Hard ride, more Albania

Dear friends and family,

I am staying at a bed and breakfast in the old town of Vlore. That means that they have three rooms above the bar. They serve coffee and drinks in the bar and pizza for dinner for guests if you ask. 

They also make me a big breakfast every day. My schedule is to go down when they open, at 0800 for my first coffee, then return for breakfast and my second cup at 0900. I typically like a first cup earlier when I wake, but they don’t open till 8. 

This reminds me of my senior year in college, when I decided to get out of the student housing area off campus that we called “the ghetto” and get my own place to free me of the temptations of constant drug and alcohol consumption with my housemates. I was trying for good grades as well as studying for the CPA exam at the same time, so needed to be isolated to be disciplined.

Well, the good news was that I found a really nice studio apartment, recently renovated and only a half mile off campus. The bad news is that it was above a rather raunchy toplesss bar in a neighborhood that might be called “transitional”, which means dangerous late at night. 

I had access to the apartment via the back entrance, without having to deal with the bar, but to get my mail I had to go downstairs, wade into the drinkers and boobs and ask for my mail which was kept behind the bar. The dancers got used to me and would tease me about wanting more, but when you are 20 years old and the dancers seem quite elderly and intimidating, just the mail please. After awhile, they kind of adopted me as they got used to me showing up. Some visions you cannot unsee, as Aaron, my stepson taught me. 

There is no topless downstairs here, but the staff  still kind of adopted me since I stayed here for four days. Now they know exactly how I like my coffee and breakfast and based on what I left on my plate, only give me exactly the amount of food that I finished my first day. No waste, I like that.  They are definitely paying attention

(Written two days ago)Tomorrow starts what is probably the final stretch of biking in Albania. And it offers a challenge. The first day offers seventeen miles of fairly flat coastal riding followed by five miles of uphill. And up the longest and steepest hill of the trip yet. This will take me into the mountain pass in the center of the Llogosa National Park, one of the highlights of Albania, or so I’ve read. 

I split the ride over the pass into two riding days with a hotel stay in the middle. The second day offers more climbing, but then followed by a very long downhill towards a small town. That should be challenging as well, but if I stay and recover for an extra day, it should be manageable.

Am I nervous? You bet. But I am trying to sort out exactly why that is the case. This will test my limits in riding. I am probably in the best shape for riding that I could be, having been riding every other day on average for four months. Now I get to see the result of all that “training”.

What if I find out that I still can’t go like I hope? What if flat riding is all that is in the cards for me going forward? That would be disappointing but at some point it will come. The question is, “is it tomorrow that it does?”

Would I rather not know? No, of course I want to find out. I found out in the case of the Andes of Colombia last year what I could not do.  Now I’ll find out in the hills of Albania. 

The following day:

It is 0800 on my departure day and the rain is heavy and steady. The weather map shows the clouds and rain departing at 1000, so I will at least wait until then, and maybe even later to leave. Having the rain come in while riding is one thing, going out into a downpour is harder, especially when it is forecasted to stop within the hour. 

Well, the rain did stop. The sky still was full of dark clouds and threatened rain, but it was warm enough to only ride in a t-shirt. Those earlier miles WERE easy, and I saved energy for the hill. I was on the old highway which had no traffic. Enough of “no traffic” that I reflected on what would happen if I had an accident deep into the mountain valley. On my own today.

It was a mystery to me of why I felt especially tired as I pedaled up the hill mixed with pushing the bike up the steepest parts (I still cannot pedal a loaded bike up any length of 10% or more grade, even with months of “training”).

My plan for keeping the distance low and staying three quarters of the way up the pass seemed like a good one, as I arrived tired, but not wiped out to this lovely mountain retreat. Happy that the worst was behind me. 

When I checked in, the desk clerk asked which way I came from. I told him I was headed south and he immediately made a face and said something like “you have a really hard ride ahead of you from here”, which made me a little sick to my stomach, as I thought the hardest was behind me.

You might ask “if you feel that way, why do you do this?”

Yes, that is a good question and I need to think more about it.

Sending love,

Charley