194.49 Miles
16:19:03 Moving Time
19:47:42 Elapsed Time
15,525 Elevation Gained
11.9mph Average
Number of horse and carts overtaken by: 1
Not having the best sleep, I woke around 3am, waking during the night to find myself about 2 metres away from my bike. Shouldn’t have slept on a hill I guess. Anyway, I packed my stuff up, scrambled through the woods back on route and rolled/pushed the rest of the rough section, before hitting some tarmac.
About 20 minutes into the ride, I turned a corner and in the dark saw a light in a house. I looked in and the dim light cast an outline of someone standing in the window. Not moving or anything, it looked as through the person had long hair, wearing a long t-shirt and was staring right at me. Not being sure if this was actually a person, or my mind going a little crazy after lack of sleep, it definitely quickened my pace a little until the house was out of sight.
With still about 40 miles to ride until the end of CP1 parcours, I planned to not stop much during the morning. The climb to the end of the parcours was tough, but I managed to reach the top before the midday sun became too unbearable. The views while climbing were breath-taking and I was thankful for a clear day to get some long distance views around Bulgaria. This part of Bulgaria reminded me of central Italy. Lots of hills, trees and unforgettable views. The descent heading north was well needed. All 25km of it. Its always good to get some free miles without putting any effort in at all. After a slow start to the morning, it was good to get some speed up. Hitting the flat valley road brought the speed down and I was being overtaken by a few riders. I tend not to ride slower than the majority on the flat as one, I can’t really sustain speed well on the flat, and two, I really hate flat roads. I get bored of them way too easily and am craving for the next incline, or even better, decline. Around 4 hours were spent on the valley road with a lot of stops for water and food and the heat was becoming unbearable around midday.
Most of the other riders decided to stay on the valley road and head into Sofia. Before the race started, I had planned on missing Sofia, getting off the busy roads and riding a hillier, but quieter route South. When I turned off the busy road, I immediately started to question my decision. I cycled along a dirt track, which eventually turned into a rubbish dump. I have never seen so much rubbish just dumped by the side of the road and in the middle of the road. The smell was unbearable and for people to just dump rubbish in such a beautiful landscape, I can never understand why. We have some bad cases of fly tipping in the UK, but this was the next level. So, I can’t really comment much more on this, not being from Bulgaria and not knowing the situation fully, but I can tell you that riding/walking/falling through this was not pleasant. It was so bad at one point I had to lift the bike over my head and go onto the mounds to avoid the waterlogged roads. Anyway, when I turned off rubbish road I joined a little used quarry road, that climbed South for a good 10 miles or so. Then there was the descent. Pretty much a straight road and no cars for 10 miles. Bliss.
Getting into a town called Panagyurishte around lunch time meant another break and rest from the heat. I found a well air conditioned petrol station with everything I needed. After food, drink and lots of ice cream, I waned myself away from the cool air inside, into the furnace outside. It definitely felt hotter than before, but I guess that’s what spending 30 minutes in a nicely air condition petrol station does. The next 40 miles or so were great, rolling hills through small villages and barely any cars. My mood picked up as I put on the second playlist that was made for the race.
So to explain the playlists. I found that in my last long distance race I got stuck in a rut of what music to listen to and it started to annoy me, so I just ended up not listening to anything the further I got into the race. I like not knowing what is going to be played next, so I asked friends and family to make a playlist of 20 songs for me. They were a pick me up when I needed it. I didn’t want to use any on the first day as I was still full of beans from the start of the race, I knew this energy would wane. The first one I chose to listen to was my brother’s playlist going up the second climb of today. I take a lot of music influence from my brother so was looking forward to this. The playlist lasted the whole of the 10-mile climb and it was superb. It saw me singing my heart out to David Bowie, dancing, as much as you can on a bike, to Kenny Dope and laughing listening to Louis Armstrong’s Cheesecake song. These songs will now always remind me up that long climb up the quarry road. Thanks Anth!
The second one I put on was in the afternoon after my lunch break. It was made by Jed, a good mate of mine. We grew up together and go to a lot of gigs together. This playlist saw me singing every word to every song as it was a trip through a lot of the gigs we had been to together or songs that we both just loved. Interpol brought back memories of long train trips and Klaxons took me back to unreasonably sweaty gigs as a teen! Thanks Jed! It was on repeat for the rest of the day.
Back to the race. I find my head dipped in and out of the race a lot over the 2 weeks. I could be thinking about something completely unrelated to the race and just think I was on another bike ride. Then I see a sign for Serbia, and I’m back in the race. While planning distances before the race, I wanted to reach the Serbian border by the end of day 2. But with around 100 miles to go at 7pm, I knew this was not going to be the case. The heat had slowed me down a lot and I did not want to push my body too far, I knew the consequences if I did. I looked on my map and saw a place called Dupnitsa was around 50 mile away and it was mostly downhill, so I set on reaching that town and finding somewhere for the night.
What I thought was going to be an easy 50 miles, turned into a bit of a nightmare. Yes, it was all downhill to Dupnitsa, but the road was extremely busy, it was dark, the roads were not roads at all and worst of all, the dogs. I had a few run ins with dogs over the first 2 days, but the end of day 2 was the worst so far. Going along the road to Dupnitsa, there were many houses and business’ lining the route with big fences up and dogs standing guard, outside the fences. When it got dark, these dogs would sit in the middle of the road, waiting for a weary cyclist to chase. I’m sure this is their main job, they are very good at it. The first time this happened, I thought a dog had been hit by a car and left in the middle of the road, but when it started to run towards me, I knew this was not the case. The dog would run straight past me, then quickly turn around and give chase. They are fast. I was sprinting away at around 25/30 mph and they were biting at my heels. This happened around 4-5 times along this stretch of road. One thing that meant though, I reached Dupnitsa quicker than I thought I would.
I got into the town around 11pm. I planned on sleeping outside somewhere, but the town was more lively than I thought it would be and thought this wasn’t the nest of ideas. So I saw a sign for a hotel and headed there. Luckily it was a 24hr reception and the receptionist welcomed me and my bike into the hotel.
I wasn’t feeling so tired physically, but I was finding more and more that mentally I get completely drained by the end of the day. Being in a race, finding places to eat, drink and making sure cars don’t hit you and dogs don’t bite you is pretty mentally draining. Having a bed for the night allowed me to mentally refresh and hit it hard again in the morning.
I was pleased to have a shower and a bed as It started to rain heavily as I eventually drifted off around 11:30.
Jordan Matthews 