Mountain Tour de Force: Rasova to Trsa.

June 17, 2015

I'm writing the morning after the day. Having ridden a hundred hilly kilometres, finishing after seven and then by the time I've cooked, eaten and done this and that, it's nine o'clock and getting dark. I read a couple of pages of my book using the head-torch for light, but I'm just too tired to sit upright, never mind hold a pen steady and write about the whole day. So diary writing is left to morning.

It was still raining when I first woke, but has stopped and looking out there's fog.

The sun is breaking through as I get on the road at quarter to nine. There is a little more climbing. I think myself fortunate to have come upon that campsite when I did, just before the rain came on yesterday.

The road soon levels out upon an upland plain with wild-flowering mountain grassland interspersed with blocks of pine-forest and scattered wooden houses with steeply pitched roofs.

I pass a left turnoff and stopping to check the map, see it marked ten kilometres to Zabljak from here and the road is dead straight, meaning plain all the way.

At this point rays of sunshine make one last glimpse through misty wafts before the sky begins darkening over. And riding on up and over a few bumps, the final rise with forest alongside, crossing the summit of which, reveals a wall of black cloud ahead with a range of mountains beneath silhouetted grey in diagonal shafts of rain.

It's turned out nice. Soon I'll say "I just had a shower with my clothes on."

It'll be raining in Zabljak. When I get there I'll shelter in a café eating a second breakfast; and if the rain is on for the day, I may have to check into a hotel.

The road as shown on the map is a straight line, straight into the eye of the storm. Nearing town as it spits rain and I stop to put on my raincoat, there are large developments of holiday and free-time homes: clusters of small steeply pitched roofed cabins. Then the rain is on and my knee-length bottoms are soon saturated and heavy clinging to my thighs while the road is a wet sheen and a stream flows down the edge, the road now going up a gentle incline. I'm glad when I pass a signboard "Restaurant. Hotel. 1200m".

When I get there, I push the bike in under the veranda entrance to the hotel and lean it and enter a glassed in adjoining veranda restaurant and take a seat by the window. Later having eaten a large omelette with a basket of bread and on my second turkish coffee while outside the rain continues to pour down, I pass the time by writing, hoping that it may ease soon and checking into the hotel next door won't be necessary.

Just after half eleven the rain does ease and it is safe to ride on into town.

Once back on the bike riding up the remaining kilometre of incline, the air damp after rain and at this altitude is sharp and chills to the bone. I pass the left turnoff for Savnik, which is my way on, but first I follow the sign "Centar" straight uphill as I need to stock up on food and fluids, this probably being the last town for a few days.

It doesn't appear like there's a town ahead as pine-forest enclose either side until cresting the hill and freewheeling down to a street lined with wood cabins, more hotels and an excursion company offering rafting and tourist information. And it is still raw cold, feeling like entering a town on Iceland, or even San Martin de Los Andes in southern Argentina: the same sharp cold of October in Patagonia. A place like the aforementioned southern hemisphere town where people come to ski and now the snow is all gone, in Summer people like me travelling through use as a service centre, which when I get as far as a square, has everything I need.

I take my time shopping at the supermarket, buying all I'll need until I reach Sarajevo if need be. It is a quarter to one when I finally pack everything in the pannier outside and there's no sign that it'll rain more. In deed riding out of town and turning onto the road to Savnik, the cloud is clearing ahead revealing blue sky.

I ride ten kilometres south upon the same plain until I come to my intended right turnoff, which will take me over the mountain to the side.

It is narrow single road with a good surface and meanders up through dwarf birch forest. Then rises steeply up and surfaces upon a rim of a great hollow with rocky escarpment around the far side and the road stretches ahead around to the right, around the slope of a pointed tor.

There are but a few others that pass: an Italian number-plated touring motorcycle that stops to take a photo; a taxi that stops also and an excited young man and woman jump out and start down the slope into the hollow to look at the sheep.

The gradient is shallow easy going and pass the aforesaid tor, the road can be seen along the side of the next elongated tor, going on for a fair bit, gradually rising all the way; then swings left and can be seen rising more steeply up to a saddle between mountaintops.

Leaving the Savnik road which passes by the pond below.

Reaching the saddle at 1900m altitude, it is too cold to wait around longer than it takes for a few photos, so I set off on a much steeper descent, snaking back on itself and returning out ahead.

It is quarter past three when I come to a halt at a picnic spot near the bottom of the valley. There are a couple of cars parked here including my friend the taxi. The young man dressed in football togs and tee-shirt, excitedly scrambles up the steep grassy slope behind with more sturdily dressed girlfriend trailing behind, as a cold mist envelope the towering shear rock spires above and will some roll down where they are headed.

Down where I sit is a sheltered spot and was warm in the sunshine when I first sat down, but that mist is moving in very quickly and I don't hang around once I've eaten. I'm back moving again before four o'clock. The road descends another bit before levelling out then rising up towards the second nineteen-hundred metre saddle, shown on the map. Already the mist is rolling over the hill there and the road disappears into fog.

By now Crazy Guys will think "Montenegro" and chalk it in their to cycle-tour list.

Visibility is down to a hundred metres crossing the second saddle, then the road doesn't descend none, but undulates along in fog for quite a few kilometres. The descent doesn't come soon enough, when the way drops sharply down a couple of switch-backs and rolls down farther, a few hundred metres to a high plateau with rain-like leaden sky overhead. And even though riding I'm feeling the cold.

I pass through a deserted small settlement with a signboard "Pisce", having a factory pig farm, where decaying buildings are also deserted of pigs: the rusty doors lay open. And undulating in and out of pockets of birch forest, emerging back upon bleak rough grass plain, a little way on, pass a signboard for Lice, where I stop and check the map as I begin thinking I might be on the wrong road after passing a left turn. Lice is on the map so worries are relayed.

Soon there's a hint of drizzle in the air to add to the cold.

Not much further and I descend a small hill to Trsa, marked with a circle on the map. A cluster of alpine houses at a tee-junction.

There's a campsite at the first house and the next house is a guesthouse, which after a moment deliberation on whether to camp, I decide to check into the latter, as I could do with getting in and warm.

I pull up outside the front veranda with two log uprights and a split-log cross-member on top in a bench arrangement, looking very much like a hitching rail of old. I stare in wondering is this a good place, until the woman of the house come out and catches my gaze. I lean the bike and step up inside and ask her how much a room is for the night. She first says fifteen euros, but then goes inside to consult and returns and this time agrees to ten euros, which is perfect.

The room is clean and modern and later I have a lukewarm shower.

Today's ride: 55 km (34 miles)
Total: 5,546 km (3,444 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	0
Comment on this entry	Comment	0