest road sign I can imagine. It has only three characters on it, and there is no problem understanding the language: it just says , “14%”.

I turn tail and head back to the village we have just ridden through.

Food. Food is a good idea. Today has been too hot to eat, and I have downed just ice cream and many litres of water. I need energy. Unfortunately, the little village of Stryszow is low on restaurants, and offers only a supermarket. Supermarket it is then. Neil goes shopping and comes back with goods from the deli: slices of cheese, some sort of sliced meat, and some drinking yogurt. I choke a few cheese slices down, and drink the yogurt.

Delay tactics exhausted, we get back on the road and retrace our steps. The sign is still there. Neil, always being one to embrace a hill, puts on a spurt of speed and disappears up the road. I fall victim to the voice in my head that screams at me, “You can’t do it, you can’t do it,” and I climb off my bike and start to trudge up the hill.

It’s not the first time I’ve been off the bike today. What started as a pleasant ride out of Krakow along the Vistula River this morning quickly turned into a torturous series of hills once we’d left the banks of the river. Though the gradients are not so bad on paper, the realities of the first day on a loaded bike (henceforth known as “the barge”) with hotter than expected temperatures have taken their toll. I am wearing a heart rate monitor, and I see my heart rate max out every time the road rises.

There have been diversions along the way, most notably the group of singing pilgrims as we climbed away from the pretty wooden-house village of Lanckorona. They had the good fortune of walking downhill, so had plenty of breath for singing.

As I inch my way up this latest hill, I have the sense I am not really walking a 14% grade. It doesn’t really matter at this stage. I am exhausted. Neil is waiting for me at the top, and he is anxious about the looming weather. I shrug. There is not a lot I can do about fatigue. The weather will have to take its toll.

We freewheel down the other side of this hill, and then climb another. It is torture. The heat is oppressive, and the humid air presses heavily upon us. When we top the next hill and start to freewheel down, the weather breaks, and fat drops of warm rain strike us. We stop and pull wet weather gear over ourselves and our bags, and keep going, knowing we are only a few kilometres from the town of Zembrzyce.

We pull into town in the belting rain and take cover under the entrance to a supermarket. Zembrzyce is only about 6km from Sucha Beskizda. I had spent hours back at home trying to find accommodation in this area with no luck. Obviously this part of the world has not yet embraced the opportunity of advertising accommodation on the internet, as from our shelter I can see signs for hotels and private accommodation. We are committed elsewhere though, and the elsewhere is still 20km away.

We ponder our options. Maybe our hotel has a car, and they can come at get us? Maybe we can hitch a ride? Or maybe there is a bus? Local people come and go at the supermarket. We huddle, try to get internet reception, try to find a local rain radar, wonder if the rain will ever stop.

It stops. It is almost a disappointment, because my brain has switched off, positive we are going to find some other way to get where we are going. Instead, I have to climb back on my bike and keep pedalling. We have nearly 20km to go, and I know that it is all uphill.

As we head out of town, I peek at my Garmin elevation view, and am surprised to find that we are already going uphill. It is a long gentle hill – at this stage at least – only a 1-2% grade. I perk up a little. Maybe I can climb hills. Maybe I can get there. But then I remember the graph for the day kicks up at the end, with the worst bit being after we turn off the main road and wind our way up to the bloody hotel I have chosen.

Climb we do, through and out of Sucha Beskidzka, and along a pretty valley beside a river. The road rears up and the pleasant grade becomes steeper. It is only 4-5%, but with 70km behind me on a day with temperatures reaching the high 30s, on the first day of a cycling trip, on a barge that must weigh 30kg, that grade is like a vertical cliff. I walk. Neil, bless him, says nothing, and walks beside me.

On my Garmin, I study the map, and try to calculate how far until the turn off to our hotel. I see a series of switchbacks and worry that we are going to have to tackle them today, then worry that we will have to tackle them tomorrow.

We plod along the road, and finally have our turnoff in sight. I can’t bear to look beyond that; I know our hotel is another 100m climb, something that just doesn’t bear thinking about.

Through the heavy silence of exhaustion, we hear the sounds of car horns. Lots of car horns. A great noisy procession of cars comes along the road towards us, then turns into our road. Great. A wedding. And I bet they are headed for our hotel. I bet we are going to be up all night with the sounds of a Polish wedding.

The procession of cars disappears from view and we reach the turn off. The road has flattened enough for us to get back on the bikes, and we soon catch up to the wedding procession. The cars are all stopped, and we weave through them. The bride and groom are seated at a table, in the middle of the road, surrounded by excited people who call out to us. I think they are inviting us to stop … to have a drink, maybe? At this stage, nearly ten hours into the day, we are too exhausted for local fun. We labour on until we make another turn and the road rises, yet again, and we need to get off and walk. Again. The grade is over 10%. I cannot even think about riding, and Neil is either exhausted, or walking to make me feel better. I prefer the former.

The wedding party catches up to us, and we stop to make room for them on the road. Two of the cars stall on a steep corner, and I feel vindicated for walking.

We finally make it all the way up the hill to the hotel and fling ourselves down. The wedding party is in full swing on a balcony above us. I head to reception … up some blinking stairs. They put us in the fitness centre, away from the noise of the wedding, and where we can take our bikes in. We head to our room and collapse.

Somehow we eventually stir, and shower, and spread our damp and sweaty gear out to dry. We drag ourselves to the hotel restaurant, and recuperate over a beer, and dinner. Then sleep, oblivious to the wedding celebrations that must go on late into the night.

I have ridden around the bay in Melbourne (210km in a day) several times; I’ve walked Oxfam Trailwalker four times, each time leaving the trail with bloodied and blistered feet I can barely recognise. This day rates above any of those activities, as Hardest Day Ever.

Stats for today:

• Distance: 82.9km
• Climb: 1,401m
• Average speed: 15.3km/h
• Average temperature: 26C
• Moving time: 5:25:42
• See our ride on Strava