Why oh why?! About 2 and a half years ago, I cycled from Novi Sad to Belgrade and after concluding that it wasn’t really that much fun promised myself I would never do it again! So why do I find myself deciding at the last minute to CYCLE to Belgrade today instead of loading my bike onto a bus as agreed, on the first stage of a weekend trip to Djerdap in the East of Serbia?! Not only that, but I also chose to do it laden down like a particularly ill-treated packhorse?!

I think I know one of the reasons we do these things: it’s because if I had only ridden to Belgrade only once in my life, people could say I had done it so I could say I had. This way they will know there must something wrong with me! I am blogging live from the field, a real pain on a mobile phone, suffice it to say that though I may look back on this in the years to come as a brave effort, I am now comfortably seated in a bus which I caught in Stara Pazova. I was supposed to be in Belgrade at 5, it was 5.15 when I caught the bus, and it would have taken me another 2 hours to get to Belgrade against the atrocious headwind which was keeping my speed down to under 10km/h at times. Who knows though, I may still have done it quicker this way as traffic was at a complete standstill in Indjija, where a nasty accident had backed up traffic for miles:

I sailed through of course. Bikes rule! Next stage of the trip is to meet Aleksandar in Belgrade, who is waiting for me to convey up by jeep down to the national park where we plan to set up camp in pitch darkness! Can’t wait! Stay tuned!

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Posted on March 30th, 2007 by markowe
Filed under: MTB Serbia (All)