Our Thighs are now made of steel!

We made it!

Seven days, 9520 m elevation gain, 812.88 km travelled, five countries, and 16 new friends! Yay! See my Strava for overview of the rides: https://www.strava.com/athletes/12159631

What a doozey of a week.

It’s been difficult to actually get myself together and write about my experience because it has been so special. How can I possibly put into words the magic of the past nearly two weeks?! Finally after a short visit to Venice alone (a weird place for a solo trip immediately following a week straight of 24/7 socialization) I am on a speeding train toward Bologna to meet my mother and have the mental space to tip tap type some updates!

My ambitions of updating you all while on the road were foiled when I realised there was little to no cellular service in the countries we travelled through (at least on my phone plan). In addition to this we were doing so much cycling there was very little time left to reflect and actually report on what I was doing each day.

But here we are, several days after our triumphant arrival in Thessaloniki, where I can take the time this update deserves. In parts… probably broken down into several posts. You may treat it as a lively new Netflix series, except with no guarantee on when the next episode will be released whatsoever.

Finally finally, thank you so much to everyone who generously contributed to my Just Giving page and helped fund grassroots projects to support refugees and displaced people. Thighs of Steel has raised over £88,000 so far! And if you haven’t but would still like to it’s not too late!

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Suzanne-Faye-king

Strap in and enjoy the ride!

Friday 1 September: T-minus 2 days until The Ride begins

I woke to the shrill call of my alarm going off and slunk myself out of bed with the knowledge that I had a long day of human sized box (H.S.B.) schlepping ahead of me. Out the door of my London flat and onto the dark streets to wait for the bus to take me the 10 minute journey to Zeina’s. Normally a very walkable commute, I was burdened by the weight of a bike, two filled pannier bags and camping gear (minus a tent).

I picked up Zeina who was “ready” aka still doing her final workplace admin moments before our Uber was due to arrive. Typical faffist antics.

We crammed our H.S.B.’s into the Uber and drove to Victoria Station – further than we normally would have had to travel due to train strikes. We were then dropped off at the wrong entrance and had to sled pull our H.S.B.’s through a closed mall to take us to our platform. At least we got in a good morning workout.

At Gatwick we momentarily paused to re-tape our bike boxes due to the substantial wear and tear they incurred from being dragged/ schlepped. The check-in crew slapped a couple of HEAVY stickers on my human sized box and we dropped them off at the oversized luggage area, crossing our fingers we would ever see them again.

Our flight took off an hour or so late, so all things considered this left us in pretty good shape.

Hello Dubrovnik!

The real fun began when the human sized boxes indeed made it to Dubrovnik and we decided to assemble our bikes in the airport. We found a quiet corner near a café and proceeded to set up shop and provide a great deal of entertainment to the lounging passengers nearby over the next several hours.

We got most of the bikes together before remembering all we had with us was a small, mostly useless, hand-pump. We weren’t in a position to get the tires up and running very well for the hour and a half ride to our hostel with that.

Not a problem in Zeina’s perfect little world, and she was off out into the desert-like abyss of the Dubrovnik airport parking lot to source some air.

She came back a while later with one inflated tire and good news that a rental car agency had a car compressor situation we were able to use. Luckily, thanks to Naoum, Zeina had a converter valve. So I marched out with my bike and Zeinas other tire and filled all up, save for one of Zeinas that wasn’t taking the air.

Puncture #1

A pinch flat from when she changed her tire back in London.

While she attended to that I took my bike out for a spin in the parking lot and promptly realized my derailleur was completely and utterly dingled. The gears were chunky and not changing nicely at all. This would be unrideable into Dubrovnik unless fixed.

Back in the workshop – sorry, airport arrivals hall – I tinkered with the derailleur and attempted to watch some Youtube videos… it got better then worse and then about the same.

In the end, we made the decision to take the shuttle bus into the city. The first rip off of the trip when the bus sales rep arbitrarily decided to charge us 10 euros each for the bikes. Cool.

So, there we were, probably 4 hours after we arrived and collected our human sized boxes, we were on the road! In a bus. But, while riding along the busy highway with non-existent shoulder I was thanking my botched derailleur for rendering us unable to cycle this road.

Finally, we made it to our hostel and checked in. We were delighted to learn we had the sea view room, until we saw it. A bunk room with windows facing the busy road, industrial port site and construction with a nice waft of sewage to boot. Ahhh, budget travel. It’s fine, all we had to do was sleep there. Still, I thought my days of top bunk co-ed hostel slumber were behind me…

We met the first of many new faces when Mike appeared from the upper balcony of the hostel and introduced himself. Mike being a real cycling masochist who had been on a solo ride for the past several months.

We freshened up and headed out with Mike, Alice and Mimmi to take the bus into the old city. Which was beautiful! Dubrovnik certainly exceeded my expectations in terms of breathtaking-ness. Though it was, of course, very busy in the main area of the old town. We toured in and out of the smaller side streets and alleys and decided to get dinner to go and take to the “beach.” I say beach in quotations because it was actually a cliff face that had stairs and a bar etched into it. It was very beautiful though and so nice to sit overlooking the sea.

A few of the more deranged of the group decided to descend all the way down to water level and go for a night swim. Still traumatized from my near drowning in Lebanon thanks to Zeina I was staying firmly planted on land for the night.

After the dinner, swim and rock face chills we headed back into the old town in hunt of gelato. We also linked up with Alex, who had taken a later flight in. With the dilly dally duo (Zeina and Alex) and the Terrible Trio/ Sheep Shaggers/ Cyclists who Brunch reassembled, we were in for a good time. However, it was quite late and we had a big day of prep to do the next day so we took the bus home and settled in to the calming lullaby of traffic and relaxing scent of festering sewage.

___

Saturday 2 September: T-minus 1 day until The Ride

Turns out even a sea view room in Anchi guesthouse, Dubrovnik, is no match to my earplugs and eye mask combination. I slept like a baby angel until almost 10 am. I had to get a move on, though, to take myself to the only bike shop that seemed to be open on Saturday to deal with my derailleur issue.

I tried to ride and was foiled on the incline, so walked my bike about 20 minutes to the shop. It was a small place with one worker and he was quite uninterested in my plight at first, saying I should have called ahead and that he had a full day. I was very concerned as this was the last chance I had to get my bike in working order before we set of the next morning.

Luckily, with a little persuasion the bike shop guy took a look and when he removed the bike he was working on and put mine up on his rack I felt a sense of relief. He fiddled around with it for 15 or 20 minutes and I was pretty much in business. There was still some issue with a few gears, but it wouldn’t be a problem he said, as long as I just didn’t use them… okay then.

Anyway, 13 euros lighter and with much relief about a functioning bike I rolled back to the hostel to link up with Zeina and Alex to begin a day of pure dilly dally (aka faff). Time wasting for time wasting’s sake. We strolled toward a beach recommended in the direction of the old town and stopped for a coffee on the way.

We happened upon a parking lot quite close to our hostel – lovely area – that had rows of wooden picnic tables set up and the smell of roasting meat wafting through the air. The tables were peppered with a few old men eating plates piled high with unknown meat and beers. At about 11 am. Walking further on there were open fire pits with whole animals twirling round rotisserie style in massive trailer cum ovens… Further investigation revealed this was a once yearly lamb roast festival that occurs on the first Saturday of September. Unfortunately, we were not quite ready for roast lamb as our first meal of the day so we wandered on, vowing to come back later for lunch.

Before descending down to the beach – many of them being the same deep bay, cliff staircase situation – we stopped to pick up supplies at a corner shop. If you ever are curious about how much time is humanly possible to spend inside one food dispensing store, just take yourself into one with Zeina and Alex…

Zeina decided it would be best to ask for some of the cheese that appeared to have been sitting behind the counter for what looked like a good couple years and additionally asked the proprietor to slice it, which he proceeded to try to do with a meat slicer. Actually, turned out pretty well…

Finally at the beach, which was a nicely protected bay with rocky sand and some rocky/ concrete outcrops, we set up camp and jumped into the beautiful turquoise water for a swim.

I read my book and napped while Zeina and Alex swam across the bay to find a staircase hidden in the cliffs and ascended to find some nice old walls and buildings. I was quite happy with my nap though as it was charging me for the days to come…

Post beach we dawdled a bit in the old town before hightailing it back to the hostel for our first group dinner and meeting. We had a delicious meal and got to know the crew we would be riding with for the next 7 day… and we also got the devastating news about our future wake-up times…

That is where I will leave it today, next post will actually get into the meat and potatoes (or rather the borek and bougatsa (will explain later)) of the ride!

DOTD