Day 5: Kalocsa to Vukovar

This was a brutally hard day for a variety of reasons. By the end I was sore, scared, dehydrated and tired. If I could have teleported myself to Bucharest I would have.

However, the day started well. My cycling gear had dried enough that they didn’t actually drip when I put them on which is a strong result in my book. The breakfast at the Club 502 was slightly funky but the waiter mainlined endless strong black coffee into me which made the food taste better and also made my eyeballs vibrate.

The route would take me back to the Danube and along it on the left bank for a while before crossing the Danube at Mohacs and working cross country to Osijek and Vukovar. On the way to the Danube from Kalocsa, it was cool (7am helps) and the tree lined road was beautiful in the early morning sun. Sadly, all the black coffee meant that I had to stop pretty quickly and nip behind one of the trees.

One of these lovely trees was defiled.

As soon as I reached the Danube I was directed by the shadowy EuroVelo 6 designers back up onto the flood dyke and it was yet another gravel path.

Oh pants

Today was going to be a long long day and I really didn’t need more of this gravelly crap. That being said, complaining about it wasn’t going to get me to Vukovar so I fired up my indomitable will and just got on with it. 30 km on gravel gives you ample opportunity to become acquainted with the subtle differences between different types of surface on a gravel ride. There’s the “nice gravel” which is mainly small 1cm stones embedded in sand and on this surface you can whizz along at a reasonable speed. There’s “sand” which, when you hit it at speed, grabs your front wheel and you wobble about like a Weeble. And then there’s the type of gravel which I like to call “death nuggets”. Big massive stones the size of cricket balls carelessly tossed into emerging pot holes. There were some scary encounters with death nuggets.

The kilometres slowly ticked down. On my left were the endless fields of maize and sunflowers stretching to the rapidly heating up horizon. On my right was the riparian forest which sits between the dykes and the river presumably to stabilise the ground in the event of a flood. I saw a couple of deer and a red kite dive-bombing a rabbit. It was like the Serengeti.

After what seemed like a very long time the EV6 folks (or maybe the Hungarian Government) decided to stick some asphalt on top of the gravel and my speed practically doubled. The scenery didn’t change. Riparian forest on the right, fields on the left.

It was like this for a long long time. Geodesic straight.

I’d planned a quick stop in Baja to pick up some liquids and it turned out to be a lovely little place with cafes along shore the little arm of the Danube that comes through here. Sailing boats, people on their holidays and a really lovely vibe.

Unless I tell you otherwise, this is what I have at every stop.

Like everywhere in Hungary, it took way too long to serve me one coffee, two cokes, a bottle of water and some ice. I wasn’t in a rush (yet) so my blood pressure didn’t rise too much.

The geography is pretty confusing around here with all the various arms and tributaries of the Danube but after some aimless wandering I found the bit of the route I wanted and crossed this very cool bike bridge.

Nice cycling infrastructure Hungary

There was a combination of asphalt on the dykes and some roads so I arrived in Mohacs precisely on time to get the Ferry. The ferry is about 700 years old and moves at a glacial pace.

Ferry Across the Danube (sing that one Gerry and the Pacemakers!)

There was an ice cream shop at the top of the disembarkation ramp in Mohacs and I got my fix of Nestea and lemon sorbet. Top tip: pour the Nestea into the lemon sorbet for a lemony treat. Ok, ok...I suspect my critical faculties when it comes to food aren’t fully functional but I loved it.

About to create some Heston Blumental level magic…

Very soon after this, I ended up cycling on top of a dyke but with the riparian trees on the left and the fields on the right. A shocking innovation but here I was…on the right bank of the Danube. It was an asphalted path which makes everything ok.

This part of the route is also part of Eurovelo 13 which follows the Iron Curtain from Finland to Bulgaria. Tim Moore’s book The Cyclist Who Went Out In The Cold” is his story of cycling the full 9000 km on 1970s East German shopper bike. I blame Mr Moore for turning me on to these stupid cycling trips but I thoroughly recommend the book. It is very funny.

Two EV routes in one!

My podcast app had stopped working so it was time to break out music. It is well known that music adds 5km/h to your speed and 50W to your power. I started tearing along the dyke singing at the top of my voice without fear of anybody hearing me because this is a very very lightly peopled place.

For the full experience, watch the video. This is what it was like pretty much all the way from Mohacs.

Turn your sound up!!

It wasn’t all Dad Rock. I listened to guitar boy bands (I guess Busted are probably Dad Rock too by now), a complete mix of 1970s funk disco and two albums of Ashley McBride.

Right at the end of the video you will see me cycling past some important looking signs. Yes, they were important, EV6 left the dyke at this point and headed away from the Danube for some cross country fun on real roads.

Like this one.

Bowel loosening fun.

I was heading towards the border between Hungary and Croatia -- or Hrvatska as it is correctly known.

It was a little bit of a bittersweet moment as I came closer to the border. This was supposed to be my third border of the trip. Austria to Slovakia then Slovakia to Hungary but thanks to Michael O’Leary, that didn’t happen.

Ugly remnants of a different time.

Of course, Hungary and Croatia are both in the Schengen zone so I pootled through the border without any hassle at all. Schengen is great. We should be part of it…oh wait.

A happy man at a border

Just after the border, the odometer clicked over to 100km done and just over 100km to go. It was already 1pm and it was getting hot. I know that it looks cloudy but even with the cloud it was pushing 34C for most of the day.

The rest of the day was going to be on roads — although at this point I didn’t know just how terrifying the roads were going to be.

Let’s hope it’s not a Klein Bottle village! Obligatory maths joke.

Very soon after this, it wasn’t the topology I was worrying about, it was the topography. After a very long period of flatness as far as the eye could see, a line of hills appeared on the horizon. After the pan flat Great Hungarian Plain, this looked like the Col de Tourmalet to me.

What are these strange lumpy things in the distance?

As the hill started, I passed another Eurovelo 6 compañero. The fool was carrying about 25kg of gear on his bike and at least 20kg round his waist. I put the hammer down and smoothly swept by him. I would soon regret burning a few of my limited supply of energy doing this.

This is not classy long distance cycling.

The road almost immediately branched off onto a tiny but well tarmaced mountain road. The previous two days have been so flat that I have not bothered the four easiest gears on the bike. There was dust on the cogs. Those cogs were in for a shock.

The gradient got steeper, I started struggling and I slammed the bike into the “granny gear. It got steeper again. I would struggle on 14% with no luggage and fresh legs. With the bean of doom on the back and 120 km already in my legs today I was finished. I walked the walk-of-shame.

Nice surface, shame about the gradient.

At least the bloke I had powered past at the bottom didn’t catch me up. That would have been humiliating. As I struggled up the hill, I looked forward to the downhill, foolishly as it would turn out. At the summit, the EV6 sign pointed down here.

You are joking!

This was marked as an unpaved path but it was just the margin of a field. It was hard enough on the flat bit at the top but once it tipped downwards at a white knuckle enducing 15%, I was holding on for dear life as the bike slithered around under me. It would have been difficult on a full mountain bike. It was right at the limit of what a gravel bike can do. Everything hurt. Hands, feet…and my "other bits".

When I finally got onto some tarmac I was shaking. I still had 70 km to go, 30 km to Osijek and I was running on fumes.

As I followed the route, the next turning was down another farm track. I said a lot of exceptionally rude words. Checking the map it turned out that if I followed the busy main road straight to Osijek it would cut 10 km off the route. Suddenly 203 km had become 193 km.

These were not pleasant kilometres. The roads were undulating, the traffic was busy. I finally made it into Osijek but my routing was messed up and I ended up manhandling the bike up three flights of stairs to get onto the bridge across yet another tributary of the Danube.

Osijek looked nice but I was running out of time. I had 40 km to go and that seemed inconceivable to me in my current state. Sadly the route I was going to take was…unavailable.

Fuck

On my way out of Osijek attempting to reconnect with the EV6 route, I saw a sign saying “Vukovar 30km”. I could save another 10 km by taking the route on the D2.

I was committed to this route before the penny dropped. A road with a small number is going to be an important big road and so it turned out to be. Whilst the D2 is not a motorway, it’s a very fast and very straight main arterial road between Croatia and Serbia. I had a choice, backtrack to Osijek and try to find the longer but safer route or just screw my courage (or foolishness) to the sticking place and do the fast, scary and dangerous route. It’s a sign of how completely empty I was that I chose the stupid option.

I had 30 km on this terrifying road. Obviously no music since big articulated lorries were coming past at 100 km per hour. There were cars coming even faster and ff there was traffic coming in the other direction both the lorries and the cars used this as an opportunity to get as close as possible to the cyclist hugging the white line on the right.

In retrospect I’m surprised I survived.

I stopped occasionally to get my heart rate back under control. All that off-road stuff has made my lovely bike very dirty. As I would find out when I washed my kit and my body this evening, both were also this dirty.

Sad

With only 10 km to go I found a garage and reloaded on liquids and sugar. Normally when it’s 10 km to go I get a little spurt of energy and joy. This was joyless ground-state-energy cycling.

An innovative hydration and nutrition strategy

This gave me enough to get into Vukovar.

Vukovar was ground zero when the old Yugoslavia fractured and blew up. Unlike Czechoslovakia, which seemed to amicably split into Czechia and Slovakia and everybody seemed to get what they wanted (although obviously the “O”s got a pretty rough deal), Yugoslavia endured what would be called the most vicious land fighting in Europe since 1945. Ukraine has now taken that crown but we should not forget how brutal this conflict was.

A reminder

This is a lighthearted cycling blog but the history goes a bit like this.

Vukovar like almost every other town on the Danube has a standard history. Romans come, occasionally cross Danube to beat up tribes on the other side, tribes on the other side eventually force back the Romans and kill a lot of people. States form and they all fight each other and kill a lot of people. Then the Ottomans arrive, kill a lot of people and hold on for a while. Then the Habsburgs come and, after killing a lot of people, force the Ottomans back. WW1 is confusing. Some states form. People die or get displaced. Then the Nazis come and roll over everywhere killing a lot of people and a few years later the Russians come and fight the Nazis and kill a lot of people too.

The Yugoslav civil wars add another chapter to this horror. After trying to peacefully leave after a referendum, the Croatians were attacked by the Serbs and this started at Vukovar. There was an 87 day siege where 12,000 artillery shells were fired every single dayby the Serbs (who numbered about 35,000) on about 3,000 defenders. The town was levelled. After the siege it is estimated that 1,800 soldiers and civilians were killed and 800 were missing. If that wasn’t bad enough the Serbian militias were then the instigators of the Vukovar Massacre.

Soon after this the Serbian army gave up. They were out of energy and since then they’ve really been the Bad Boys Of Central Europe.

This highly summarised version of the history is considered contentious by some people. Although how contentious you think it is is almost certainly directly proportional to how Serbian you are.

By complete chance, this was Victory Day in Croatia. Everybody was out on the streets celebrating them winning their independence from the former Yugoslavia. There were pictures of Croatian fast jets in the news and embarrassed looking generals in their best uniforms being interviewed on the TV.

The Hotel Lav was much nicer than its reviews suggest and my room had a bath but No heated towel rail though.

I was bored with Pizza so I went to the “best restaurant in Vukovar”. Given it was Victory Day, it was absolutely jumping. There was a confusing menu and so random poking at the menu resulted in the waitress bringing me this.

Meat in a pitta with chips and mystery red sauce.

After 60 minutes trying to eat it that’s what’s left.

That was one of the hardest days on the bike I have ever had. Tomorrow is a bit shorter at 150k and then I’ll be in Belgrade (the capital of Bad Boy Serbia). I’ve decided I’m going to have rest day in Belgrade and explore a bit. It will be good to rest for a day.

The Stats:

• Distance 187km — too far
• Average Speed 22.2km/h — surprisingly high given the off-road component today.
• Average HR 129 — This is way way too high for long distance cycling. Got to keep this under control.
• Body parts. Everything hurts. Hope they fix themselves tomorrow.

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