183.15 Miles
14:31:01 Moving Time
16:49:33 Elapsed Time
9,462 Elevation Gained
12.6mph Average
After spending a night under the watchful eyes of Mary hanging on the wall and dreaming about who the old mans slippers were in the bed next to me, the buzz of my bike computer alarm jolted me into life from a deep sleep. The mornings are always the worst, the temptation to just press snooze and turn over was unprecedented, but I can do that when I finish, still got a way to pedal yet.
My body wasn’t too bad at all after the first 3 days, and I could feel myself riding into a good spell. How quickly this changes. Giving my bike a bit of a clean after the dirt roads of yesterday, it took just under an hour from waking to actually setting of, this was way too long. I had to stop at a petrol station that was open straight away too as I had no food at all, and didn’t eat anything the previous evening. Their stock of food was pretty dire, so a coffee flavoured coke and way too many crisps was my breakfast.
The sun started to rise just after 5am and I had one long straight road, with way too many potholes to contend with. If this wasn’t hard enough, it had a very steady rise and a headwind. So I stuck the TCR podcast on and tried not to willow in self pity while listening to other racers stories from the first days of the race.
Only riding 16 miles, the smell and temptation of a local bakery saw me have 10 minutes gorging on pastries while flaked out on the pavement. This was going to be a long day. I always struggled to get going in the morning, but usually after around 2/3 hours of riding, I got back into the rhythm and felt fine to ride all day.
My belly was screaming again after only a couple more hours riding, so another stop at a corner shop to stock up on sugary goodness. This was definitely entering the stages of an eating competition. Missing a big meal, the night before, this was my belly’s payback time.
Hitting a valley road on a fairly busy single carriage road in the early afternoon was tough. The lorries and trucks were passing extremely close and I had to take several time outs to make a new route, but without major detours it was not a possibility, so I was on this busy road towards Cascak for a good 20 miles. The going was fast, but the riding was definitely not enjoyable. I was pleased to take a right off the road and start heading for the hills.
Stopping in a petrol station before a long climb and stretch without any services, I got talking to an attendant. He spoke enough English so we could hold a small conversation. He asked where I had ridden from, and he explained to me that he loved to mountain bike in the area and that it was very hilly where I was headed. The guy asked if I wanted anything at all, but trying to stick to the TCR rules, I settled for a fill up of my water bottle, before heading off. The kindness of strangers.
The climb was long and ruthless in the afternoon heat, but the views were well worth it. My route was taking the hillier way north, but on quieter roads, and I maybe saw 3 cars in the same amount of hours, perfect riding. Eventually cresting the top of the hill after around 20 miles of uphill was well received, especially knowing that I had around 60 miles mostly downhill to come. The first 20/30 miles were on smooth gravel, thrown in with a few dog chases, I rolled into a small town called Petnica.
Wandering hazily around the air conditioned shop, lingering too long next to an open freezer door, I stocked up on cold drinks and ice cream. The heat was intense, but the worst of the day was over and the evening was drawing in. I sat outside the shop, watching the old men playing cards and the slow Serbian village go about its everyday business. Then a rather tipsy old man came over to me and started speaking in German. This confused me, obviously. So I apologised and said I was English. The man then started speaking in perfect English to me. He thought I was German. The man himself was around 70, and was born in Germany, but had lived in Serbia most of his life. As he was pretty drunk, he managed to tell me his whole life story in 20 minutes then quickly ran away to catch his bus. I love these encounters with people while touring on a bike. How a man I had just met told me of his life achievements and regrets and was interested to hear what I was doing, then he was off. It was a good mental break for me to have a conversation, and It gave me an excuse to have a little bit of a longer rest.
Not really sure where I planned on stopping tonight, I knew I wanted to make the most of the tail wind I had and the long descent that rolled out ahead of me and with only 130 miles cycled of my 200-mile target that day, I got going.
The road was busy for the rest of the evening and night, some duel carriageway and some sketchy single carriageway where lorries would not stop behind you for anything, even if there were lorries coming the other way, which happened more times than I would have liked. This got worse as the sun dipped below the horizon and holes in the road were harder to see and the lights of oncoming traffic was dazzling. Cursing myself out loud off loaded some anger at my poor choice of route. I promised myself that when I reach the next large town of Sabac, I would find somewhere to rest my head and treat myself to a big feed. I felt I deserved it after another stressful finish to a long day.
Reaching Sabac around 11pm, I was surprised to find that I was actually more of a city than a town, and was a good 5 miles or so through the suburbs to get close to the centre. I stopped at a sign for a hostel and wandered in, to know straight away by the look on the receptionists face that I was not going to be staying their that night. They were full up. So I hopped (slumped) back onto my bike and said I would stop at the next hostel/hotel that I came across. Wow, did I come across a corker of a place.
The next hotel I came across looked way too fancy for me and nowhere like I would usually stay, especially while racing. Anyway, I click clocked my way over to the reception and asked how much it would be for a night. It was the equivalent of 40 euros. Way over my budget, but I asked if they were still serving food, they told me room service was available, I was sold.
The room was amazing, the bed the largest I have ever seen, but the size of the room dwarfed even that. I was in the shower for longer than necessary with all the jets all over, and waited on my food in the room. What luxury! Mentally is was exactly what I needed as I was pretty low in the dark with trucks nearly scraping my leg. I promised myself that I wouldn’t put myself in a dangerous situation like that again in the race, after all it was only a race and it could have ended badly on that stretch of road, it really wasn’t worth it. Sensible head on for the rest of the race but for now, pizza, pasta, fries and bed.
Jordan Matthews 