178.60 Miles
15:17:26 Moving Time
17:51:58 Elapsed Time
8,701 Elevation Gained
11.7mph Average
6 dog attacks avoided
Starting out from the hotel around 04:30, I spotted a few more bikes in the room where I kept mine, TCR riders. The receptionist was surprised to see me so early, but the other riders must have explained more about the race to him as he was saying good luck and safe race.
Starting in the rain is never nice, but once you are wet then I guess it doesn’t really matter. From the hotel I had around 50 miles to go to the Serbian border, mostly a gradual uphill. The rain was light and I had a little bit of a headwind. I was pleased for the cooler weather as the heat was getting to me a bit. The border control was fine and I was through within 20 minutes, talking to a few other riders. Dropping down into the first Serbian village before the start of the parcours, I tried to get some water in a shop. Unfortunately, I had not thought ahead and didn’t have any Serbian money. None of the shops in the village took card so I was a bit stuck. I tried to ask for a tap, but it wasn’t happening, so I just carried on.
Slightly frustrated, I was messing around with my headphones while cycling through the town and had my first crash. It was very slow speed and did no damage, I just hit a kerb outside of an old mans house. He came to see if I was okay, and I told him yes, smiled and carried on. This village is probably very confused why a lot of tired, scruffy cyclists are riding past their front doors.
Anyway, the start of CP2 Parcours. This was the most talked about with other riders in the lead up to the race and the most feared. It was a ‘gravel’ climb, but the ride ability and grade of gravel wasn’t really known by any of the riders, so the choice of tires was much debated. The gravel started off pretty smooth and ride-able, then gradually got worse the further up the climb I rode, until near the top where it got steep and rough, that pushing was the only option. The climb was around 10 miles all off road, gaining nearly 2,000 feet in that distance. It was hard going, but the weather was cool and I managed to get into a rhythm. Thanks to my nana to for the packet of percy pigs, they helped me up that climb! As I reached the top, I couldn’t wait for the descent. It was extremely rough, especially with road tyres and a fully packed bike, but I loved every second of it and just let go. A lot of people were pushing or riding extremely cautiously down it, but I just went for it and I am so glad I did. I knew from test rides how much these tyres could take and luckily I didn’t get any punctures on the way down. Riding the last few flat kms to the control point were along a busy road, so I was glad to see the TCR sign outside of the hotel.
After getting my brevet card stamped and taking a few photos, I went in search for food. It was only around 3pm so I decided to get some food in the hotel restaurant and carry on cycling. There were a lot of TCR riders at the checkpoint, some looking for a few hours in a comfy bed after an all night and morning ride to the CP, others grabbing some food before shooting off into the afternoon.
Clunking my way down the clean steps of the hotel into the restaurant I was greeted by other riders eating and a lot of white! It looked like there had just been a wedding, and it turned out there had been the previous night, it just hadn’t been cleaned up yet. I looked at the menu and couldn’t understand any of it, so looked at what other riders were eating and ordered omelette and chips. The slightly frustrated looking waiter exclaimed there were no chips left, so I said I would like 2 plain omelettes. I guess he had had a busy couple of days, hosting a wedding and getting hungry TCR riders coming through his door at all times asking for gigantic portions of food. It was quite funny to watch him though. While I was waiting for food, I washed my shorts, checked the route and filled my water bottles up, ready for a quick departure.
When my omelettes came, I opened the first one up and quickly saw this wasn’t a plain omelette. It had all the meat possible, crammed into it. Trying to stick to a vegetarian diet I knew would be a hard task on this race, but I knew I had to eat and needs must. I can’t say I enjoyed it a lot, but it did its job and I cleared the table of bread, said goodbyes to other riders and pedalled north.
That was the end of the CP2 parcours, and from now until Italy, we could choose our own routes. This was in the region of 1000kms, so I knew I wouldn’t be seeing anyone for a while. There was one route from the CP that everyone took, down a straight busy road, and most people followed this through Serbia. However, I wanted a quieter route, so after 40 odd miles on this well paved, quick road, took a left heading West and into the hills. As soon as I took this left off the main road, the clouds came over dark and the rain started. The daylight was gone a couple of hours before normal because of this and this brought the mood down. I had planned on trying to get over 200 miles today, but after around 160 miles I was struggling mentally. Again, physically I was fine, but in the dark, with a lot of chasing dogs again, and some very close passes of cars, I reached Prokuplje around 9pm and decided to call it a night.
I looked on my phone for hotels, but I struggled to find one. I then went into a pizza shop to ask, but the server did not speak any English. A man in the restaurant came over to me and explained in broken English that there was a hostel. He drew a very basic map (2 lines) on the back of a napkin and I was on my way. I really couldn’t find it, and after 20 minutes decided to just carry on riding. I saw 2 guys walking along and as a last shot I shouted over to them if they spoke English. Turns out they did. Amazed and relieved I asked if they knew where the hostel was, the man tried to explain, but he just said to follow him and within 10 minutes I was in a hostel room. Thank you, kind Serbian man!
Jordan Matthews 