My Top Shelf Trip to Budapest

   I am on the train from Belgrade to Budapest. When I walked up to the platform the conductor gave me The Look. The universal FU look that says "Not on my train!"  

He motioned that I had to fold the bike and put it in the luggage rack. My bike is a Surly so I could. In five minutes I had the bike in pieces. Then the conductor said "Dva!"  And pointed to the next car. He let me take the bike apart before telling me I needed to go to the next car. So I carried the pieces to the next car and loaded them in the upper luggage rack. 

Ten minutes later he collected my ticket. He just said "Dobrey" and moved on. 

Nice to know I can quickly break down the bike. I will now know to break it down at the correct car. 

Trip Begins with Errors

This trip began with joy, sleep deprivation and a $500 error.  I booked the trip as if I were immune to making mistakes flying. Over decades of flying on business, I have never missed a flight, so why would I start now?

Jet lag is different at 64, at least for me.

Instead of booking a direct flight, I took the cheaper route of booking a flight to Paris, then a second flight to Belgrade. I worried that my bike would not make it, but the bike arrived in the Paris baggage claim before my bag.  All I had to do was check in, wait six hours and fly to Belgrade.

My flight had a layover in Amsterdam. There were two flights to Amsterdam at 6:30 p.m. from Terminal 2 at Charles DeGaulle Airport.  I went to the wrong gate and fell asleep. When I woke up, my bike had been removed from the correct flight.  And the cheap ticket was cancelled. I could get a flight through Frankfort for $1100 or wait and book on Air Serbia--where I should have booked anyway.

So I arrived in Belgrade at 1 p.m. a day later.  I planned to put the bike together in the airport and ride to the hotel.  But I was missing a skewer nut, so I put my partially assembled bike in a cab, went the hotel then went on a walking search for a skewer.  A previous post tells that very happy tale, but the day which was to be a ride to Romania was a walk around town.

I did get the bike put together, rode in Belgrade then succumbed to jet lag.  It turns out I cannot push myself as hard as I could 20 years ago. This should not be a surprise.  But it was.

So I was a day behind schedule and the next day would be the shorter of the trips to neighboring countries: Croatia, and maybe Bosnia.

Bike Trip Became a Trip with a Bike

In the next few days as I have time I will write more about my trip so far: the people I have met, the places I have been, the things I have seen, and the mistakes I have made.

When I first thought about this trip it was going to be the kind of head down trip I have made riding to NYC in a day or to Canada in two.  I was going to ride from Odessa to Helsinki in honor of my paternal grandfather. He walked from Odessa to Finland in 1914-15 to avoid being killed by the Tsar's army.

The original route I dreamed up three years ago was more or less straight north, assuming grandpa had no way to navigate except the north star.  Then the political situation along the straight north route got bad.  Civil war in Eastern Ukraine included artillery duels. Artillery is very bad for bicycles. Then the political situation in Belarus got worse.  So my route moved further and further west into Poland and the Baltic states.

Then the trip got bigger.  I decided I could start in the Balkans and maybe ride in 20 countries on the way and even add a side trip to Israel.  As I added stops and changed the route, I did not make the trip longer.  My wife has math conferences in late July and early August, so I had to be back to take care of the boys while she travels for her real joy in life.

Today is June 13. My Russian visa says June 22-24. I have to get to St. Petersburg in nine days. So yesterday I got a car. For three days I will drive to and ride in several Balkan states, maybe Greece, then go back to Serbia and take trains north to the Baltic states, then Russia.  I am planning to ride in Poland and the Baltics on the way to Russia. I am also planning to ride some on the way back to Darmstadt, Germany, where I will visit my friend Cliff on June 29.

The 1,500 miles I was planning to ride will surely be less than a thousand.

But instead of riding past everything and making maximum mileage per day, I have visited two museums, eaten in lovely restaurants, walked and rode slowly in the cities I visited, and talked to people.

And finally, as I travel the former Yugoslavia, every country I ride in has been conquered by the Nazis the subjugated by the Soviets.  With freedom came the slaughter of the mid 1990s.  Everywhere along this route, racism led to mass slaughter and death.  Grandpa escaped Russia the first time when the Cossacks were killing Jews at the turn of the 20th Century. He escaped the second time when the Russian Army was using Jews to clear minefields and provide targets for German machine guns.

So the trip I am taking now will not be anywhere near my grandfather's route, but will take me to the places where racism used to hold sway, but for now civilization has come back.

Missing Nuts

 

Top: Skewers with and without nuts

Above: Vladimir 

I am starting small in the story of my bike trip. Smallest! A missing nut. When I arrived in Belgrade I took the bike out of the box to ride it to my hotel in the city. 

Except I couldn't. Somewhere on the trip the nut on the Skewer fell off and out of the box. The skewer holds the front wheel on. So I put the bike mostly together then got a cab. 

I walked to the nearest bike shop, but it was actually a bike tour company. No parts. But the owner, Vladimir, walked me over to a shop that sold me a new skewer. As we walked we talked about touring.  He has ridden from St. Petersburg to Barcelona!  And he is hoping to join a group riding from Cairo to Cape Town! Wow!

Thanks to Vladimir my front wheel is attached to my bike!

Riding in Fog: Every Sound Grabs My Ears

On the eve of my bicycle trip across Easter Europe, I was thinking about riding in fog. Of all the places I have ridden in the world, the thickest fog I ever rode through was on Mount Tamalpais, just across the bay from San Francisco in Marin County.

I was at a conference in San Francisco. Every morning for four days, I got up at 0530 and rode to the top of Mt. Tam and back. The 50-mile, 3-hour round trip from downtown to the peak began on city streets, then bayshore, then across the Golden Gate, through Sausalito and Marin, then the 11-mile climb up the mountain.

The third morning the legendary San Francisco fog was everywhere. It was thickest on the slopes of Mt. Tam. By five miles up I was starting to think I could grab the fog. Wisps of clouds clung to me. I was soaked. The air felt weirdly thick. I saw ghosts rush past as the white wisps took shape in the air. But the strangest sensation was sound. Since I could barely see two bike lengths in front of me, I heard everything. A chipmunk ran across the road. I would swear I heard his claws grip the pavement. Was that a pine cone dropping on the road? The climb is not steep so I was not breathing hard enough to wipe out other sounds. I felt water drip down my neck as the fog condensed on me. Did I hear it drip off me?

Then the sun blazed everywhere. One moment I could barely see. The next I was on an arid mountain in hot sun drying as I climbed the long grade.  After the next switchback I was facing south, looking where the city should be. San Francisco disappeared under a thick, white quilt of clouds. The piers of the Golden Gate raised their red arms through the fog, as did the radio tower on Mount Bruno. Nothing else was visible.

By the time I got to the top of Mt. Tam, turned around and rode down, the fog was thinner and lower. By the time I was back in the ground-level cloud I could see 100 meters ahead, important at downhill speeds.