One Man on a Bike by Richard Georgiou;

Author:Richard Georgiou;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Missing on MIS
Publisher: Casemate Publishers & Book Distributors, LLC
Published: 2020-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

DAY TWELVE

WEDNESDAY, 28TH JUNE 2017

Mistakes, Mistakes and Laughing Like Never Before

I WOKE UP in a very comfortable bed, in a very comfort­ able room, in a very comfortable hotel in Bulgaria. The whole vibe of waking up in a nice hotel room was completely different from a tent. All forms of hard­ ship were missing, leaving only the pleasures like my own bathroom, running water, electricity, a fresh coffee machine and a body that didn’t feel like it had slept on the floor for the first time in weeks.

After my morning ritual of toilet and teeth, I grabbed my map of Bulgaria and returned to bed. I spread it out in front of me but couldn’t seem to get my head around it. A few moments later, and to my amusement, I real­ ised I had it upside down. Without the benefit of the English alphabet it was difficult to know.Unfortunately, in my haste I’d bought a map that only showed place names in the Cyrillic alphabet, but I did my level best to plan a rough route through the rest of Bulgaria to Greece.

Most of the time I used fast main roads to make my way south but when I used the smaller roads, I noticed how the sides were dotted with wildflowers. The combination of the slow speeds and those beautiful wildflowers made riding a real pleasure. The heat though was always there, pressing down like the threat of something bad. Every time I stopped it was a race to get my jacket, gloves and helmet off before I overheated.

Whenever I go on one of these journeys, I promise myself that I will wear all my protective gear all the time, but I always end up riding without my jacket or gloves when it really gets hot. I’ve never been caught out and crashed without my gear on, but it is a risk.The last thing any biker wants is to end up sliding down the road in just a T-shirt grating one’s skin down to the bone as you go. I’m very aware of this and do wear my jacket most of the time. But sometimes, well. Sometimes I bend the rules.

I tied my jacket to the back of the bike, put my gloves in the tank bag and rode along slowly on the almost car-less roads, enjoying the feeling of freedom that comes with riding in a T-shirt. Pottering along at between 20 and 30mph also had the added benefit of not being too noisy which was a nice break from the continuous loud drone from my helmet at sixty.

Before I got back onto the fast roads I stopped and put my jacket and gloves back on. My plan was to visit the Rila Monastery on the way but as I turned off towards it, it became apparent that the place was going to be a complete tourist fest at the end of a painfully long queue. I decided against it and continued southwards towards Greece.

When I

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