September 30, 2012
Breaking the law: Esztergom - Gyor
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THERE´S ONLY one way from Esztergom to Gyor and for most of the way it's closed to cyclists. Actually, there's also the Eurovelo route but I tried to follow that and, although I enjoyed my way through a forest on an abandoned road, I ended up where I'd been 40 minutes earlier.
After that I resolved to stick to the obvious road. If the police intervened, I would hand them the problem of how to unite the two towns otherwise. Planners had clearly not thought anyone would want to do it on a bicycle.
There were circular signs at 5km intervals. They were white discs rimmed in red, which in Europe means compulsory, and they were divided into three like a sliced tart. In the segments were the outline of a tractor, a horse and cart, and a bicycle. Sometimes the bicycle wasn't there and then it'd return.
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I met a round-faced, pale man from the north of England who was spinning along with the wind behind him.
"We're not supposed to be on here, are we?" he said more than asked.
I said that at that precise point he could ride within the law but that a couple of kilometres further on he'd be breaking it again. He looked at a collection of notes beneath the plastic screen of his handlebar bag. "This is what someone else said about riding down here, and he just said that it's what the locals do, so he copied."
Either drivers with whom I shared this sinners' highway didn't know the rules, or they recognised they were ridiculous, because not once was there a toot of a horn or a flash of headlights. I was shown the courtesy which has been a feature of Hungarian driving throughout.
"I was going to camp a bit back there," the man said, waving over his shoulder. "There's a camp site and that would have done me. But then I remembered this is Sunday and tomorrow there'll be trucks on this road, and heavy traffic, so I'm going to press on until the end."
I got to Gyor - Jee-euh - without being arrested. But not without being brought to a halt. A loud clicking noise began in my back wheel. My brain said either a spoke had broken or something large had stuck in the tyre. The tyre exploded before I could find out which. The poor tyre which had suffered over the mountain roads of Albania and the dirt trails of everywhere else had given in. The fabric beneath one of the zigzags of the thinning tread had given way and the clicking had been the inner tube touching the road. Followed by a bang.
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