Take The Bitch for a quick liquid breakfast and we’re on our way.
I’ve quite a way to run today. 360 miles of A roads through Germany, Austria and into Hungary. I’m going this way because I’ve not done it before and it should be quite nice, and also because a day’s tolls on the Austrian motorway is equivalent to a trip into space on Blue Origin.
It’s also a low photo day. The ride is over 8 hours so I’ll split it about 2/3/3. No time for messing about.
Now you might think that a day riding a motorbike across miles of smooth bendy tarmac, alongside fat twisty rivers and through valleys filled with fields of sunflowers would be fun. A pure blue sky and bright sunlight shining the way. A big engine filling the air with loud Austrian rock and roll. I can see how you might think that, but it obviously wasn’t all fun and games. I mean I had to stop once at a cafe by a big river and be served coffee and cake by a young lady that has mistakenly picked up her two sizes smaller sister’s T-shirt and shorts. I had to endure the scent of oven fresh strudel mixed with warm body lotion. Now I’m not complaining, I’m quite prepared to just suck these things up and get on with it. But it’s not easy.
By the end of the day The Bitch is bored. She wants to play a game. ‘What do you want to play?’ I ask. ‘Hide and seek’ comes the reply. We’ve played this before in Siberia and I nearly died getting her out of her hiding spot. But anyway, I rode into a field on the edge of some woodland, turn around and count to 20. And she’s gone.
WTF. I hope she’s not run home or gone looking for food. She’s got to be in there somewhere. I smell her before I see her, but she’s done a reasonable job.
Now all I have to do it ride her out.
I get to Veszprem quite late and the hotel/haunted house is unattended. I can’t open the gates so the Ktm has to breathe in and go through the side gate. She got wedged but it’s amazing what 150hp and an angry hot and sweaty rider can achieve when they want to.
Go down town looking for milk and dinner. Get the milk and sit in a restaurant but I have absolutely no appetite for anything but sleep. I’ve not eaten properly since leaving home. My bowel is bunged up like a blunderbuss, rammed with a riot of roadside rubbish it’s not used to. Once I’ve pulled the trigger on that I hope things will get back to normal.
Went for breakfast and someone had at least turned up to serve one coffee and one croissant. I’m not sure if she was a human or an apparition but she managed to sign my helmet at least.
The sky is grey and it’s started to rain. It’s too hot for the biker gimp suit so I just head off and soak it up. The roads are polished and smooth and double dodgy in this drizzle.
I’ve been riding about an hour, going across country again. Satnav said over 8 hours when I left but it’s only 360 miles. It must have got it wrong. I come to a small rough roundabout and I’m on my way off the bike for sure. It’s suddenly all over the place and I think I’ve run over glass or something and both tyres have deflated. The bike just about stays upright but I’m thrown into the path of a big artic truck approaching straight at me. I lurch to the side to get out the way and stop with my heart in my mouth. In these situations the little autopilot in my head jumps out of his chair and immediately takes over the reins. He frantically pushes and pulls at the pedals and levers until he had it under control, then he finally sends a quick email to my consciousness saying I might want to check my underwear. That’s the email I receive as I sit there in the road. Looking around, all the signs are there. There is an old filling station on the roundabout, and there are quite a few decrepit trucks parked out front. They’ve obviously pissed diesel all over the road and the drizzle has produced a Torvill and Dean practice area. They should have put a sign like this up.
Everything can go to shit in the blink of an eye…
Hungry is pretty low rent out in the countryside. Small villages with single story houses and the odd shop selling everything from pills to pyjamas. It’s fucking windy today too. I looked at birds.com and they’re all grounded. Probably explains why there is a pigeon waiting at a zebra crossing. No word of a lie, I stop, and the pigeon looks both ways to check nobody is watching then quickly flies at about 2ft over the crossing before landing and walking up the street. True story.
I get to a Serbian border crossing. Not a busy one. Here is the approach road. Say nav still says 6.5 hours. ‘You can’t cross here, it is not an international crossing’ Bollocks. Another delay in an already long day. Another 25 miles east and a hot queue.
I’ve been through here a few times and it’s often taken a while but this time it’s almost instant. Serbia is gradually being enveloped into the EU fold and I’m guessing this border will soon disappear completely.
I go for some fuel. Nice shiny fuel station. All modern and fancy. But it won’t accept my card. I try a few times and it’s not having it. I try another one. Not having that either. So I pull the €50 joker from my pocket and play that. That works..
But now I wonder if I’ve blocked my card. Or if it doesn’t work in Serbia. I want to use the toll road but I’ve got no local cash. I spend the next hour worrying about unblocking my card from down here, and keeping off the toll roads. Crawling along until I come to a big town with even bigger and shinier fuel stations. Try to buy a coffee.. offer the card.. look at the woman’s face.. hear a beep.. see a smile. Thank fuck for that. Put the satnav back into toll roads and see 4 and a half hours turn to 2 hours 20.
I eventually get to Paraćin just after 6. It’s a random Serbian town where everyone dresses in 2nd hand clothes and nobody seems to walk around with their faces stick to their mobiles. A prober old Eastern European place. And all the better for it.
And it even has milk porn. This is like the top shelf of the newsagents for me
I’ve been having a bit of trouble with the bike the last couple of days. The front brakes are pulsing really badly like the discs are warped. It’s making slow riding very difficult as the forks go up and down. The Ktm must have phoned the mother ship last night because there are a team of Ktm technicians waiting for me this morning, all dressed in company colours, and a fuck off great big crane in case we have to throw the bike in the river.
I bought some brake cleaner yesterday and I take the calipers off, push the pistons out and spray copious amounts of the evil fluid everywhere. It’s vicious stuff and I should really be wearing a hazmat suit but I’m sure holding my breath works just as well. Reassemble the brakes and stand the team down. She’ll have to learn to swim another day. Let’s see how that feels.
It’s an easy ride today. I can’t be arsed with the A roads. This part of the trip is really foreplay anyway. I’m keen to get out of Ursula’s grip ASAP so we set the throttle to cruise and watch the world go by. It wasn’t so long ago Serbia was at war and we had NATO troops round here but now it’s all new tarmac and Armco same as everywhere else.
Crossing into Serbia was a breeze. Getting out is going to be an exercise in patience. This isn’t going to take long…
As usual, I packed loads of patience because I’m going to need it later in the trip. I join the queue, take a small dose of Patience and see how long it lasts. A Greek bloke is wandering about and comes over to me to ask why I’m not pushing in. I tell him I’m British and my queueing gene is very strong. But it only lasts so long and after an hour I start the bike and start shaving paint off the cars with some extreme filtering.
I’m getting towards the booths and there are a mass of small huts selling vignettes. This used to be the preserve of Switzerland. You had to buy a vignette to use their roads, but now everyone is doing it. The EU isn’t quite as united as it wants people to think. The Euro stopped in Germany. Hungary uses Forints and Bulgaria uses Lev. Ummm.
Anyway, I’m think they might not let me back into Bulgaria unless I have a vignette so I head for the mass of stumpy Slavs with tatty tats selling worthless stickers to the captive drivers. In the middle of all these low hairlines and beady eyes is a thing of real beauty. A young woman is leaning against a wall wearing a tight suit that a black cat would be proud to own. She’s almost too beautiful to look at. I have to close one eye for fear of getting an overdose. Surely she should be selling bags of her breath on OnlyFans rather than hawking stickers amongst the rabble. I ask her for a vignette for the bike. She could have charged me anything and I’d have paid it without question but to give her her due she says I don’t need one for the bike. So I buy a big yawn from her for her trouble and then rejoin the queue.
I would post a picture but such is the current situation on social media I’d probably be arrested for incitement to furiously masterbate.
Back in the queue I meet a couple of young Serbians going ‘abroad’ for the first time together on a motorbike. Sounds like it’s just a dirty weekend in Sofia but that’s a good a place to start as any.
After 2 hours I’m through. My patience is wearing thin but now I know how long a single dose lasts. A couple of hours gets me to Plovdiv near the Turkish border. As i arrive the heavens open. I’ve never understood that. If the heavens opened wouldn’t angels fall out rather than rain? Makes no sense to me. I sit on the terrace under a glass roof as a bolt of lightning strikes the conductor rod just above me. Flash to bang in no time at all.
Another evening, another old town. Definitely looking more Eastern here though. I’ll soon be crossing the divide.
Today is just a SitRep. I’m feeling absolutely shit and want to sleep till Christmas
Out towards Turkey and the satnav is saying 110 mins delay. That can only mean one thing and sure enough I soon meet brakes lights coming back towards me. A few miles of hot filtering not helped by my bucking bronco brakes and I reach the front. Someone has decided to park their car upside down in the fast lane and few others that were doubtless following at less than 2mm have helped the inverted car along the carriageway in a friendly game of bumper cars. There is shit absolutely everywhere.
