It was with a fair degree of trepidation that we stuck our heads out of our respective hotel windows to check whether yesterdays furnace like conditions were likely to continue. Thankfully overnight rain had significantly cooled down the air with some of us even thinking of initially riding with jackets.
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| Day 2 - Almost recovered from yesterdays furnace ! |
Underway after sleeping like the dead the previous night, it wasn't long before we were soon back into climbing mode but thankfully the 10 percenters from yesterday were replaced with less savage ones. Even still the day did include 5 -6 climbs longer than 2kms with one just before & after lunch totalling 9 hard earned kms !
With that many ascents there were also some great downhills with the pick being a 9km run dodging sharp corners, the odd mid road culvert and a lengthy bitumen cut away where they'd dug up the road to lay an internet cable and simply patched it up with home made bitumen most of which had sunk below road level ! !
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| Robbo takes in the great view ! |
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| Dilksy on a flyer ! |
The scenery close to the Kosovo border today was ruggedly beautiful, a sequence of mountains and valleys with the odd lake interspersed. There was surprising little evidence of crop fields but plenty of evidence of concrete pill boxes built during the paranoid period of the Communist rule !
Once again H was a non starter with his frustration at being sick becoming more and more evident. At one point with Kev in the support van and our driver (Juli) looking a little tired I suggested that maybe Kev could give it (driving ) a go as his European driving skills would be guaranteed to wake Juli up - " F.ck off" came the quick reply from Henley suggesting that his recovery is just about complete !
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| Signs of previous military presence |
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| Our delicious lunch being prepared ! |
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| George - Someone stole my bike ! |
Other than our customary few beers and brilliant food the day did produce one gem when Pommie Kev stated that he'd dink Henley on the back of his bike if the West Indies beat England in the 2nd test ! Well beat them they did and at the time of print the argument is still going on between the two of them about whether in fact that dink should take place going uphill (Henley's suggestion) or on a screaming downhill descent ( ...Pommie Kev's)
With so much climbing Day 3 could see quite a few of us in the team bus !
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