“SPIDER BIKE”
Riding along the Trans Euro Trail, or generally riding along remote tracks means, that you have to deal sometimes with unexpected happenings. Often the riding conditions turn worse, a breakdown happens, or other things went odd which you haven’t thought about in advance. On day two of this ride, short after the early mornings entrance to Hungarys Trans Euro Trail, my black beauty and I have been confronted with a combination of bad conditions and unexpected happenings, which let us change the plan. It seems that it’s not possible for to ride a planned route in one piece. But hey, that is what makes my little ride outs adventurous …
Overview day two:
The second day of this little adventure, led Чернотa and me to the three-country-corner and at the same time, Hungarys eastern-most point, where we entered the Trans Euro Trail. There we turned in the direction we came from and from then on, we followed the TET as close as possible (and as our both abilities allowed) into direction south-west.
The first night of this trip was a quiet one (thankfully not like the first nights of my last both adventures. See: “The Iron Side Ride – Day 2” or/and: “TET Poland 2019 – Day 2).
I went up very early around 05:45 in the morning. After doing the morning toilet my …
black pony was loaded quickly. Our ride along the north-eastern parts …
of Hungary continued. The sun …
came out and gained strength, so …
the mists of the night slowly disappeared. On our way to the far most eastern corner of Hungary, we rode along …
a dike which was following the river “Tur“. Short before we reached the mentioned point …
we made a little side trip to the Ukrainian border. This border point was closed and blocked. In the distance at the end of the road, a high wall was visible. *notmuchtoseehere*
About five km further east, we arrived at this …
turning point which conforms the three country corner between Hungary, Romania and Ukraine and is likewise Hungarys far most eastern point. Besides …
a big border mark with the Hungarian name for “Hungary” and the rivers name “Tur” on it, there are also …
border marks of all meeting countries placed at this point. From here, Чернотa and I hit …
for the TET Trail. Before going offroad, we visited this little …
wooden monument. I can’t find any information about it.
After a last stretch of tarmac …
we entered the Trans-Euro-Trail. It welcomed us with dense vegetation …
and thousands of spider webs, which have been built over the narrow tracks for hunting other insects. Hello …
you beauty! Not! … I don’t “hate” spiders, but I get an odd disgusting feeling when they came to close to me. Because we followed the track further, Чернотa and I collected a lot of these big and little spiders whilst they’ve been sitting in their webs. I’ve never seen that before in my life! I had to stop a few times, for shaking off my protection gear and getting rid of the spiders. They also crawled in my helmet … . *urgh*
The funny thing was, that when I rode faster, the spiders cringend and craweld into the fairing of Чернотa. So evertime we stopped, it only took a few seconds, before the spiders appeard again on the bikes surface. A real spider bike … . ^^
The trail itself followed …
fields and forests. The further we followed it southwards, the muddier the tracks …
became in the wet woods.
Here, that puddle was a challenge: I totally underestimated it and tried to ride through it straight in its middle. The water/mud was more than knee-deep, what is more than Чернотas ground clearance. So it was no big surprise when we got stuck.
The back wheel instantly spun through, and I felt slightly over to the right side, because the mud was too deep for a safe stand. I got it managed to put the bike back up again and turned the engine off. While water was finding its way inside my boots I tried to put the side stand down, but that wasn’t possible because the back wheel was already sunk about three quarters of its height in the sticky mud. So I dug a little hole for the sidestand with my boot, what worked. The bike stucked well.
Because letting the back wheel spin is the worst you can do in such situation, I didn’t try. Instead, I stepped behind the back wheel and slowly lifted it with the power of my upper legs —> a leg press for ADV-riders ^^. Mud aside the back wheel was filling up the hole under the wheel, while I raised Чернотas back. I did the same with the front wheel. Without the weight of the fat driver, Чернотa was way less sinking into the deep mud. At next, I took about 15 short branches from aside the track and arranged them in a row directly before the back wheel. When everything was ready I went aside the bike, fired the LC4 and slowly let the clutch transmit some torque to Чернотas back wheel. The nearly new Mitas E10 on the back grabbed one branch after another. This way Чернотa pulled herself out of this puddle. Drenched well from my sweat and the mud puddle our journey continued. Ongoing …
muddy trails sometimes changed, …
with tracks leading aside some fields …
and woods. After the first miles it was clear, that in this part of the Trans Euro Trail Hungary …
deep mud was the main surface to ride.
At a short potty break near this old house aside the TE-Trail …
I took the opportunity to pick two hands full of sweet fruits from this tree for later. I think it was some kind of hybrid between plump and apricot. My black beauty and I followed …
the trail. Because …
the exhausting and clutch-torturing conditions continued, it was …
time for a break for both of us. Now it was nearly midday, and we only made about 60 km of the TET this day, within the last four hours! That wasn’t much, and I was already well exhausted. Therefore, I made the decision to skip those muddy sections. Plenty kilometers of ongoing mud on a full equipped and packed six-ninety on 60/40 tires is not the undertaking, which brings me a lot of fun. Because of that, Чернотa and I went after the brake on along the next well maintained …
tarmac roads further southwards and bypassed the muddy section. About one hour of riding …
the conditions went better. I took the chance …
to buy some food for the evening, in a village …
which we rode through. Also some fuel for the thirsty girl was bought. ^^
Then, we went back onto the trail. Mud continued but was way easier to evade in this wide open, and …
remote plains. Here, in the south-eastern corner of Hungary …
the surface of …
the track slowly changed from soil to packed sand and …
the number of civilization signs …
slowly decreased.
My black beauty and I passed a lonely farmers house, where this interesting tractor with big rubber treads was parking in the foreground. After the muddy morning hours of this riding day, I well understood why such vehicles are necessary for farming the gigantic fields.
Via speedy …
sand trails our ride went on along the planned route.
The truck on the right edge of that picture was loaded with many bee-hives. I always thought, that wandering-bees are common in the US agriculture?!? That was the first time that I’ve ever seen such a Truck in Europe. That was very interesting for me and I’m still wondering about how much a person with this job earns. I mean: The bees do surely most of the work … .
In the late afternoon and after a huge area with only …
sun flowers planted aside the trail, …
we passed another village with an interesting looking building. Like always near such populated areas, …
illegally dumped rubbish is a common problem.
Along such tracks it was easy to leave a good amount of mileage behind in a short period of time. We passed huge …
agriculture equipment, which amazed me. Each of those watering beams in the distance is surely about 75 meters or about 250 feet long. Those segments are interrupted with a set of wheels / a pump/ or an engine on wheels, which is pumping water from the channels between the huge fields into the watering beams. When switched on, this huge segmented machine is slowly rolling along the water channels, back and forth whilst watering the gigantic fields aside. Here is the link to a video, which shows such a monster in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkFZ87dfFfU
For a short piece along the vegetation got dense again. This narrow part was quiet challenging to ride, because the soil under the grass was dried out and bumpy. In addition, there have been two deep d ruts following the track, which I barely can’t see through the grass whilst riding along. My arms hurt a lot after following this hidden ruts for about 10 minutes.
Another village, another attraction! This time: The Angry Birds family and a minion figure made out of hay roles and a small …
pedestrian bridge which the track was following.
In the early evening …
it was time to find a nice place for shelter.
In the middle of a big already harvested field, I put up the tent.
My trusty black beauty was used as a cloth hanger and nearly fell over, due to the soft soil on the ground.
This time I put some pork meat with green peppers into the pan. Whilst the meat was sizzling, …
It was time to inspect my soaked feet. What a few hours wearing totally drenched boots does with the skin on the feet is always making me wonder. A few minutes later …
dinner was served… . ^o^
After a hard day in the saddle the meat was a real enjoyment. After doing the washing up, some fast moving …
thunder clouds came in the direction of the camp. I quickly brushed my teeth and washed myself. During stowing the last pieces of gear the first thick drops of rain fell down.
Total distance on this day of riding: 420 km or 260 mi