Greetings from Dubrovnik

At 09:57 on Friday 27th May 2016, Mr. Graham Burfoot finally entered the digital age. After previous encouragement by his daughter, who explained that social media was an effective way to communicate with the world, Graham had been assiduously posting updates on Facebook for many months. Graham admits to having started wondering who might be reading his pithy insights into the management of grounds maintenance businesses in Wiltshire or listening to his appeals for the return of a dog kennel he had lent out to someone many years previously until, on this particular morning, Jeremy explained that to get the most out of Facebook, you actually need to connect with one or two ‘Friends’, a concept which up until this particular moment was completely unfamiliar to Graham. We fear that this epiphany will change Graham’s life forever and of greater concern, the lives of everyone he has ever met.

A ferry trip that changed Graham's life

This watershed moment happened on the ferry between Korcula and Orebic, a 20 minute trip that took us back to the mainland and heralded the beginning of the final day of our Croatian tour. As with so many mornings on this trip, our route took us away from the coast and back up into the mountains, a stiff 1000 meter climb up good roads to get things going. On the ferry crossing we had met a party of Americans on a cycle tour of Croatia. All their bicycles were neatly installed on the top of a mini-bus; “we don’t really do hills” they explained. We ventured to suggest that they had perhaps come to the wrong country but they didn't seem to get the point; anyway we had a cherry reunion at the top of the first climb.

More than one way to get up a hill with a bicycle

The plan was to more or less follow the coast down to Dubrovnik but Chris who had planned this truly spectacular tour for us, had a few surprises yet in store. The morning was spent on wonderful sweeping coast roads, warm sunshine and spectacular views of the sea. After a good pasta lunch in Ston, an old fortified town with town walls that almost impossibly reached up from the coast into the high mountains, the climbing once again started in earnest. We turned onto small roads that took us up to about 400 meters in the hills around Osojnik. These roads were not nicely engineered with Alpine hairpins to manage the gradient, they were straight up and over, and with gears and thighs straining, Dubrovnik eventually came into view on the coast below. Down from the mountains, across the Franjo Tudman Bridge and on into Dubrovink where we got to the rather excellent Grand Villa Argentina at about 6. It has to be said, that we were expecting a bit of a heroes welcome from our wives who had travelled out to meet us but needless to say there was no sign of them, they were off in some bar chatting up the local talent no doubt.

Dubrovnik is everything it's cracked up to be. The fascinating walled city, beautifully re-built and as far as one could see with every single roof replaced after the place had been heavily shelled during the 1990s conflict. Wonderfully warm and hospitable people, excellent food, just the place to relax with friends after 900km on a bicycle saddle!

Dubrovnik - beautifully rebuilt

An so the 5th tour comes to a close. Less novel than Land’s End to John O’Groats, less familiar than Oxford to Venice, less challenging than Venice to Sicily, less wet than Lisbon to Valencia but as always, the company and the cycling were just excellent and a welcome break from the busy and complicated lives that everyone seems to lead these days. Thank you Harley, Graham, Chris, Jeremy and the wonderfully hospitable people of Slovenia and Croatia for an excellent and memorable few days.

Overall stats for the trip.

537 miles (865km)
12,592 meters of climbing

GPX file of today's route Korcula to Dubrovnik

Greetings from Korcula

It was an early start this morning. As we had a somewhat different day planned. The idea was to cycle down to Split and then get the ferry across to Korcula, a narrow and as it turns out, beautiful island which runs parallel with the coast for 30 miles. The slight challenge was that Split was about a 50 mile ride and we had to be there for the ferry at 10 am. So it was breakfast at five, departure at 05:30. The hotel were brilliant, the Night Manager had laid out a full breakfast for us and although our initial interactions of the day could best be described as monosyllabic, we were on the bikes by 05:40.

There’s something rather appealing about cycling through large towns first thing in the morning, deserted streets, the first weary locals making their way to work, the smell of baking bread. We were soon out of Sibenik and once again heading south. Moisture lay heavy in the cold morning air as we started the first climb of the day, about 400 meters of climb through countryside whose appeal was increasing the more we saw of it, the gentle rustic charm of this place is infectious.

And speaking of infectious, the flu like bug that Chris had been kind enough to bring with him had now properly landed with Graham and Jeremy and I are not I fear, very far behind. How Graham made it through the day I don’t know, coughing like a cold diesel engine on every hill.
We made it to Split in good time and boarded the ferry for the three hour crossing to Korcula.

Nice to be off the saddle for a couple of hours

As soon as the bikes were safely stowed away, we went up stairs and basically slept for the next three hours until we got to our destination.

Last man standing

The afternoon was by common consent, the best ride of the trip so far, long smooth roads through this deserted island with a Mediterranean feel. Olive groves, vineyards, granite mountains and warm summer sunshine on our backs. Long climbs and sweeping hairpin down hills which we flew down following the natural ‘race line’ of the roads.

Cycled the length of the island and got into the enchanting town of Korcula about 5. The Korcula hotel is a lovely old place with fine rooms over looking the harbour and charming, attentive staff. Dinner in Filippi Restaurant, an avant-garde, organic establishment. Good food excellent local wine. The bed. Last day tomorrow

77 miles (124 km) 5,500 feet of climbing (1676  meters)

GPX files of today's route Sibenik to Split   Vela Luka to Korcula

Gretings from Sibenik

The Great Lakes Hotel in Plitvicka National Park  was excellent, big airy rooms and anyone who actually volunteers to wash Harley’s cycling shorts will always get my vote. Added to which, our hostess had gone to the trouble of making us sandwiches for our journey.

Grand Lakes, excellnt place to stay

 We left at 8 AM, a cold grey morning and  headed south for the coast touching the Bosnian boarder. The scenery in this country is spectacular; mountain ranges dissolving into mighty forests and then on into wide open planes dotted with small villages and farming communities. Just by a field full of derelict T72 tanks the sun burst through and it became excellent cycling weather. The climbing we had done the previous day and continued with this morning, paid off as proximity to the coast meant a glorious descent off the mountains, ten miles of long sweeping downhill hairpins in bright sunshine – the perfect cycling experience.

This really is a wonderful country

Stopped for coffee in the little quiet town of Kornica at which point Graham began to negotiate for the use of the team bandage to protect his arm from sunburn. Now you have to understand the team bandage has remained unused on our travels from the north of Scotland to Sicily and by common consent, requires a special kind of injury to justify unwrapping and use. After careful deliberation, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence determined that the use of the team bandage was not in fact justified as evidence of real injury had to be shown and that Graham should continue with the suntan lotion like everyone else. Graham fashioned an interesting alternative comprising toilet paper and string.

By the way, today’s BREXIT arguments for leaving seen to centre on the ideas that the EU restricts the UK’s “right to choose” even though the referendum itself seems to represent a pretty fundamental preservation of this right and some guff about EU trade deals taking too long to negotiate. On the remain side the main theme was around the importance making the world a better, more reasonable place and as the UK is in point of fact, not a super power, its probably better to work with others to improve the lot of mankind rather than pretend we can still attempt it alone. Maintaining unrestricted access to French cheese also seems a key issue.
Lunch in at a road side cafe outside Gracac, a place that gave one the impression that the last time they had had to serve 5 people at the same time for lunch was the late 1970s and then onto long straight roads taking us down towards the coast. Ice creams from a suprmarket, consumed under the watchful gaze of some garden gnomes and then got to the Life Palace hotel in Sebenik on the coast about 6.

Sebenik

Today’s stats. 115 miles (185 km) 6,000 ft climbing Average 15.3 mph (24 kph)

Keep you posted

GPX file of today's route  Plitvice Lakes to Sibenik

 

Greetings from Plitvicka Jezera

The forecast was for rain in the morning and thankfully we woke to clear skies, brooding dark clouds stayed someway down the coast. We left the hotel at 8:00 and retraced our route back across the spectacular Krk bridge and then turned south for a ride along the coast.

Weather kept fine and a great ride along the granite coastline. Stopped in Sibinj for coffee before the first serious climb of the day a relatively gentle 10 kilometre, 1000 meter climb up into the mountains overlooking the coast from where we turned inland towards our destination in the Plitvicka Jezera National Park

First climb of the day

As we cycled through the countryside we got our first real impression of the devastation caused by the Serbian – Croatian war nearly 25 years ago. We passed through villages that seemed deserted, burnt out houses with missing roofs, bullet holes pockmarking nearly every building and pathetic memorials by the side of the road, no doubt marking the site of some atrocity. The grey, windswept afternoon somehow creating an appropriate backdrop to this melancholy scene. Sometimes it is easy to forget that living in a country that has known only peace for decades is the exception rather than the rule.

And the bullet holes...

Our route took us deep into the ancient forests of this national park. Tiny roads ran parallel with murmuring streams dark under the canopy of this ancient woodland. One last climb and got to the hotel about 6. Excellent fish supper.


Todays stats
95 miles, 8,700 ft. of climbing. Average 13 mph

Keep you posted

GPX file of today's route  Krk to Plitvice Lakes

Greetings from Krk

Departed The Hotel Piran this morning at 08:00 and straight into a big climb to take us from the coast back into the mountains.  Spent the morning up in the mountains, beautiful scenery, great vistas of thick forest dotted with tiny villages. We got to the Croatian boarder, rather uninterested security guards checked our passports, the flags at the boarder bringing back uncomfortable memories of the conflict that raveged the Blakerns during the 1990s.

At the border

After a sharp descent we got to Buzet and stopped for coffee. A small rather uninteresting place with the only redeming feature being a cashpoint machine which allowed us to get some local currency.

We then got involved in the silliest climb I’ve ever done on a bike. Over 6k at an average 12 % gradient taking us up well over 1000 meters. All of us completely knackered and rather quiet.

Water stop half way up the crazy hill

As you can imagine the trip down the other side was entertaining, especially as it had started to rain pretty hard. As we swept round one of the hairpins with only an inadequate, communist era barrier separating us from the sheer drop and oblivion, we saw what looked like the remains of Chris’ bike, on the wrong side of the barrier, the front wheel making its few final turns. Jeremy and I leapt off our bikes and lent over the barrier, no sign of Chris. “Chris”, “Chris where are you” we screamed, the panic rising in our voices. Graham then arrives at the site of the emergency, he too peers over the barrier. “that’s ruined my holiday” he complained. At this point Chris burst out of the bushes “Only Joking” he says, “I thought you needed cheering up” We all rode off in silence!

... and a long way down

Today’s BREXIT arguments centre around the idea that Croatia has the sort of similar loose arrangement that we would have if we left the EU. Croatia has appalling roads, an extensive selection of ancient, damaged white goods by the side of the roads and lots of builders covering up the remaining bullet holes in shabby houses, do we want this for the UK? On the pro BREXIT side, few sensibly formed arguments today, as one of my old Bosses used to have printed on the back of his business cards, “The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinions”

Lunch in Opatija, excellent and much needed plate of pasta then the final 40 miles to Malinska in the rain and the excellent Vila Rova.

As soon as we got in some of the chaps went for a swin in the inviting outdoor pool. Now some things we can fix like mending Chris derailleur after his bike fell over at lunch, others have proved more challenging like trying to get a volunteer to rescue Graham’s glasses from the bottom of pool. Graham started dinner in his shades, looking exactly like a drug dealer. Harley, who is a nice man and became concerned that the hotel staff were actually starting to believe he was a drug dealer, eventually consented to go fishing for them.

They went down to the pool and Harley stripped down to his shorts and dived in. He couldn’t dive deep enough with his shorts on so stripped off completely and tried again. Whilst this was going on, Graham went off to get the receptionist to turn the pool lights on. He and the voluptuous Svetlana returned to the pool; Harley had already recovered the glasses. With the crisis averted, , Svetlana stood at the end of the pool and instructed him to get out as “I have to get back to reception”, “I’ll get out in a minute” says Harley. “No, you have to get out now” came the response. Harley was last seen running away from the receptionist hands clutching his crown jewels. He hasn’t come down to dinner yet...

Today’s stats 90 miles / 146 KM and 10,000 feet of climbing phew!

Keep you posted

GPX file of today's route  Piran to Krk

Greetings from Piran

Departed from the hotel Cubo in Ljubljana at 8 and after one bollocking from a scary Slovenian police woman for not using the cycle paths and a bottle of beetroot juice falling under the wheels of a truck, which apparently was going to make Jeremy more intelligent and more attractive to women, we escaped the city and found ourselves in the hills. Long climbs into the mountains with a positively Bavarian feel. Clusters of chalets with long steep roofs, meadows of wild flowers and roads lined with pine trees.

Departing Hotel Cubo

Stopped for coffee  in Rakek lovely small town in the mountains and then again back into the long climbs. Thankfully the desert training seemed to have paid off and I was fine even on the steepest climbs. As we went through the ride, the scenery changed, we left behind the alpine atmosphere as we headed down towards the coast. The feeling became Italian, valleys filled with those tall, narrow stone pine trees you see in Tuscany, olive groves and villages with red tiled roofed houses.

Lunch in Posajna and I believe it is worth sharing the key Brexit arguments. On the exit side, apparently if we in the UK, didn’t pay for all the excellent Slovenian roads, there would be some money available for filling in all our own pot holes, the arguments in favour of staying include the notion that with the obvious exception of our wives, Slovenian women are far more attractive than thir British counterparts and that we may not be able to eat ‘risotto’ were we to leave th EU.

So an afternoon of long slow descents and we got to our destination, Piran about 5. Piran is a beautiful sea side town, grand sea front buildings with a degree of faded elegance, lots of yachts bobbing up and down in the Adriatic and lots of beautiful people at their leisure. An excellent sea food restaurant this evening, Pri-Mari and now off to bed

Destination tomorrow Krk, another 90 mile ride but twice the climbs!

Todays stats: 90 miles average 14 mph, 1550 meters of climbing

Keep you posted

GPX file of today's route Ljubljana to Piran

Greetings from Ljubljana

So we are here in the hotel Cubo at the start of our trip. Naturally getting here has not been without its challenges. I eventually got a flight out of Khartoum after a bout of local sand storms and got back to the UK on Thursday afternoon. I dropped the bike off at the local bike specialists as it needed a lot of love after 2 years of riding in the desert, new bearings, wheels, gears, chain etc. etc. Then headed back to the house to catch up with the family and pack. Met the chaps in the pub that evening for some essential planning where I discovered the idea was to head for the airport at 03:30 on Saturday morning.

Made it to Slovinia

 And so it was we got to Luton airport this morning, full of that special breed of humourless British holiday maker. After a staggeringly big breakfast we fell onto the plane where I spent the time lost in conversation with Chris, nice to catch up with the guys after having been away for so long. The hotel Cubo is a well appointed place with a contemporary feel, we checked into our rooms and started the serious business of building bikes. All the usual problems, Jeremy’s saddle wouldn’t fit into the titanium down tube until we had applied the hair dryer to it for several minutes, Graham stripped the thread on his derailleur, I broke a fixing that holds a bag onto my handlebars and Chris couldn’t get 1st and 2nd gear to work. Usual stuff but of sufficient magnitude to warrant searching out the local bike shop.

The bike building ritual

Graham’s unerring sense of direction got us to an excellent establishment where competent Slovenian mechanics fixed everything and then it was off to the bar for some refreshment.

Lovely sunny afternoon in  Ljubljana 

Its the first time I’ve been to this part of the world and Ljubljana is beautiful; green fields with a backdrop of snow covered mountains. The town itself has that eastern an European feel with grand architecture in a variety of flaking pastel shades and elaborate churches with exotic spires. We found a bar by the river and parking our bikes by some railings we settled in for the afternoon. The conversation turned to the BREXIT referendum. Two passionately in favour of the UK getting out, three passionately in favour of us staying part of Europe (the correct answer by the way) I can see some increasingly heated debates as we get into the week.

This evening we wandered through the City, a cafe society, youth, wine, laughter. A place with a sense of optimism and hope for the future. Julija is traditional restaurant, blackboards, good food and tables spilling out onto the street. The big news is that its Jeremy’s birthday today. We ordered a local champagne, Zlata penina. We fell into laughter and excitement about the week to come.

Jeremy. "This is the most miserable birthday I've ever had

Destination is Piran tomorrow, 145km and a couple of thousand meters of climbing.

Keep you posted

The plan is to cycle down the Dalmatian coast

Well now, here we are again about to start on a new tour and this time for reasons that escape me, we are going from somewhere called Ljubljana to Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik I understand, a world heritage site, this beautiful medieval city at the southern tip of Croatia is a place I am told, that everyone should visit at least once. The fact that a great friend of mine is getting married just up the road Trebinje the day after we are due to arrive, is of course a happy coincidence!

Our destination

No major changes for any of us since we last got together for our Lisbon to Valencia ride in 2014, Chris and Jeremy still rule their respective areas of the software industry, Graham still has an ever expanding garden maintenance business and Harley will probably be ‘in oil’ for the rest of his days. For my part I’m still in Khartoum, working for the largest food company out here and learning to navigate the extraordinary challenges of trying to run an honest, ethical business in a country with a chaotic and corrupt regime. On the personal side, we all seem to have arrived at that point in our lives when most of our children have buggered off to various universities and if mine are anything to go by, they are still struggling with getting the balance right between partying and actually doing some work.

As you might imagine, my training regime is somewhat different from the guys back in the UK, whilst their rides rarely miss out on plates of scrambled egg for breakfast and pints of beer for lunch, my weekend rides are somewhat more austere; rides through the Sudanese desert in 50 degrees of heat is kind of the norm out here.

Typical training session in the UK

Mind you, being a middle aged man in Lycra in Sudan is not as odd as you might think, My friend Abdel Rahman introduced me to a bunch of Sudanese, Ethiopian and Eritrean cyclists last year who meet up on a certain street corner in Omdurman every Friday morning for a peddle into the desert. OK, their equipment varies from something close to my mum’s old shopping bike through to the latest Specialized carbon frames with electronic gears - but don’t be fooled, these guys are fit. Try and keep up with them and you’ll end up profoundly exhausted and flagging down a Toyota pick-up for a lift back into the city which has happened to me once or twice – much to the amusement of an Irish accountant with whom I used to cycle.

Typical training session in Sudan

Cycling out here is not for the feint hearted though, since our Spanish trip, a pot hole sent me flying off my bike with such force I broke the top off my femur. My leg is now full of pins and plates, an operation I actually watched in glorious Technicolour, as my very competent Sudanese surgeon only thought it necessary to give me an epidural!

To give you a sense of how warm people are out here, I must have had 50 visitors and well-wishers when I got out of hospital, a series of visits which culminated in about 20 of the ‘Omdurman Crew’ turning up at the house in sweaty lycra to see how I was doing, after one of their long desert rides.

There is a slightly darker side to this place though, in March this year I had rather an interesting run in with the Secret Police on one of my rides. I was peddling down a rather nice long road around the back of Omdurman when some Kalashnikov bearing young men in a Toyota pick-up drove up beside me and started shouting and waving their guns. The next thing I knew, one of these guys had lent out of the pick-up and pushed me off my bike, he leapt out and pointing his gun at my head, told me to get down on the ground. They didn't speak English, but their instructions were clear enough, no talking, hand over your phone and get into the back of the pickup. I did as I was told and still at gun point I was whisked off into the desert and after some time arrived at a sinister looking army compound. Anyway my bike was duly unloaded and I was marched into an office and ordered to sit whilst lots of men made lots of phone calls and all this time, I was none the wiser as to what was actually happening. Eventually an ‘Officer’ turned up who spoke English. “What the F***S going on?” I enquired. “You’re not supposed to be on that road” he said. I asked why and what was wrong with me, as it seemed to be a pretty popular road and he said “well you can be on the road but you need a license” so I asked where I might get one, he didn’t know and after having thought for a moment said “the only reason we stopped you was we were concerned for your safety, stranger in a strange land and all that”. “You might have mentioned that to the guy who threw me off my F***ing bike and pointed a gun at my head” I responded. “Fair point” he admitted and shortly after that I found myself peddling back through the desert, shaken but not stirred, as they say.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand. Chris has put together a splendid route, although it may have a few too many mountains for someone who has only seen desert for the last 6 months. As we only have a 6 day trip this time we are aiming to complete a rather more modest 824 km but with over 13,000 meters of climbing (rather more than Everest) Our route sees us starting from near the Italian Boarder in Slovenia, crossing into Croatia and tracking down the Dalmatian coast to Dubrovnik where our wives will have flown out to meet us, Inshallah! We all meet up in the UK at the end of this week and set out from there. I think we are all set…

Keep you posted