Bike to Asia

Today we’ve completed the second day of our trip. We left Székesfehérvár 14th of April so after some delay we started our trip. We left quite late, at 4pm and cycled until Solt which is about 75km far. What we agreed before we left – won’t cycle in the dark and we won’t hurry – failed in the first day. Because we left late and wanted to get to Solt we had to hurry up. We have arranged a place to sleep via couchsurfing so that was the reason why we really wanted to spend the night in Solt. In the last hours of the trip it was raining constantly so we thought it is better to cycle more than sleeping in tent in the rain. We could imagine a better first day than cycling in the rain in the dark. Eventually, we had a very nice host, Peter Mayer. Because we didn’t know exactly when we will start the trip we couldn’t arrange all the accomodation in advance. We contacted Peter quite late and still he hosted us even his daughter is only 3 months old.

Felix’s friend, Csávó is cycling with us until the border. Since this was not Félix’s first plan to have a long bicycle trip and never really did it, Csávó didn’t believe that this time he will actually leave and do this trip. So they bet in 100€, Félix has to get until the N-S mid-line of the Caspian Sea so basicly somewhere around Tehran. Csávó wanted to make sure that at least in Hungary we won’t put our bikes on a train or some other vehicle so he decided he will join and control us.
First day’s impressions:
My bicycle is way too heavy, it is 41kg (with packs but without water) – almost as heavy as I am. The most suprising was that I can’t ride so fast what I am used to. I thought maybe there was some problem with the brake but I think it is just the weight.
We could test our rain pants on the first day and… unfortunately it is not completely waterproof. It is not that bad but there is one point at our knees where it soaked.
Sore legs… I even woke up in the night that my legs hurt. I calm myself with the thought that it is only the first few days and after that I will get used to it. And this is some kind of punishment that I didn’t train enough.
Merino T-shirt is stinky after 1 day cycling. I bought a Merino wool T-shirt because I was told it is very good for sports and won’t be stinky even after 5 days of wearing. Well, I could manage to get it stinky after the first day.

On the second day we cycled 77km and arrived to Kiskunfélegyháza.

Hungarial lowland

In Fülöpszállás with met an 90 year old man who told a few experience in his life. He was really fit, he was traveling by bike in the village.
We sleep at a fiend’s, Zsuzsi’s parents. Again many thanks for the last minute accommodation. Zsuzsi’s mom is really exited about our trip and arranged already an interview with the local TV.
Second day impressions:
Legs don’t hurt so much as after the first day. I take it as a good sign and I hope this process will continue.
We found out that for a bike trip 2 T-shirts would have been enough. 1 you can use daytime at cycling, this is always the stinky one. The second one use it at night after you had the shower so it will stay clean. When you wash the first, the daily one (after several days of usage, of course), the roles of the T-shirts switch: you wear the night T-shirt daytime while the washed one dries. It dries during daytime and you have a fresh new T-shirt for the night…

"Nnneeeeeee!"

Nice little lake

Zsófi got some funny food...

Zsofi advertising the Power Bar - tasted like toothpaste

Eating cookies in Jakabszállás

Tags: On the way

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 17th, 2010 at 11:01 PM and is filed under Hungary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.