There had been some discussion at CP2 about routes through Serbia. Several people said that they were going north around Belgrade because they didn’t want to get slowed down. I could see their point, but my route took me straight through the middle. I was basically going to ride north until I hit the Danube, and then follow it through the city before heading off towards Croatia.
I had ridden the night before to try and stay clear of the rain, and it seemed that I had succeeded. Oliver was gone by the time I left the hotel but it was a crisp and dry morning. Unfortunately I made a few more navigational errors consistingly mainly of not trusting my planned route, and lost a bit of time but in general the morning went well. About 4 hours in I stopped for second breakfast at a service station and discovered a whole world of little discs of pressed fruit that I quickly came to appreciate. A lot of the challenge of events like this is taking in enough energy, and the more forms of energy you can accept the better of you are, as far as I can tell.
It quickly became a fine, clear and HOT day. I had planned a pretty flat route through Serbia and was hoping for a very fast trip, but as the temperature climbed above 40 degrees my energy started to wane. My water supplies were low and it was clear that another stop was in order, ideally involving some time sitting in a cool place.
Arriving at the Danube I spotted that cool place. The woman in the shop was clearly surprised at my purchases of 4 litres of water, three tomatoes, 2 capscisums, three bread rolls and an ice-cream, but she became more surprised as I sat in her lobby to consume most of it then returned for the second, third and fourth icecreams. It was a long stop yes, but I had things to do (in addition to eating icecream). You see, my feet were sore. Specifically the balls of my feet were really, really sore and I was finding myself deliberately soft-pedalling to keep the pressure off them. That really isn’t a good thing, when you are trying to race a bicycle.
Everyone knows that you shouldn’t try out new equipment on race-day, and I wasn’t doing that. I had attached the brand new cleats to my brand new shoes on the Thursday before the race started, and had gone for a good 20km ride to try them out. I had been pretty happy with the cleat position at the time but could now feel that it would be better if my left cleat was rotated just a degree or two, and I was also thinking about the inners and the arch support. I hade bought myself a brand new pair of shimano RC-901 shoes in the extra-wide sizing. I loved the predecessors to these shoes and had been happy enough to try these out (though I had planned more riding before the race) but they come with a couple of different inserts to adjust the arch support. I was hoping that by increasing the arch support I could take pressure off the balls of my feet, so I pulled the inners out and swapped the inserts. Just as I was about to put the first of them back in I noticed an odd point in the surface, where it had been molded strangely. I looked again – that shape wasn’t molded into it, something had been pushing on the bottom of the inner. I looked harder – there was a second spot where the same thing had happened.
I grabbed my shoe and looked inside. It looked flat. But it wasn’t. The bolts from my cleats were sticking up above the flat portion of the sole. Not much – maybe 2mm – but over a thousand kilometers 2mm becomes a lot. I couldn’t believe it. I felt like an idiot. Of all the things to not take care of, I really should have made sure that my shoes were right.
The bolts had come with the cleats, along with washers which I had used. I couldn’t add many more washers to the bolts without them sticking out so far that the cleats wouldn’t engage with the pedals, but I figured I could add at least one, and that would make a whole lot of difference. Happily, I had a spare cleat complete with hardware with me, so I took the washers from that and added them to the right shoe (the one that hurt most). I quickly finished off my fourth icecream and leapt back on the bike. Again, my feet were instantly complaining, but this time I hoped I knew why. And was I imagining it, or did the right foot hurt just a little less than (or at least a little differently to) the left?
Happily I found a hardware shop not far at all down the road. There was a time when buying some washers in Serbia would have presented a significant challenge, but in this instance it was as easy as walking in, making some appropriately friendly and inquisitive sounds, doing a google image search for a washer, and then pointing at the bolt on the bottom of my shoe (I actually took the shoe off as well – maybe not essential but it made things easier). It didn’t take long until the appropriate washers were found, and the daughter who spoke english had barely arrived by the time I had collected six of them. I went to the cash register to pay, only to have the daughter hand me two more of the appropriate size, and then push me out the door saying that it was ok, it was free, and that I should enjoy my ride. This wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened, but it still surprised me. In Australia, if you went into a hardware shop for a single 5 cent washer you would almost always be charged 5 cents. If you tried to leave with the washer without paying the 5 cents the police would generally be called. People in Serbia were certainly far from the poorest I had seen but they still generally didn’t have half of what Australians take for granted. And yet they were happy to just give things away. It is amazing, and wonderful.
I fitted the washers on the second cleat, and got back on the bike. Of course, my feet still hurt. I was optimistic though that they might get better over the coming days, rather than worse.
I continued, approximately following the river, into Belgrade. Again I got lucky with the timing for traffic – for the sections I was on the road there was barely a vehicle going my way. My plan though was to hit the bike path next to the river, hopefully pick up some food there, and then have a fast and stress-free trip out of town while I ate my dinner. It seemed very appealing, especially considering the driving in Serbia. I love Australia but many Australians tend to act like selfish, bullying children when they get behind the wheel of a car. Europe in general is much, much better, but Serbia was the worst I saw within Europe. Sergio had explained the previous night that this was because most Serbian drivers are drunk, and I had no reason to disbelieve him. So the bike path sounded great, but it wasn’t to be!
The path I had picked out was absolutely packed. I got myself a Trdelnik (I’m really not sure how that should be pronounced in any language, but they are a delicious fire baked pastry thing made into a cylinder that sits perfectly onto an aero-bar to be eaten as you ride along) then headed a bit further into town to get a couple of burgers.
Leaving Belgrade seemed to be an endless stretch of city-edge – not quite suburbia, but not quite rural, and flat enough that you were always seeing at least half a dozen houses.
At one point I rode into a medium sized town, and there was one hotel that was very heavily advertised. I tend to think of myself as not being much of a sucker for advertising, but when I saw that hotel I quickly stopped and asked the girl smoking out the front in a hotel shirt if she had a room. She told me she didn’t, but that the place back just about 500m the way I had come definitely did. I think she really thought I would ride 500m away from my destination. As if! I kept riding.
The semi-suburbia continued though, and it crossed my mind that this would be a prety ordinary location to bivvy. That was reinforced when I stopped at a service station for water and icecream as a couple of local kids rode around on their bikes. As I leant my bike against the glass front where I would have a very good view of it the attendant gestured urgently to say I should bring it inside. He turned out to speak quite good english, and told me that the bike would have been stripped bare before I reached the counter to pay if I had left it outside. Having done my time in service stations I think I know where he was coming from, but it didn’t make me any happier about sleeping in a built-up area.
I pushed on until almost midnight to get within about 50km of the border, but pulling into another service station for water the attendant asked if I was looking for a hotel too like the last three riders. It didn’t sound like the worst idea I’d heard so I said yes, and he gave me directions to one just up the road.
After 330km my feet were in agony and my knee was feeling pretty ordinary too, so I stopped at a very nice (but cheap) hotel where the night manager explained that he had done a marathon or two but riding across Europe just sounded nuts, and spent some time stretching and massaging my leg and trying to get blood flowing through my feet. Tomorrow would be a new day!