Where: Serenda Albania

Distance: 3,150 km

Reaching the top

Reaching the top

Sometimes the difference between breaking and making it is a simple as a light breeze on your face.

The mountains passes I have had to endure the last few days have been created out of some cyclists horror movie. I am sure the guys that built the road flew over the moutains and simply dropped a big ball of string. Whereever that string landed they just built a road.

Albania

Albania

Yesterday as I was coming into a small town down one of the countless descents of the day a car was trying to overtake me. In its haste it rushed into the turn. Hit a patch of gravel, spun out of control and hit the edge. Thankfully for the passengers there was a guard rail and all was ok. I am just glad I kept ahead of them.

Today I was so close to collapsing in a heap it wasn’t funny. Its not so much the constant up and down of the moutains that takes a physical toll on you. Its actually the mental toll it takes on you. When you round a bend in the road only to find you need to descend 500 meters into a valley only to then climb up again and you repeat this hour after hour. Its almost enough to bring you to tears.
The roads haven’t been designed with a constant gradient or anything half normal to what we are used too. One moment the gradient is 5% then 20%. There is almost no way to keep a rythem.


I found myself turning up music as loud as I can to drown out the pain and screaming as I climbed the mountains to keep some level of sanity.