Hard Day at the Office…

"These early morning starts are getting a bit tedious, GB...!!" The Big Fella starts the day with a bit of lip...

Yesterday was a day that I would rather forget… Although it will probably stick in my memory for a while…!

It began at 6.15am, in a dark and wet Istanbul, and ended 13 hours and 855 km later in a dark and not-so-wet Ayvalik, on the west coast of Turkey… Considering that I had set out for Georgia, 1400 km in the opposite direction from where I am now sitting, you will agree that things must have gone a bit “pear-shaped”…

All the signs that I was not going to have a good day, had been there from the start…

First, I battled to find my way out of Sultanahmet, riding around in circles on the wet cobblestones, until I found my way onto the road leading out of the city…

Then a huge dog ran out of a dark alley, making a serious attempt to bite my right leg… While trying to fend him off, my front tyre chose that exact moment to find its way into the groove of a tram line…

I was thrown off balance, and while trying to keep the bike upright, I not only twisted my left knee, but bashed through and over a few of the plastic poles that separate the lanes on some of the narrower streets of Istanbul… Had they been made of stronger stuff, I am sure I would have had my left pannier ripped off its frame…

And, had I not been going the wrong way up a one way road that I was anxious to get out of, the Turkish chapter of the SPCA might well be asking me a few uncomfortable questions about the demise of a certain dog…

Early morning on the Bridge over the Bosphorus... Entering Asia before dawn cracks...!!

About an hour later, on the motorway east of Korfez, and in blinding rain, a car changed lanes without seeing me in the spray thrown up by a truck, and actually made contact with my right pannier…!! Luckily the inside lane next to me was empty, and I was able to veer off and bring the bike under control… The driver had no idea that he had almost knocked me down, and continued his lane change, oblivious of the wildly gesticulating rider behind him…

I stopped an hour after that to refuel and get some coffee, but the staff at the diner attached to the service station pretended not to understand my request, and refused to make any attempt to find one of their number who might understand a few simple words of English… After a few minutes of fruitless attempts to make them understand this most simple of requests, I stalked back to the Big Fella, put my wet gloves back onto my cold hands and wet helmet onto an even colder head, and went back onto the motorway…

The rain pours down as we make our way towards Bolu...

The inside of my helmet was soaking wet, because in hard rain, I cannot see through my visor, and have to ride with it half open… I am not sure if this is due to the “sand-blasting” it has taken over the last 45 000 km, which has made the surface rough enough for rain to “stick” to it, but fact is, in anything harder than a drizzle, my vision is seriously impaired…dangerously so…!!

Still on the wide motorway, and south of the city of Sakarya, the rain came down in buckets… I hoped that it was an isolated cloud burst, and rode on, praying that we would break out into lighter rain in due course… No such luck…!!

At one point, traffic crawled along at barely 65 km/h, such was the volume of water on the road surface… It was like riding in a river…!! Sheets of water flowed across the three lanes of the motorway, and the only vehicles making any headway, were the huge articulated trucks, that barreled through the downpour, throwing up waves of water from their front tyres…

While working my way past one of these trucks, one of these “waves” crashed into my chest, almost knocking me off the bike… It felt as though a bucket of icy water that been thrown through my open helmet…!! I thought of pulling over, but there was no place to safely stop the bike, and no off-ramp to seek sanctuary on… Traffic was fairly heavy, and the combination of the cold water in my helmet, and fierce focus to remain alive, had my head throbbing with one of those “pressure” headaches…

Which caused my vision to blur even further, if that was possible…!!

I was completely soaked, and it felt as though I was sitting in a bath of icy water… The rain had worked its way through my rain-suit and riding gear, and I wondered how my passport, my IPod and my cell phone were faring in the chest pockets of my jacket…

The highway climbed up into the mountains east of Kaynasli, and the temperature dropped like a stone… I rode into the 3,5 km Bolu Tunnel, relieved to be out of the driving rain, and for a moment even considered the dangerous idea of stopping somewhere in the tunnel to regroup my scattered senses..

On the other side of the mountain that the tunnel was blasted through, things went from bad to worse…!! The rain had turned to sleet…!! The icy drops stung my face as I squinted through the mist that hung over the area… I saw the turnoff to Bolu, and decided that it was time to call a halt to the proceedings…!!

Snow on my roof... This friendly guy suggested I go no further down the road to Dortdivan... He had driven 4 km from his home, and said that much of the snow had been blown off his roof already...!!

My hands were so numb with the cold that I could not feel the clutch and brake levers… Nor could I get the zip on my tank bag open to get at my camera… Which was probably a good thing, as I doubt whether I would have been able to hold onto it with “dead” fingers…!!

While the heated grips kept my palms warm, my fingertips had long since lost any feeling, and my feet felt like blocks of ice… Near the off-ramp, I stopped at a Shell service station… I sat on the bike for a full five minutes, dazed by the weather conditions that I had ridden in for the last four hours…

Just then a car pulled up next to me, and on its roof was a thick layer of snow…!! The driver took a long look at me and then said,

“You should not go any further my friend…!!” He held his hands about a foot apart and said, “The snow is this deep four kilometres from here…!!”

The two petrol attendants on duty invited me into their little cubicle and insisted that I sit on the only chair in the room, despite the fact that I was dripping with water… One brought me a steaming cup of coffee, into which he put four blocks of sugar without asking if I wanted any, while the other went to the kiosk next door and returned with a packet of biscuits for me… They would not accept any payment, and patted their hearts to show that it was their gift to me… A wonderful gesture which I was most grateful for…

Hundreds of kilometres to the west, and south of Yalova, the weather wasn't much better...!!

I sat in that chair for almost an hour, wondering what to do next, my eyes drawn to the thermometer which read 2 degrees Celsius…!! I thought about my reasoning for wanting to ride to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and could not think of any besides being able to add their flags to my pannier… To my mind this was not enough to justify risking life and limb to ride through conditions that I was neither used to or comfortable with… I was barely through a third of the distance I originally intended to cover… It was too early to take the “all or nothing” approach…!!

A change of plan was needed…!! I headed back the way I had come, still in heavy rain, until the split east of Istanbul took me through Yalova and Bursa, before turning southeast for Balikesir… On a long winding hill running south of the city, Turkish traffic officers saw fit to unburden me of TKL 100.00 (R490.00) for exceeding the speed limit…

This did not bother me too much, as I have never been one to bother with speed limits, and am resigned to paying the price when I am caught…!! I console myself with thoughts of the many times I have NOT been caught…!!

I am of the belief that speed limits were created for people who do not possess the requisite skills to control their motor vehicles at speed on public roads… And these folk shouldn’t be allowed to drive any form of motorized transport, and should only be eligible for licenses for horse-drawn carts and wheelbarrows…

Speed limits of 40 and 50 km/h are ridiculous, and should be reserved for riding on sidewalks while dodging pedestrians and cyclists…!! And that’s all I have to say about that…!!

On the road down to the coast from Balikesir... I had experienced rain, wind, sleet and near freezing temperatures... A bit of darkness rounded things off nicely...!!

The final run of the day was made in weak sunshine, the road to the coast winding through groves of olive trees and through a range of low hills… The sun was just disappearing into the Mediterranean when I turned off the main road and onto the paved one leading past the 5 Star Grand Hotel, and into the outskirts of the village of Sarimsakli.

East of Ayvalik, the sun begins to go down on me...

The Megas Hotel looked deserted at first, but the automatic doors slid open when I walked up to them to peer through the glass… It was dark outside, and I stepped gratefully into the light of the reception and dining area, to find the family who owned the hotel relaxing in front of the TV…

I was welcomed, quoted a very reasonable rate, and ushered up to the third floor, even though I was the only guest present…!! I was offered dinner, which I gratefully accepted, as apart from the packet of biscuits I wolfed down in Bolu, I had not eaten anything all day… I had seen the sun come up and go down while out on the road today, and in the words of Allie G, “me wuz well knackered”…

When they heard where I had come from, their eyebrows shot up…

“It has been on the television tonight…!! It is the first time it has snowed in Bolu in the month of October…!! This is a very unusual thing to happen…!!” they said… “Do not worry, the weather will get better…!!”

Yeah, right…!! This weather has been following me since Croatia… Why on earth would it decide to leave now, just when things were getting really interesting…!!

Then teasingly, shines brightly the next day...

Fishing boats in the harbour village of Ayvalik...

I decided to spend a full day here, while I planned a new route through Turkey, and commiserated with myself… The list of countries that I had originally planned to ride in had now shrunk by 12…!! We are not amused…!!

Bright sunshine improved my mood, and I went on a short ride to a nearby fishing village, where I sat drinking coffee and watching the locals examining the freshly caught fish on display…

The tourist season has officially ended, and the streets of the villages along this part of the coast are almost deserted… I was told that further south the weather was better and the villages there are a lot busier than those here…

Locals drifted in to the little market, selecting from the catch of the day...

I made a call to see where Willi was, and discovered that he was moving further east along the southern coast, heading for a ferry crossing to Cyprus… He had some cold weather gear that he no longer needed and offered to wait for me to catch up to him to see whether it fitted or not…

My sternest critic...!! Followed closely by Traffic Officers of the World...

He mentioned that he had met an Austrian rider who was on his way to Iran… The guy had arrived in Marmiros having ridden down through central Turkey… He was soaking wet and shivering uncontrollably, according to Willi…

“I know the feeling Willi…!! I know the feeling…!!”

Returning to the village of Sarimsakli after my ride through the countryside...

©GBWT 2010