Its not always easy to cycle in Magyarorszag: What the hell is this, Eurovelo 6?

December 7, 2013

In all my life I had only ever known one person from Hungary, and that was my flatmate in Edinburgh, Bence (Ben). Luckily for me, Ben is a really nice person; very generous, very funny, an incredible cook (his bean burgers have to be tried to be believed!) and he has the most fantastic laugh in the world. I was keen to discover what kind of country could have created such a fine example of a man (I believe he is also still single if you're interested ladies)

Thats better. Country number 21 - Hungary!

Upon my arrival in Hungary the first thing I learnt about Hungary is that it is not called Hungary. In Hungarian it is in fact called Magyarorszag, which is strange because this is a very long word that sounds absolutely nothing like Hungary. The next thing I learnt is that Hungary, sorry I mean Magyarorszag, has some very good bike lanes. For the rest of the day I was able to cycle on bike paths next to the main road without having to bother myself about cycling in the road. I wasn't sure if I was still following the Danube Cycle Path, because I certainly wasn't beside the Danube anymore, but I was still following the Eurovelo 6 bicycle route which was in any case destined for Budapest. I was quite tired of the Danube anyway and getting away from it meant I had the chance to see a little more of the country and pass through little villages and see what Magyarorszagians do with their afternoons. There was also an extraordinary amount of information boards in English, presumably in an attempt to encourage tourism along the bicycle route. This would usually please and excite me because I do love information boards, but they were so frequent that they resorted to providing the most utterly uninteresting information one could ever hope to be informed about. Before long I lost interest in stopping to read them and let the wind (which was a strong tailwind) push me along until it got dark and I found a place to camp in some trees.

A fort somewhere, please consult the information board for more information

That night was certainly a windy one and I foolishly didn't peg out my tent properly so the flap which covered a mesh airflow at the top of the tent flew around in the wind. Of course I couldn't be bothered to get up and fix it until a fierce snowstorm came in and forced me to run around outside in the blizzard wearing only shorts and t-shirt to peg the tent out right. This really made me appreciate how warm and cosy my sleeping bags are as I climbed back into their warm cosiness as thunder and lightning crashed outside.

The next morning, perhaps unsurprisingly, there was a coating of snow everywhere which of course made me very happy as I carried on along the bicycle paths. I was quite surprised and impressed by how many other bicycle tracks there were in the snow considering the conditions. It was great to see a country with plenty of hardy cyclists even if most of them were riding around smoking cigarettes with 'I wish I could afford a car' looks on their faces. I tried to smile and say hello to a few people who were out cycling or walking but people didn't seem so friendly, certainly not smiling back, and just getting on with their own business. But then one woman who was getting in her car said hello as I went past and gave me a big thumbs up and said "super!" which was very encouraging and also the first word that I had learnt in Hungarian (it means super (I assume))

Ah world, you are looking particularly beautiful this morning

For the last time, I am NOT your mother!

By the time I arrived at the town of Gyor everything was getting rather dicy. The trails cut in the snow by all the cyclists and the freezing temperature left ice on the bike path. The road was in a similar state and there were cars and bicycles skidding all over the shop. After almost coming a cropper myself I decided it might be a wise idea to invest in some studded winter tires and so I looked for a bicycle shop in Gyor. I found a really rather lovely town with several nice churches and cobbled streets and a Christmas market and old ladies in fur hats. But I did not find a bike shop. That wasn't so important though because by the time I'd done all that looking the sun had come out and melted all the ice and I figured that was probably the worst of winter over and done with so I didn't need the winter tires after all.

The bike paths were getting icy but there were plenty of cyclists on them

Although I hadn't had any chance to talk to any Hungarians yet, I did have one rather lovely moment when I asked a woman who was tending the garden of a village school if she could fill up my water bottles. She was gone for quite a while and I admired the village where the buildings, as with everywhere I had seen in Hungary, were painted concrete, small, but neat and tidy. Although the people here are not rich, they certainly do not seem to be mired in poverty either. The woman came back with my water and also handed me some sweets. It was a small gesture, but it meant the world to me.

The other thing that I had already learnt about Hungary is that it is an extraordinarily windy place. It was coming from the north-west which was good because I was going mostly east, but a couple of times to keep following the bicycle route I had to go north for a few kilometres. This was not fun! This was the mother of all head-winds, the kind of headwind I've only really experienced in deserts and praries before. The hedge-less, almost tree-less, and remarkably flat farmland provided absolute no shelter from the sweeping wind and I battled into it consoling myself with the thought that I would soon have it at my back again. It was the kind of headwind where, when I went over a bridge and had a downhill on the other side, I was only just about able to hit 10kmh pedalling hard. On the flat it was more like 6kmh. I was so happy to finally reach my turn east.

Hungarians do at least make some use of all the wind

The second word I learnt in Hungarian was Uthibak - there is no direct translation into English but it means something like 'the road is about to become a pot-hole ridden bumpy mess and you better slow down'

But my turn east took me off the asphalt road and into a field. 'What the hell is this?' I thought as I faced a muddy, sludgy trail pockmarked with icy puddles. Progress certainly wasn't going to get much faster now, tailwind or not. It was unbearably slow going as I kept getting stuck in the mud and having to get off and push when pedalling became impossible. At one point while walking both my feet slipped into a puddle and this was when I realised how awesome it was to have proper waterproof boots, as my feet actually stayed dry thanks to this pair that I had found at a flea market in Munich! But that was the only good thing, the muddy route was terribly frustrating. 'Well' I thought, 'at least it is an adventure!'

The route temporarily returned to asphalt, much to my relief, then took another dirt track through the woods. This was nowhere near as bad as the first and I saw several white-tailed deer, that were well disguised by the snow. I was evidently now into an area where there had been a heavier snowfall as there was still plenty around. It would have been nice to camp in these woods as it was almost sunset, but I wasn't close enough to Budapest yet and so I carried on for a while after dark, passing through the town of Komarno. Because of the extra snow here, the bike path beyond Komarno became quite treacherous as the temperature dropped and ice formed once more. It was really quite bad for a while and I skidded often, remembering each time to resist the natural temptation to brake and instead controlling the skid into the snowy grass at the side of the path. Much of the time it was actually safer to cycle in this snow. I should have liked to camp but there really wasn't anywhere, sandwiched as I was between a main road and a railway. Then a man came along the path on a little tractor thing, spreading grit behind him, which was really rather awesome of him because after that it wasn't slippery anymore and cycling was easy. I decided to do a bit more distance and make the most of the freshly gritted path but once the bicyc‎le route turned off the main road on some smaller road I found some trees and settled in for the night, being very careful to peg my tent out properly!

Today's ride: 134 km (83 miles)
Total: 10,328 km (6,414 miles)

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