Day 15: Dogs, Data Theft, and..

Day 15: Dogs, Data Theft, and the Peak of the Whole Trip

Aleksinac → Sofia, Bulgaria | The Big One

Today was always going to be serious. Sofia ahead, almost no places to stay before it, and some genuinely heavy hills in between. Alarm set for 06:15. No negotiation.

First stop: Niš, 30 km in, for Adem's first coffee of the day. This is not optional. Adem without morning coffee is a different and considerably less functional person, and we had a mountain to climb. We charged the bikes while we were at it. Every percentage point counts today. ☕⚡

Somewhere along the Serbian roads we also confronted a new and recurring feature of Balkan cycling: dogs. Not friendly curious dogs. Large, fast, committed dogs who have decided that two cyclists are either a threat or the most exciting thing to happen on their road in weeks. Spraying water helps, sometimes. On the descent into one particular valley, three enormous dogs launched themselves at us from the bottom of a hill. We already thought we were reasonable climbers. Turns out the right motivation makes you significantly faster. Personal bests were set. No further comment. 🐕🐕🐕

Adem has also requested that the following story be included in the blog, and he is absolutely right to do so.

When we crossed into Serbia, we each bought a local data SIM to avoid the kind of phone bill that ends friendships. Earlier in the trip, Adem had generously shared his mobile hotspot with PJ in parts of Germany where the signal was unreliable. A kind gesture, warmly received.
In Serbia, PJ quietly burned through Adem's entire data bundle in a single day. When this came to light, PJ confidently maintained he had been using his own data the whole time. They checked. PJ had 5GB remaining on his own SIM, untouched, still in his pocket. The silence that followed said everything. 📱😬

The Bulgarian border had a long queue. For cars. For two cyclists on e-bikes with a story about Istanbul, the border guards waved us straight through with something approaching enthusiasm. We will take it.

Just inside Bulgaria, Adem spotted a Turkish truck stop and we pulled in out of the rain to charge. The place was, to put it diplomatically, not winning any cleanliness awards. It was grimy in the way that only a truck stop on a rainy Bulgarian hillside can be grimy. But it was shelter, it had sockets, and outside it was absolutely pouring. You take what you get. We ordered soup and bread, looked carefully at the rest of the menu, and decided that soup and bread was plenty. Some decisions make themselves. 🍞

One particularly talkative gentleman then proceeded to share, in considerable detail and entirely in Turkish: a period of imprisonment, a departure from Turkey under pressing circumstances, and several other chapters of a life that had clearly been eventful. PJ understood none of it, found a corner that looked cleaner than the others, and fell asleep. Adem, trapped by politeness and the Turkish language, listened to every word for an hour and a half. Eventually he woke PJ up and said, simply: we go. 😅

Then the climb. Almost 900 metres of altitude, the highest point of the entire trip. It was hard, it was long, and when we reached the top it felt like something worth celebrating, because it was. From there, Sofia was downhill all the way. Exactly how a day like this should end. 🏔️🎉

We closed the evening with a wok dinner and ice cream in Sofia. Both deserved.

Tomorrow: a rest day. Work, recovery, and a little exploration of Sofia. If you have any questions for us, drop them in the comments. We are very happy to answer, as long as they do not involve data usage statistics.
Sleep well. 🚴‍♂️🚴‍♂️Read more