The most entertaining and exciting part of the race for me was without a doubt from CP 4 to the finish line. When I left the fourth checkpoint, Juliana gave me an update on Jonas’ progress. I knew he was close to the finish line,..she predicted he would finish within the next several hours. I was anxious for him but also excited. I thought he could possibly catch up to the Bjorn for second place, but I was happy he was pedaling strong and maintaining third.
As I descended the Romanian mountains the temperatures got warmer and warmer and quickly all my gear that had gotten soaked back on the climb, had dried out. I had started descending with Paolo, but of course I couldn’t keep up with him long. When I got to the first village I stopped to eat a proper lunch. I hadn’t stopped for long at the top of CP 4, avoiding getting cold, I hadn’t eaten anything other than my makeshift breakfast of a handful of bitesize 7 day croissants at the start of the climb, and a cup of coffee at CP 2 in order to warm up! I found a restaurant with some nice bench seats and ordered the only thing I could understand on the menu, grilled chicken, fries, and salad. I signed on to see Jonas’ progress and was surprised to find that he still hadn’t crossed the finish line. In fact, I received a message from his brother telling me he had two flat tires and no spare tubes and was struggling to keep them filled with air in order to arrive at the finish line. Despite my growing anxiety to see him finish, I couldn’t fight off my strong desire to sleep and laid down to rest after finishing my meal.
About an hour later I awoke and checked his progress, he still hadn’t crossed the finish line, but I could see Karen Toastee was at CP4 and would descend any moment. I had to get a move on it! My route continued to descend for awhile, then cut off from the main road and climbed some steep gradients on some very quiet roads. It was my first time in Romania and I was NOT impressed. The roads were chaotic, heavily traveled by trucks. Shoulders were rare and if they did exist, they were gravel. If my route deviated from the main road, I paid a steep price on the minor roads, literally. Not to mention, coming down from the mountains, the heat had returned.
I was surprised to see people alongside the road cheering racers on an offering water. I specifically remember a young boy holding out a primitive sign with the TCR initials and my cap number 233. I no idea who on earth he was, but he had obviously been following me and was eager to offer me some water. I didn’t stop, not wanting any problems with “outside assistance” I continued to pedal on, hoping to keep a decent lead in front of Toastee. Just then I had a really close call with a truck. I could hear a loud horn behind me. I got over as far as I could on the right side of the road, not wanting to go off the road into the gravel. I could see the truck behind me was not budging nor was the driver going to swerve to the left to make me feel safe. In fact, I felt as though he did the opposite, moving more to the right to push me off the road! Having no choice I quickly went off the road right on to the rough gravel shoulder at a high speed and somehow managed to keep my balance over all sorts of potholes and loose rocks. I tried to brake as carefully as I could completely shook up, shouting and swearing at the truck that was long gone, I felt lucky to be alive! No wonder the organization had banned certain roads in Romania when James Hayden called in after having a similar experience. Romania was definitely NOT a bike friendly country.
Determined to leave this country as soon as possible. I kept cycling as much as I could. I stopped at the last possible hour to eat, just before the restaurants were closing, and managed to find a pharmacy to visit as well to stock up on my creams, as I was running low and knew I had to restock in order to push through to the finish line. Despite having shitty roads, the pizzeria I found shortly before the Serbian border was to die for. I hopped online and an in pour of messages came through. Most importantly I could see that Jonas had made it to the finish line despite having two flat tires and managed to hold on to third place. When I first met him, he told me he wanted to be on the podium, and he had managed to pull it off. I had a ton of messages from friends, cheering me on, telling me I was so close. Close, however is very relative. I recalled several veterans telling me that the hardest part of the whole race was from CP 4 to the finish line. I knew the kilometers in my routes on my Garmin, and I knew there was no denying the fact that I had another 600 to 800 kilometers to pedal.
At this point in the race, it was extremely entertaining to watch because the riders had the choice of two different routes to the finish line. Some took the route to Greece via Romania and Bulgaria, and others, like myself chose the route through Romania, Serbia, and Macedonia. You could see the dots on your same route and I started being familiar with the numbers that I recognized. In fact, I could see that Paolo, was stopped right across the street at the sports bar, probably eating dinner, which was literally 20m across the road, but I was so tired, and didn’t have the legs to walk up the stairs and find him. Plus after the pizza and couple of espressos I felt amazing and decided to keep on riding. I had taken a nice snooze in the middle of the day and my spirits were high. I was determined to get a good lead in front of Toastee.
That night I pedaled and pedaled telling myself, “just a little further”. I stopped for ice cream bars and fruit for an energy boost, and could see that I was passing a lot of inactive dots, which kept me motivated to keep on riding. I pushed through until arriving to the outskirts of Craiova, Romania, when I decided to call it a night. I desperately needed to wash out my bum wounds, and looked for a hotel, while still continuing to pedal along. I found what looked to be a trucker hotel, and to my surprise the receptionist was asleep but visible at the front desk. She told me they were full, but I begged and pleaded with her to consider any room or sofa at that point, where I could lie down for a few hours. She came up with a tiny room for me, up two flights of steep narrow stairs, that was extremely hot without any exterior windows and smelled. However, it was just big enough for my bike and had a mini bath tub so I could freshen up.
I remember getting a message from my brother who begged me to sleep more than just 3 hours as I had a substantial lead in front of Toastee, but I put my alarm on for 3 hours after washing up and went to bed. The next morning when I started pedaling, I remember several other riders passing me, and looking rather confused that I had managed to advance them during the night. And it started to be a common occurrence from then on, throughout the last two days until we would all arrive at the finish line. We were all so close together, we ran into each other frequently on the road, each with our own brake schedule, making it so that we passed one another or stayed clustered together. We had all chosen the route through Serbia, Macedonia, and Northern Greece. I had thought that it was flatter and less complicated (avoiding a ferry option) than the alternative route through Bulgaria.
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| You always have time for a good laugh and a quick selfie when you meet other TCR riders, Daniel and Maxime |
My route actually did go through the tiny northwest corner of Bulgaria. I remember vividly coming to a long stream of trucks, backed up on the border trying to get in. I rode right past them, happy to be on a bike and pulled over at a petrol station for some food. I also managed to take a quick power nap, hunched over in a chair on the outside patio. When I woke up, I saw 2 other cyclists ride up, Maxime and Daniel Johansson. We had a fun time catching up. Maxime passed on a few words of wisdom with some bum cream he recommended from France (obviously I couldn’t get my hands on them at the moment) and we all departed at different times. The heat was still unbearable and I needed to stop every 2 or 3 hours to cool off, which meant drinking lots of sugary drinks and eating ice cream. At the next petrol station, I ran into Ian Walker and Michael Wacker (again)! I had seen Ian’s bike set-up in one of the race reports and it seemed he was suffering from saddle sores as well. When I found him at the petrol station, what a laugh we had about our common bum problems. His were so bad, he was riding in track shorts with mesh that had been cut out. What made this set-up complicated, well, I will let you imagine how short track shorts and no lining work out on a bike saddle.
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| Buying ice cream bars at a petrol station with Ian and Michael, I kept finding them on the road while reaching the finish line |
It felt like no sooner did I enter Bulgaria, than I left the country and entered Serbia. Several years ago on my world tour, I had tried to enter Serbia through Kosovo. Despite the help of a few UN officers at the Kosovo-Serbian border, the Serbian border guards would not budge and I had to return the same way I had come, retracing almost 100 kilometers to the Kosovo-Macedonian border. Although President Clinton announced that Kosovo was an independent country almost 20 years ago, Serbia is still bitter about losing control over Kosovo and therefore doesn’t allow anyone to enter through that border, showing others they simply don’t recognize Kosovo as an official country.
This time, I was entering from Romania, on the eastern side of Serbia, and had no problems, thankfully! I had high hopes for the roads in Serbia, don’t ask me why, but I was extremely let down from the moment I crossed. It looked as though the surface hadn’t been repaved in years, if not centuries! I pedaled along until I couldn’t bare the heat anymore around the middle of the day and ran into a few of my regulars at a petrol station, including Michael Wacker, again, still in the same kit but in good spirits compared to the looks of his same dirty and now ripped kit! They were making a quick stop, but I was longing for my midday nap. So I quickly ate some food and took refuge at the abandon restaurant/cafe that was attached to the petrol station, pulling together three chairs so I’d have a surface long enough to lie on. I look back now and think about the places I slept know I could never fall asleep like I did during the race now. But my body was so exhausted, I could have fallen asleep the moment I stopped pedaling regardless of whether I was standing, sitting, or lying down!
There isn’t a tall mountain pass in Serbia to climb, but there also isn’t much flat land in the entire country either! My first night in Serbia, I made it to Nis, a “big” city in Southern Serbia. A city qualifies as being “big” in my opinion, if it has a recognizable restaurant or hotel chain and Nis had a McDonald’s there waiting for me! After making it over a long uphill and descending into Nis, I saw the golden arches. McDonald’s in the land of unknown, is a known quantity, with relatively clean bathrooms, free wifi, and recognizable food items, plus the service is fast! In Serbia I was drawn to the slightly varied menu choices and tried out the Cesar burger and curly fries that caught my attention. Not being a frequent customer, I accidentally ordered some sort of full meal combo with normal fries and ended up with two big size fries in front of me along with a burger, milkshake, and salad. It took me a long time to eat all of that food, and I remember getting some weird stares from the locals sitting around me. I must have looked like a pretty sorry sight. I could see Moms whispering to their kids about me, probably telling them not to stare at me, taking pity on my disturbed looking state-of-being. Ironically, I’ve been on the other side of that conversation, where you see someone who looks so “down-and-out”, in desperate need of cleaning up, and naturally take pity on them.
The longer I stayed at McDonalds, the harder it was to get up. I contemplated continuing to ride, but my body was urging me to get a proper sleep. I thought about lying down on the McDonalds cushioned bench seat until closing, but that would only be 2 more hours. I quickly hopped on Bookings.com and loads of hotel offers popped up around me including one 150 meters across the street from where I was. I had no energy to ride there, and walked my bike across the street. I checked in, wheeled my bike into my room, took a warm shower, washed my bike shorts, and cleaned-up my saddle sores. I don’t know if the pain had dissipated or my tolerance had gone up, because they sure weren’t healing very quickly. If my saddle sores had any time to dry out at all, as soon as I sat down on them, they would bleed. In fact, when I left the hotel the next morning, I also left a big blood stain on the sheets from my saddle sores.
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| The luxury of a hotel, washing your bike shorts and bum to avoid further infection |
Starting to ride that morning, I could see that Toastee had chosen the Bulgarian route, making it an incredibly exciting race, impossible to tell which route would arrive in Greece faster. I was still determined to try to keep a good lead, and woke up early the next morning to set off on what would be my second to last day of the race.
I continued heading south to the Macedonian border. I remembered during my route planning that this area in Southern Serbia seemed rather tricky as there was a new highway and an old highway, parallel to one another and both viable route for bikes. I chose the newer highway, but when I looked down at my Garmin, my dot was in the middle of nowhere, and I couldn’t actually find the route I was supposed to be. The new highway looked like a proper freeway, prohibiting bicycles, although I couldn’t find a sign that specifically stated so. I spent the majority of the morning trying to figure out a viable route. I looked at the tracks of others to see if they had risked taking the main highway, but it was no use. Everyone seemed to be weaving all over the place just like me, unsure what to do. I was getting so fixated on my Garmin, and trying to find the right road to be on, that I missed the turn to go south to the Macedonian border. I headed about 15 km in the wrong direction before I realized this and turned around.
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| Taking a break from the heat. I had a knack for finding "comfy" places to rest |
The road to the border was steep and desolate and the sun beat down on me. The descent to the border was so incredibly bumpy I couldn’t even reach for my water bottle. I was pleasantly surprised to reach the Macedonian border as the officers were unusually nice. They spoke good English, greeted me by name when giving back my passport, and even let me use their toilets, although they were nothing more than a hole in the ground with some running water. I rode just past the border before pulling over to escape the heat and cool down. I didn’t take a nap this time, but used a water hose at a petrol station to wet myself, the next best thing to jumping in a pool or lake. The back roads led into a main road and I continued to ride as far as I could, stopping for an occasional ice cream or beverage to cool off. When I stopped I would look at the other dots and I was surprised to see that Karen Toastee’s dot had been inactive for quite some time! My friends were sending messages like crazy encouraging me to keep on pushing. They’d say only 700 or 500 kilometers to go, as is the distance was not far at all. But I knew my route and I couldn’t get my hopes up, I still had almost 2 days of riding left and anything could happen.
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| I always appreciate the scenery while riding, regardless of the suffering (Macedonian sunset) |
Having a significant lead, my spirits were high but I was quite annoyed at Jonas. I had heard nothing from him after he had arrived at the finish line and I took it personally, feeling neglected. The dangerous part of having so much time to think while riding your bike is that start contemplating different scenarios and think through things way too much. On top of sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion, it is no wonder an endurance rider can actually think straight or make good judgements or safe choices! That night when I stopped for dinner, I called Jonas and basically chewed him out for not giving me any words of encouragement. I didn’t even let the poor guy speak up for himself. Little did I know the sensation that awaited me after crossing the finish line. I was feisty and moody with him and let him have a good earful of my frustration before I hung up. He thought I was going to call it a night and sleep, but my anger had given me a shot of adrenaline and I was ready to hop back on my bike and ride!
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| Sunset in Macedonia the night before crossing the finish line |
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| Dinner in Macedonia, the only thing I could understand on the menu. I know, it doesn't look the most appetizing.... |
I didn’t realize however, the next 50 kilometers were continually uphill and my progress felt slow. I was on a new road and the surface was impeccable, with little traffic. The riding conditions were perfect. The only problem was that I was getting more and more tired. My goal was to reach the top of the climb and descend quickly, but even reaching the top seemed impossible although I could see it in the distance. There was a petrol station at the summit, but I just couldn’t continue to pedal. My eyelids were drooping and as a result my handle bars swerved, quickly waking me up. I was falling asleep on my bike pedaling. This had never happened to me before! I decided to pull over and found a shrine, which I thought was a bit of a message. At some point in time there had been a car accident on this road and the shrine was there to honor and protect those who had died. I chose to sleep there, thinking I was being well looked after and also used the shrine to air out my kit. I knew my family would worry about stopping at the top, so I wrote them a text message. Before I could push send, I had fallen asleep and a few minutes later, I awoke abruptly to my phone ringing. I could see it was my older brother, but didn’t want to pick up to avoid roaming charges. I pushed “send” on the SMS and he wrote back saying “OK”.
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| I thought a shrine was an ideal and safe place to crash for the night |
I didn’t even set my alarm that night, but there must have been some adrenaline in my blood knowing it was the last day of the race. There was also a group of stray dogs barking and wouldn’t be long before they discovered me sleeping. I pedaled for 2 minutes before reaching the top and pulled over at the petrol station for food that was already open. The owners were super nice and let me sit down and eat a more proper breakfast. They asked me where I had slept the night before and were surprised when I told him on the side of the road 500m from here. They offered their camper van to me, but they didn’t realize I was pressed for time now. I descended and continued pedaling, appalled by the road surface ahead. The road was entirely cobblestone, little square stones that made for an ever so bumpy ride.
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| The reason all my saddle sores opened up again in Macedonia, this was the road surface for the majority of my route |
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| Ian in good spirits despite his mountain biking adventure. Look at those cleat, or lack of cleats I should say.... |
Even though I hadn’t gone far, I was getting annoyed with the road surface and decided to stop at a gas station. To my surprise, sitting outside, with a big smile on his face, was Ian Walker. He didn’t look the same as he had the last time I had seen him. Instead he looked like he had gone mountain biking or simply rolled down a huge pile of dirt. Even the soles of his shoes were so worn down he couldn’t clip in any more. It was quite a sight to see! The story he told me was so entertaining, but in reality I considered myself lucky I didn’t make the same route choice he had. It seems there was an alternative road that climbed a similar mountain that I had gone over last night. The only difference was that that road wasn’t paved. Ian said you couldn’t even call it a gravel road, being more like a giant sand pile. He attempted to climb but his tires sunk and he had to push his bike up it for several hours. Thinking he was alone, he was surprised to be greeted by another rider at the top, Daniel Johasson and camped out at the top of the road. They weren’t the only unlucky ones to take that road, many other riders did as well! Considering their ordeal, I felt pretty lucky! After telling me his story he continued riding and I plopped down in his chair and ate some food, although the only thing the store was selling was chips, a bit harsh on the stomach at 9am!
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| The rolling hills in N.Greece were brutal on the homestretch! Photo courtesy of James Robertson |
That day was going to be my last day riding. I knew it would be long, but I thought I would arrive to the finish line around 6 or 7pm. I crossed the Greek border around lunch time. I asked the border guard if a German, Swedish, and English passport holder had gone through recently, he nodded. Those were my buddies, just ahead of me. We were all on the home stretch. Riding in Northern Greece was a lot more isolated than I imagined. No wonder Jonas had not found a bike shop to fix his flat tires! I managed to pull over and rest a bit at a petrol station. I tried to set my alarm to take a nap, but I had fallen asleep before I actually pushed set. The noise and heat in the bar at the station awoke me after a half hour and I knew I needed to keep on riding.
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| I passed through very few towns in N. Greece, it was quite an isolated area. Photo courtesy of James Robertson |
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| My last ice cream bar of the race. I think I ate a total of 5 that day! Photo courtesy of James Robertson |
In the early afternoon the media car found me. Since they always found me close a checkpoint, I thought I was near the finish line. But I knew that I had at least 200km to ride, my Garmin had my programmed route and there were no shortcuts. They took some great shots of me struggling slowly up the curvy hilly roads. I pulled over in a little town to get some ice cream and got lost trying to leave. People in the town saw me riding in circles and eventually yelled at me to tell me where to go. Obviously other riders had been through this town as well! No sooner was I back on my own cycling when I really started to feel like my progress was slow! I felt as though I had a flat tire. I stopped and felt my tires, just to be extra careful and realized I had very little pressure in the back. It was then when I got out my pump I noticed that my hands were frozen in the position as if I were gripping my hoods. I had lost my dexterity and could tell I had some nerve damage. It wouldn’t have been a big problem except for the fact that I was trying to use some fine motor skills to pump up my tire and I couldn’t. I tried as hard as I could to pump air into it. I didn’t want to lose too much time. I felt like I was close, but at the same time, I could tell I had another 40 to 50 kilometers to the finish line. I could tell I was running out of energy, my body was begging me to be done with the race, but I wasn’t going to stop until I had crossed the finish line.
Again I felt like I was doing an awful lot of effort for at which I was advancing. I dreaded feeling my tire, scared I had a true puncture. Sure enough I did! I panicked before I actually stopped, going through my options in my head. I knew I wouldn’t be able to change my flat tire, I didn’t have the hand strength to even use my pump. I could have fumbled with the tube for hours and watch Toastee whiz past me. I couldn’t walk or run the last part because I still had a good 20ks left. My only option was to stop and pump up my tire every 2 or 3 kilometers and hope that it was a very slow release flat. I pulled over at a bar, quickly stocked up on some sugary drinks, and pumped up. At the same time, my ipod went dead and I had no music to get me through the last part of the race. All the powers of the world seemed to working against me.
I could tell people were anxiously awaiting me. I saw messages saying, “Where are you?” “Are you OK?” “Has something happened?” and the best one, directly asked me, “Why are you going so slowly!” People following the TCR only see a dot, it is hard for them to comprehend what we see in front of us, looking over our front wheel. By this time, hight had come and it was dark. The only light beside an occasional street light every 500m was the green line on my Garmin, showing a huge squiggly line indicating the switchbacks and turns I would have to make as I made the last climb with an average gradient around 8%. I don’t know how I managed to do it, but I rode out of my saddle for the last 5 or 6 km hoping that would make the air in my back tire last longer. I cursed Mike Hall, I wanted to cry, but determination kept me from doing so. When I made it to the top, I reconsidered my options: descend on a flat, trying to change my tire, walking or running down,.....? I remember writing my family and telling them what had happened, because I could see they were extremely anxious. They all had advice do offer, the best being one of my brothers who told me to “Froom it!” But I knew what I was going to do! I would ride cautiously down, trying to avoid pumping the back tire up again. I desperately wanted to cross the finish line and be done! More importantly I really wanted to sleep; sleep uninterrupted until I couldn’t sleep any longer without any pressure to get back on my bike!
The descent somehow felt longer than the climb. I was sad I was missing all the gorgeous scenery. Meteora is known for monasteries perched on rocky cliff formations. I could imagine something like Montserrat outside of Barcelona, but since it was dark, it was hard to see anything. I started to doubt my route on my Garmin, thinking I might have made a wrong turn. I got paranoid Toastee was going to whiz by and pass me. I was starting to get delirious! I finally arrived to a town, which seemed to be Meteora, but my Garmin route wasn’t finished. I kept riding and riding, passing from one side of town to the other, until I came to the end of the town and saw the turn off for the hotel. There waiting in the parking lot, to my surprise, were loads of people. I was so tired, I didn’t know how to react except to continue on in race mode. I wanted to get my final stamp in my brevet card, I wanted it to be official that I was finished!
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| Rolling up to the finish line, my hands were totally numb |
I walked, or rather waddled up to the desk where the volunteers were, and plopped myself down in the seat. I handed them my Brevet card and tried to talk for a little bit. Jonas undid my helmet, then I curled up into a little ball and tried to sleep. I couldn’t hold back the urge regardless of the party going on around me. My body was done! It had made it to the finish line, not 100m less nor 100m more!
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| I had no hand strength left to undo my helmet! Photo courtesy of Lian van Leeuwen. |
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| I fell asleep with a Fanta in my hand. Photo courtesy of Lian van Leeuwen. |
I had answered the question I had posed to myself years ago when I had first heard about the Transcontinental Race. Can I do something like this? Am I capable of cycling such an absurd distance completely self-supported? I couldn’t fathom actually doing the average daily kilometers for 14 days, but somehow I had just managed to do so. And how? I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this question and I’ll spare you that blog post for now. I actually think I could write a book to explain the “how” behind such an event, the “why I am the way I am”. The important part is that I finished the race, achieving the goal I had set out to achieve, finishing in under 14 days to qualify as a “finisher”! And it just so happened that I was the first woman to cross the finish line as well!
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| Done, finished, finito....I couldn't have pedaled another kilometer! Photo courtesy of Lian van Leeuwen. |
