Tatra Mountains (day 49-52)
Day 49-52 (30th Sept - 3rd Oct)
4453 Miles
Warsaw - Budapest
Whilst I was in Stockholm on my day of admin, I did some future planning to help gauge daily mileage and time scales, and as part of that I wanted to look into how complex it was to get the ferry from Baku in Azerbaijan to Kazakhstan. I'd read it wasn't straight forward, with various bloggers producing 'how to' guides on websites riddled with advertising, but eventually giving the useful bits of information about frequency, ambuguity of schedule and where to buy tickets. I was starting to get the feeling for it, and noticed a tiny comment on one of the blogs about getting into Azerbaijan. I knew the border with Armenia had been shut for a long time, but it turns out all land and sea borders are closed to non-commercial entry. They were shut in 2020 in response to COVID, but have remained closed for what feels like thin excuses relating to 'external threats' without actually saying what those are, and the people of Azerbaijan as well as many others aren't too thrilled by it, which now includes me. The slither of hope I had was for the review of circumstance on the 1st Oct, but the closure was extended for a further 3 months which appears to be the status quo.
The upshot of this is that unless I can find a convoluted way to commercially transport my bike into Azerbaijan and fly there myself (air borders are open), or skip it entirely and meet the bike in Kazakhstan, then the 'stan portion of this trip is a non-starter and the most east I can get is Georgia. The alternative routes aren't geopolitically something I want to tackle, for loads of obvious reasons. I am intending to drive up to the border and say hello because I have nothing to lose, and who knows, maybe the border guards like my smile.
The next day in Warsaw was productive. I got a message early doors that the parcel was out for delivery, which was promisng - I just had to get myself ready and wait for the confirmation of delivery before I nipped up to where it would be and start the task of swapping the final drive over. At midday Evie messaged to say I should check the courier as something had happened - I looked, delivery failed. One of the employees at the address it was being sent to, didn't recognise my name and refused to accept it. I had the parcel in my name rather than her cousins' as it gave me the ability to fight through the customs, and find out information on it, I’d had to prove who I was multiple times by this stage so I was glad to be the named recipient - but I hadn't mentioned this to the address it was being sent, and I didn't realise it was a commercial address. I phoned DHL and managed to find someone who offered to get the delivery driver on the phone and work out the best solution. They had travelled too far from the address but would leave it at a service point this afternoon where I could collect - ideal.
I assembled all my tools and bits for the job then rode to a shopping centre north of the city to finally pick up the battered box I'd been waiting for. I opened it and demolished a packet of Revels before I even unwrapped the final drive and tools, then looked around to find somewhere suitable to do the job. Theoretically I had everything I needed to do it, it was a sunny afternoon, so I set to it. The old drive was removed and laying on the floor within 30 minutes, but my plan to scavange grease from the knuckle of the drive shaft let me down, there wasn't any spare grease on it to lube the splines. After a quick search online I found a small workshop near by and went to see if I could get a dollop. It looked closed but as I was turning to leave someone opened the door and without a word of common language but some inventive gesticulation, I was scooping some heavy grease from an unknown tube and heading back to the bike a few minutes later. With the rest of the build complete, I went back to the chap across the road to borrow a torque wrench for the pivot bearing, gifted him a packet of jelly babies and the surplus 80% of the oil I bought, and the job was completed. There was no discernable play in the bearing at all, which was dramatically different to the previous (even before the crash), and when running on the centre stand the wheel and disc ran true - the swap was worth the effort.
Riding back to the hostel the bike felt smooth, quiet and solid in corners and under hard acceleration, the final piece of the mechanical puzzle created by the crash was complete and I felt a lot more comfortable with the bike again. I spent the evening chatting to Atrula, a traveller from Mexico who has been remotely working from all over the world for 3 years, listening to the challenges and positives of the lifestyle.
The first stop in the morning was to dispose of the old final drive. I had intended to send it home but the hassle of postage put me off and the drive was damaged anyway so probably not worth keeping. Unable to find anywhere in the city itself I found a scrap yard on the way down toward Krakow so would get an hour of riding with the new one again to build my confidence before binning the old (internally struggling to throw anything away here). Before I left Warsaw I bought some new running shoes, as the cinamon buns and pastries are slowly filling the gaps in my riding suit and I sent my shoes back from Norway thinking I'd get no opportunity to run but have had loads since then and am still on the road for many moons.
An hour later I swapped the final drive which had a damaged value of maybe £300, for £1.40 worth of zloty's in mixed scrap metal weight, with a reluctant proprietor. I managed to park on the weighbridge at the yard to discover the loaded weight of the bike is 340kg, pretty chunky thing to lift if/when I ultimately drop it. The ride south through Poland was sunny but slightly chilly, with a sense of autumn quickly setting in - some of my favourite seasonal weather with the reds and pinks in the sky before the sun sets and the low lying mist and smoke from chimney fires held down by the cold air across the countryside. I was aiming for Suloszowa - a farming town whos inhabitants all live along one road with the strips of narrow farmland branching out in an almost herringbone pattern from the middle.
I got a few photos and videos from the drone to get a proper perspective of the town as it just felt like a normal street from the ground, then set off to find somewhere to sleep a little later than intended. Dark had set in as I rode to the turning Tom had found on Google for me to investigate - a double width mountain bike trail up a small flat bottomed valley. A little wobbly on the uneven ground I made my way up the valley through a field of particulrly vigorous moles and pitched up as it started to spit.
Sleep was broken in the night by the sound of barking dogs as I lay there trying to work out whether they were getting closer or not, then again with how cold my toes were a few hours later. The morning was calm and quiet, mist in the trees on both sides of the valley as I washed the pots from rice and mackerel the previous night and packed up the tent.
I rode for a few hours in the rain around the outside of Krakow straddling the centre line of a 10 mile queue backed up from a car and lorry interaction leaving the lorry on its side, before heading south into the Tatra Mountains. The rain held its breath but the mist and cloud lingered so I only sporadically glimpsed the snow capped mountains around me as I climbed. Shortly after crossing the border into Slovakia I started looking for somewhere to sleep with the sunset catching me out with how early it was, again. I found a little road which turned into a track, then a claggy clay trail, heading straight into the mountains through thick forest. I realised it wasn't going to give me what I needed, but had also passed all options to turn around. The trail was as wide as my bike is long, with steep banks, and deep ruts from 4x4s cutting their way up - perfect for a slow motion bike accident in the middle of nowhere.
I started rolling backward with the engine off and using the clutch in gear as a rear brake, unable to turn the front sideways to start a turn as the clay kept it sliding straight backwards. A couple of times my footing slipped down into the deep ruts from the centre, as I strained pretty hard to keep it upright, until I found a spot I could get the rear out of the centre and to one side, allowing the front to go on the other, then 'wiggle' the bars to slowly slip the front down past the centre point of the turn. It wasn't a great 30 minutes, but I managed to get the bike round and off the clay without injury, this time! The village was an out-of-season ski resort with the steep grassy slopes rising straight out of the centre and ski lifts on the hillside. I decided to try and find a spot at the top of one and lent over the rear to get traction - riding straight up a wet ski slope to the top, high above the village. I found a little forest track that plateaued out an was blocked by fallen trees, out of sight from the world around - perfect.
I made camp and rigged up a tarp to hide from the rain as I made dinner and listened to the call of deer in the forests around me before wrapping up better than last night and sleeping 3800ft above sea level.
Budapest was a 6 hour ride away and the forecast gave rain for the next few days so I made a plan to head there and stay in a hostel for a couple of nights, giving me the chance to find some thermal leggings to help riding through the cold, and pick up some more Yorkshire tea bags as I'm down to my last 3, and didn't want to find out what a world without tea was like. The meandering roads out of the moutains gave me hours of twisty fun dry roads to play on, even fully laden the bike can be thrown around and opened up into sweeping bends. Its a shame the Tatra Mountains are so far from home, the open meadows and roads make it an incredible place to ride and I know there are many more mountain passes and hiking trails through the range to explore another day.
The end of the day was sat on a motorway head down through rain to get to the city, where I found the hostel and managed to tuck the bike right outside the front, unload gear then start airing some of it on my bed and in the luggage room - I bet the other travellers love sharing a room with a biker, lucky them.
