Bruce and Stefan fixing Andrea's flat
Day 36: First flat tire and then another
Thursday August 1 - Day 36 - 53miles - Total 1419miles
Woke up after a Rakija filled night, to then stumble down 5 flights of stairs (with a pigeon roosting on floor 4). We bought some food for breakfast and lunch at a little bakery storefront right by the hostel. Stefan and Rebecca went first and bought what they were told were "Jam" filled pastries, but in fact they were actually "Ham" filled pastries.....oops... love those "j"s and "h"s in Slavic English. :)
Back up stairs, we finished packing, stuffed the elevator full again (hoping it wouldn't break or break down under the strain of the stuff of 4 touring cyclists) the guys carried the bikes down the 5 flights of stairs, and we all packed up the bikes in a narrow corridor next to the sneaker store.
We detoured our route through town slightly so that we could hit up the Post office for stamps to send the postcards we wrote earlier... This is a very large intimidating building, but it turns out that none of the 47 desks could help us...we had to buy stamps in the lobby gift shop... Too strange...
Some Urban cycling skills were in use over the next 20 minutes or so as we screeched downhill through the city and headed out of town. We looped up onto Pancevacki Most (our bridge out of town) which was supposed to have a side walk... which it did... but it only started midway across the 3 lane highway bridge with a 10 inch curb to get up on it... which isn't possible without stopping and lifting your bike up... which we WERE NOT going to do since traffic was whizzing past up at about 60mph (about 95 km/h). Holy shit moment completed, we then had to make a decision whether or not to take a 6 lane highway or a dirt levee for the next 5 miles... We weighed the pros and cons of each and chose the dirt over crazy Serbian city traffic and headed off. The 5 mile dirt levee started off as a paved little street but then we had to cross green slime ditch with only 2 planks to the other side. Mind you, this was sign-posted by Eurovelo! The rest of the way was bumpy... as dirt tracks tend to be.... but the scenery was nice and we even passed a babushka herding her goats.
We went onto roads into Pancevo and passed some seriously ugly petrochemical factories on the outskirts of town. We stopped for a snack in Omoljica but when we moved on, Andrea's bike didn't feel right. We figured out why quickly, since she had a flat tire! It was caused by a small but pointy little wooden thorn. We pulled over in Banatski Brestovac to fix it and Bruce and Stefan put the bike back together in no time. First flat of the trip.... but not too difficult to fix even though it was the back tire since we don't have a bunch of moving parts due to our Rolhoff gearing. Woo hoo!
We pressed on as the day got hotter. There were stray dogs everywhere...including as roadkill which was very sad! The flat countryside had less than exciting scenery so we pushed onto Kovin, where we thought there might be a place to pick up some supplies... We stopped at a shop to pick up stuff for dinner and tomorrow. Waiting outside, we saw our first two legit donkey carts!!! We are getting closer to Romania!!!
Stefan and Rebecca noticed that Stefan's back tire was getting low, which ended up being a slow flat caused by yet another thorn. Damn! Stefan's flat ended up being a much harder to fix due to modifications to his mountain bike to fit a back rack. Then we noticed that he had the wrong valve on replacement tube. Bruce gave him one of ours, which is the same size. Thankfully we had two replacement tubes. To complicate matters, Stefan's pump had a nasty habit of unscrewing the whole valve body rather than just the pump connector when the tire was inflated. Thus he had to pump up the wheel three times....poor chap! We all had lunch in the shade and patched spare tubes as we worked on his bike.
The man whose house we were next to finally came out and chatted. He was very nice and even bought us out a chair, although we were just leaving by then. He gave us directions to the bike store in town so we could buy more tubes. Unfortunately when we got there, they only had the right size but with the wrong valve type.....damn!
We headed out of Kovin and started hitting different scenery. We climbed in altitude a bit (not very much but compared to the flatlands it felt a lot!) We got into some rolling grasslands and different crops. Since we had spent more time on bike repairs it was getting later in the day and we started getting a headwind, which made the last few miles of the day harder than they needed to be. We went through Gaj and then really hit some headwinds on the slight incline out of town. Headwinds and hills don't mix....especially later in the day when you have cycled nearly 50 miles already and had 2 flats...
Fortunately for us, the road turned the corner so the wind changed to a crosswind and it also went downhill into Dubovac. Yay! We saw some recumbent cyclists heading up the hill out of town.They were loaded up, so we don't know where they were heading to that late in the afternoon.
There was meant to be accommodation in town down by the levee that Eurovelo 6 uses. We cycled down there and found the place. It was run by a guy who lived in Austria for 40 years, so Stefan and Rebecca chatted away to him. The place was a bit strange though, as the majority of the decor seemed to be particleboard wainscoting with naked centerfold pictures above. It was also very expensive for the area. They wanted 15Euro each for one night, when we have been getting 5-10euro. 30Euro/room with naked lady pictures on the wall!?! I don't think so! There was a sign for another place 1km further down the sandbar. We headed down there to check things out (leaving Stefan & Rebecca in case it turned out to be a wasted trip). The ride was beautiful although the road was very bumpy gravel/dirt. We had excellent views of the Danube on one side with houses on the other. After almost exactly one kilometer we were met by Dragan. He runs a basic guest house there at the end of the spit. Andrea checked it out and after agreeing on 10Euro each, we went and fetched Stefan & Rebecca. Once unpacked, we went swimming off the dock in the Danube as the sun set - very refreshing! When we got back, Dragan offered us his "Natural Shower" which was a black rain water barrel with a shower head on it. It was divine and made the bathroom situation much easier later on that night. We made dinner of pasta and zucchini outside on the camp stove... but it got VERY buggy, so we ended up eating our dinner inside, sitting on the stairs as there were only 2 chairs in the house and we are four people. We washed it all down with some local wine that Dragan provided.
Off to bed on 3 mattresses each! What a day...
The World is Ours!
Thursday August 1 - Day 36 - 53miles - Total 1419miles
Woke up after a Rakija filled night, to then stumble down 5 flights of stairs (with a pigeon roosting on floor 4). We bought some food for breakfast and lunch at a little bakery storefront right by the hostel. Stefan and Rebecca went first and bought what they were told were "Jam" filled pastries, but in fact they were actually "Ham" filled pastries.....oops... love those "j"s and "h"s in Slavic English. :)
Back up stairs, we finished packing, stuffed the elevator full again (hoping it wouldn't break or break down under the strain of the stuff of 4 touring cyclists) the guys carried the bikes down the 5 flights of stairs, and we all packed up the bikes in a narrow corridor next to the sneaker store.
We detoured our route through town slightly so that we could hit up the Post office for stamps to send the postcards we wrote earlier... This is a very large intimidating building, but it turns out that none of the 47 desks could help us...we had to buy stamps in the lobby gift shop... Too strange...
Some Urban cycling skills were in use over the next 20 minutes or so as we screeched downhill through the city and headed out of town. We looped up onto Pancevacki Most (our bridge out of town) which was supposed to have a side walk... which it did... but it only started midway across the 3 lane highway bridge with a 10 inch curb to get up on it... which isn't possible without stopping and lifting your bike up... which we WERE NOT going to do since traffic was whizzing past up at about 60mph (about 95 km/h). Holy shit moment completed, we then had to make a decision whether or not to take a 6 lane highway or a dirt levee for the next 5 miles... We weighed the pros and cons of each and chose the dirt over crazy Serbian city traffic and headed off. The 5 mile dirt levee started off as a paved little street but then we had to cross green slime ditch with only 2 planks to the other side. Mind you, this was sign-posted by Eurovelo! The rest of the way was bumpy... as dirt tracks tend to be.... but the scenery was nice and we even passed a babushka herding her goats.
We went onto roads into Pancevo and passed some seriously ugly petrochemical factories on the outskirts of town. We stopped for a snack in Omoljica but when we moved on, Andrea's bike didn't feel right. We figured out why quickly, since she had a flat tire! It was caused by a small but pointy little wooden thorn. We pulled over in Banatski Brestovac to fix it and Bruce and Stefan put the bike back together in no time. First flat of the trip.... but not too difficult to fix even though it was the back tire since we don't have a bunch of moving parts due to our Rolhoff gearing. Woo hoo!
We pressed on as the day got hotter. There were stray dogs everywhere...including as roadkill which was very sad! The flat countryside had less than exciting scenery so we pushed onto Kovin, where we thought there might be a place to pick up some supplies... We stopped at a shop to pick up stuff for dinner and tomorrow. Waiting outside, we saw our first two legit donkey carts!!! We are getting closer to Romania!!!
Stefan and Rebecca noticed that Stefan's back tire was getting low, which ended up being a slow flat caused by yet another thorn. Damn! Stefan's flat ended up being a much harder to fix due to modifications to his mountain bike to fit a back rack. Then we noticed that he had the wrong valve on replacement tube. Bruce gave him one of ours, which is the same size. Thankfully we had two replacement tubes. To complicate matters, Stefan's pump had a nasty habit of unscrewing the whole valve body rather than just the pump connector when the tire was inflated. Thus he had to pump up the wheel three times....poor chap! We all had lunch in the shade and patched spare tubes as we worked on his bike.
The man whose house we were next to finally came out and chatted. He was very nice and even bought us out a chair, although we were just leaving by then. He gave us directions to the bike store in town so we could buy more tubes. Unfortunately when we got there, they only had the right size but with the wrong valve type.....damn!
We headed out of Kovin and started hitting different scenery. We climbed in altitude a bit (not very much but compared to the flatlands it felt a lot!) We got into some rolling grasslands and different crops. Since we had spent more time on bike repairs it was getting later in the day and we started getting a headwind, which made the last few miles of the day harder than they needed to be. We went through Gaj and then really hit some headwinds on the slight incline out of town. Headwinds and hills don't mix....especially later in the day when you have cycled nearly 50 miles already and had 2 flats...
Fortunately for us, the road turned the corner so the wind changed to a crosswind and it also went downhill into Dubovac. Yay! We saw some recumbent cyclists heading up the hill out of town.They were loaded up, so we don't know where they were heading to that late in the afternoon.
There was meant to be accommodation in town down by the levee that Eurovelo 6 uses. We cycled down there and found the place. It was run by a guy who lived in Austria for 40 years, so Stefan and Rebecca chatted away to him. The place was a bit strange though, as the majority of the decor seemed to be particleboard wainscoting with naked centerfold pictures above. It was also very expensive for the area. They wanted 15Euro each for one night, when we have been getting 5-10euro. 30Euro/room with naked lady pictures on the wall!?! I don't think so! There was a sign for another place 1km further down the sandbar. We headed down there to check things out (leaving Stefan & Rebecca in case it turned out to be a wasted trip). The ride was beautiful although the road was very bumpy gravel/dirt. We had excellent views of the Danube on one side with houses on the other. After almost exactly one kilometer we were met by Dragan. He runs a basic guest house there at the end of the spit. Andrea checked it out and after agreeing on 10Euro each, we went and fetched Stefan & Rebecca. Once unpacked, we went swimming off the dock in the Danube as the sun set - very refreshing! When we got back, Dragan offered us his "Natural Shower" which was a black rain water barrel with a shower head on it. It was divine and made the bathroom situation much easier later on that night. We made dinner of pasta and zucchini outside on the camp stove... but it got VERY buggy, so we ended up eating our dinner inside, sitting on the stairs as there were only 2 chairs in the house and we are four people. We washed it all down with some local wine that Dragan provided.
Off to bed on 3 mattresses each! What a day...
The World is Ours!
Itty bitty bridge over green slime ditch!
Jumped off the end of this last night into the Danube
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