The Journey Begins…

Thanks for joining us!

Now here’s the thing. The three old gits above will take off on our pan-European journey on September 15th, 2019. We’ll wave goodbye to family and friends at the London Eye and head for Istanbul and Asia. 3000 miles for the three of us to relay across the continent. Total ages of the veteran cyclists? 200+. A long time since our schooldays in Kingston.

It was Clive’s idea a decade ago – he’s so restless. Read here. https://cliverockell.wordpress.com/2019/04/30/eye-to-i-200-year-old-pensioners-are-cycling-to-asia/

The site will be launched in a few days’ time, on the 15th June – just three months before we head off for a month’s adventure. Meanwhile, below is a peaceful picture and quote to pacify us all as contemplate the challenge ahead!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

JUNE 2019

OK. Training is under way. The boys have been out and about in the Surrey Hills, around Northampton, Richmond Park and the Kent lanes. Bums are already sore but we’ve made a start! Below please read the rationale for it all in our exciting press release!

Quite honestly, at bottom, we’re doing it for the hell of it. However you will read of BeatSCAD, the charity for which our leader, Clive and, more particularly, his wife Karen have directed their – and our- main money-raising focus.

FOR THE LATEST news please go to…you’ve guessed it, LATEST NEWS by clicking on the menu above. Enjoy!

Dunav to Dobra. People and places.

Camp Dunav is in Zemun, a large suburb of Belgrade. The name seems improbable for a campsire; rather it has echoes of Mash or Alan Sherman’s Hallo Mudder..And our Serbian hosts found the three old men on bikes as amusing as both those classics.

Amongst the hardy group of travellers at the Camp, was a formidable woman who announced herself as ‘The big fat German lady’. With a grand command of English and a fierce intelligence this fifty-something madam was a sight (and sound) to behold. She drove a camper van similar to the Mothership and was touring the Balkans to ‘remind myself of the curious and complicated geopolitical quandaries of the area.’ Wow.

When I told her of our adventure her response was a hearty, if sneering, ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen!’ She then linked our stupidity with Brexit. On the whole, though, she liked the people of the UK. ‘They can laugh at themselves; others think they can but the English do it the best.’ Hard not to warm to this large lady. She told me the story of taking her prize dog to a show in Edinburgh last year. She had driven from Dusseldorf. The dog show was in a conference centre near Edinburgh airport. Her pooch hates aircraft noise. Disaster darling. She turned her camper van round and drove home. She was well-versed in Anglo Saxon expletives. With some relish she told me that she was a ‘Schpeenster’. No man would dare tell her what to do. I certainly wouldn’t.

Clive set off at 7am to negotiate Belgrade and the first 45miles to Skorenovac. I took over for the next leg to Stara Palanka, a ferry point across the Danube. Chris had set off from there to head for Dobra on the south side but still in Serbia. He was heading into remote territory. Clive and I caught a later ferry – an extraordinary crossing where the ramp that took the Mothership on to the landing craft had to be made safe by a good deal of spade and shingle work by the ferrymen.

The light was fading fast behind the deep gorges of the eastern Danube. We couldn’t find a campsite open. Chris, ahead on his bike, had done a great stint and needed beer and shower and food and bed. As we were preparing for a night at the roadside in the Mothership, Dobra, a tiny lakeside hamlet, served up a small guest house. Dragan a genial young host and his mother Mama Mila, opened their arms and made their house, ours. Soup and stew and walnut cake and beer. Bed and bath and brekki tomorrow. And a handful of Serbian Dinars covered their hospitality. Aren’t people wonderful?

Belgrade 3rd October.

When one writes a blog late at night without proof-reading, it is so annoying when one of one’s close collaborators points out errors (the date, babble for baffle and more no doubt) within seconds of publication. He’s gone to the toilet cell block H for his final ablution/absolution. Enough.

Belgrade. 3rd September.

It is strange what things occupy one’s thoughts on a marathon like this. The quality of toilets and showers on remote campsites; why are Tesco all over Hungary but nowhere else? Do we need chamois cream if the weather is cold? Can we get rid of our Hungarian Florints before we get to Serbia? As for Serbian Dinar, how can we spend enough of it when Chris had an ATM brainstorm and took out 10 times more than was required.

Our preoccupations tumble forth. When on the bikes – usually between four and five hours each per day, we fix ourselves into a focused mindset and, simply, plough on. This is difficult when we see the bullet-ravaged buildings of the border towns of Croatia and Serbia, staring at their erstwhile enemies across the Danube divide. As we left Backa Palanka this morning the vast cemetery which stretches for several hundred metres on the road to Belgrade, presents a sobering vista of thousands of graves, unsettlingly marked by newly-masoned dark granite.

Whatever impressions, some cheaply made, about the locals as we pass through must be informed by the troubles – all too recent- of this turbulent area of Europe, the Balkans.

It is intriguing to see the hold-ups at borders where the EU has yet to smooth passenger and freight transport through. The goods vehicles suffer the most. Brexit beware. These troubled nations of Serbia, Hungary and Bulgaria have a way to go beforetheir infrastructure can heave them up (their cities apart) to an acceptable standard of living for this day and age. We in the mothership wonder if the possible downturn in our economy and the stifling of business and trade will see our well-being, economically and socially, take a real hit.

We focus on the day to day and try to enjoy the physical challenge as well as observing and interacting as much as possible with the changing environment and the friendly people whom we have encountered. Serbia seems full of people who can stumble through quite adequately in English. God knows how they have managed this. Today I have been guided by a woman walking up a country lane carrying two heavy bags; the campsite receptionist spoke near-perfect English; our companions on the banks of the Danube outside Belgrade tonight are German, Dutch and Serbian. The former two are babbled by Brexit but hold the British in high esteem. For now, I guess.

The boys are checking maps as I type. It’s getting late. We sleep well each night. I wonder why?

East is East

It was 80 miles today from Gyor to Visegrad. Travelling eastwards we travel back in time. Nagyszentjanos, Bana Babolna, Dunaalmas, Neszmely, Sutto, Labatlan, Nyergesufalu, Tat, Acs, Komarom, Esztergom and Pilismarot were amongst the villages and towns we careered through before arriving late afternoon in Visegrad. Esztergom was the capital of Hungary from around the 10th to 13th centuries. Then King Bela IVth moved his royal posteria to Buda.

Along the northern side of Hungary the Magyars look across the Danube at the Slovaks. The fortifications of Esztergom bear witness to border feuding of old. The default setting for the stern, unsmiling Magyar is cup-half-empty. We stopped a roadside cafes to stony welcomes which only warmed when we smiled and paid and, unlike others, returned our coffee cups like good little boys. The locals having cheap beers on a Saturday lunchtime seemed grudging in their recognition of foreign travellers: not hostile but watchful.

Moving out of Gyor we were in to a shabbier world almost immediately. Gone were the shiny Mercs of the Viennese streets, replaced by an assortment of elderly vehicles: Suzukis, Fords, Skodas, Audis, Renaults. Batterd and bruised mostly. The rural economy was at once charming and hard, very hard. We saw many smallholdings, grapes being harvested, pumpkins aplenty and each village had harvest effigies like guys stacked at the village sign to signal the business of the community.

The men in the bars had an air of the gulag about them. Too strong? Well the Magyar originated in the Urals and made his way down in the 9th century. Today over 90% of the 10 million Hungarians share this heritage and the larger proportion is Catholic.

Their entry into the EU in 2004 must be a godsend. The increase of factories, cement works, refineries and quarries on the edges of towns speaks of a slowly evolving economy. And yet the main characteristic we could pick out was a dourness which seems to travel back generations. Nonetheless the major roads are being upgraded fast. Villages have their central roads and pathways spruced up. On all minor roads the surfaces are appalling. This is, presumably, the EU’s phase 2 for bringing Magyardom up to speed. And perhaps leaving behind those Ural frowns.

However the Hugarian Forint languishes somewhat and while the locals find it hard to show their teeth in a grin, the mention of Ferenc Puskas can transform you from being a nosey outsider into one of the chaps who understands at least one of the heroes of Hungary. Sport remains a lifesaver.

Gyor. 27th September.

As you leave the crisp efficiency of Germany and Austria, it is noticeable that the economic well-being begins to shift into a lower gear. Slovakia, charming and attractive, has its infrastructure projects snailing along. Where the EU puts its weight behind things – such as our bike path – the progress seems admirable. Here and, today in Hungary the road surfaces deteriorate into a condition recognised as UK pothole syndrome.

The Slavonic body type and physiognomy is quickly replaced by the Magyar stockiness and punishing jawline. From Bratislava to Gyor the change is sen is just a few miles. Both these places have charming cobbled, pedestrianised centres and turbulent histories which belie the friendly charm of cafe banter. In Gyor their ‘London Eye’ was being opened on the banks of the Danube. Tina Turner and Abba covers were blaring from the riverside tribute band. The streets thronged with the young – our group were the oldest swingers in town. Our meal at the rightly renowned Kisfaludy restaurant was a highlight. We are carboloading for the hundreds of miles ahead as we travel east and south towards Istanbul.

The Hungarian Florint goes much further than the euro of the last couple of weeks. A beer is a £1. We haven’t seen much ethnic diversity at all. White is the primary colour, here in Hungary and in Slovakia. Indeed in Vienna too. London seems so much more ethnically diverse from where we stand on the Danube. We are all pondering on matters at home as we travel across the continent which, to some extent, the UK has rejected. OK that’s a bit over the top but you know what I mean. As I type with my Euro t-shirt on, our group has felt the eurolove to a considerable degree so far.

The girls are nearing the end of their stay with us but we have had a blast with a combination of modest cycling and tourist indulgence. Visegrad tomorrow, about 80 miles and a short pedal into Budapest the day after. Then the boys crack on into Serbia and Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey, while the girls fly off to return, hopefully, when we reach the Blue Mosque.

Goodnight from Gyor.

Latest from Bratislava. 26th September.

We’re on the banks of the Danube in Bratislava. The girls joined us for some fun and cycling in Vienna and leave in a day or two from Budapest. Then, apparently, the hard work really starts.

We’re around 1200 miles in and have had sweated and smiled in equal measure. The mothership is holding up – as are bodies and bikes…for the time being. A week ago I wrote this.I’m sitting on the banks of the River Main. Warm autumnal sunshine. Mittenburg. The musketeers spent last night in Mainz at Campingplatz Maaraue, a small, rather dog-eared place on an island in mid-river. Our genial host was a German hippie with a long, grey pony tail and a twinkle in his eye. I’m sure he was at Woodstock. His beer was good:cold and cheap.

Clive has set us a pretty punishing schedule and he brooks no complaint. He was up at first light (notice my new-found vocab of adventure) and off he pedalled to Frankfurt, as you do. Chris and I had our domestic instructions. We abluted and cranked up the mothership.

Clive’s pace was cracking and our arrivals inFrankfurt coincided. First 25miles ticked. And on it goes. Clive and I have two shorter stints today and Chris a long one. Camping in Lohr tonight.

The first few days have flown by. A great send-off at the London Eye. Great work by 5 year old Sebastian showing us the route and impressing with his cycle skills. We made much of BeatSCAD our charity, championed in particular by Karen, Clive’s wife. As I jot hese notes we have raised over £3,500, a marvellous total for such a worthy cause. Let’s make it to £4,000!

The biking to Harwich was pretty gutty. The cycle route meandered and getting out of London was painful. Chris has a geographical malfunction and almost pedalled on to the Woolwich ferry. Clive, very proud of his new tyres, sealed with green gel, arrived at our meet-point in Stock with said gel spurting over his leg. A slow puncture and green legs. We had to laugh.

Chelmsford and Colchester were negotiated with some difficulty and Paul pedalled into Harwich as night was falling. A horde of drunken Dutch men and women greeted us at quayside. They were in full party mode after a weekend of social stock car racing. Hundreds of them. Music pumping from their vans and coaches. The bars were awash with beer an flatulence as we primly descended to our rather comfortable cabins below decks. Stena had clearly upgraded knowing that three old gits needed a good night’s kip before turning our spokes through Rotterdam the following morning. There was the usual difficulty of a 67 year old (me- Paul) clambering up a bunk ladder to flop onto the top bunk. I slept as well as anyone could with Chris beneath. Clive took tour leader privilege beyond the reasonable and had a room to himself.

He paid for this selfishness by being first in the saddle in driving rain the next morning. Sensibly he found a man in a bike shop in Rotterdam who knew how to replace his punctured tyre and relieve his machine and body of green slime.

To be continued when we get to Budapest in two days’ time….I’ll get the news up to date…promise!