A day of rest and relaxation and wierdness
Cycling is freedom. With wind in the hair, the sun on my back and a song in my heart, I can ride anywhere. Except of course, up those damned hills. But really, once the hills are done, they can be forgotten. They just become war stories.
A rest day is for resting, but …
Hills and Rain and Hills and Splat!
We pass a peaceful night in our Soviet style hotel, and share a breakfast buffet with the many guests who have appeared this morning.
Today’s route is a little uncertain. We plan to travel about 80km, from Námestovo to lakeside Liptovský Mikuláš, where we will spend a rest day. The Amber Trail veers off the main road (78) between Námestovo and Dolny Kubín onto a smaller road that looks somewhat dubious and which was obviously not a road the Google street view car chose to travel. The first street view I found of route 78 showed a very narrow two-lane road, with a large truck belting around a sharp bend – not a pleasant looking option. The 78 joins up with the E77, a main highway that we will meet up with in a few days, but which looks very unappealing for riding if there is a viable alternative. We elect the suck-it-and-see approach, and set off out of town on the reasonably quiet route 78.
The first 16 or so kilometres to Hrušton is uneventful. …
Downhill. Blessed downhill.
It is the utmost pleasure to point the bikes downhill, release the brakes, and coast down the other side of the slope that last night caused so much trauma and pain. If I did not already believe in the restorative powers of sleep, one night’s sleep of the dead in a narrow single bed in a room overlooking a vast and wooded mountain range has certainly changed my belief. I feel amazing. Amazing because I have slept, and woken with few ill effects from yesterday’s slog. And amazing because I am cruising down a hill with the wind in my helmet, and a mountain range around me. Life is good, this trip is great, and yesterday is the ghost of a painful memory. …
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 …