Vršac > Belgrade 85km

September 05, 2014

Vršac > Belgrade 85km

[Originally posted Sept 5, 2014]

We are now in the heart of the former Yugoslavia - Belgrade. Lonely Planet describes it as a "gritty" town. I would agree, although at times it has reminded me a bit of NYC. Dogs barking at night, the distant sound of car horns honking, beggars in the streets who approach you at intersections and a seemingly endless supply of pizza places and (for some strange reason) lots of people selling shoe laces. Not sure about the shoe laces. One thing of particular notice to Katy and I was the complete lack of cyclists anywhere in the city and to go with that not a bike lane or path in sight. (Now I know that most of the States don't have great bike lanes nor do they have loads of people commuting on bikes, but this is Europe we are talking about. Of all the places we have been, Belgrade lacks any sort of bike infrastructure.) And so because of this our ride into Belgrade was a bit atypical, but very memorable.

Our ride into Belgrade was rather memorable- let me explain. About an hour outside of Belgrade in the town of Pancevo a light drizzle turned to a steady rain. Earlier in the morning it had been warm and sunny (contrary to the weather forecast) and so I was riding without a shirt on to keep cool. As the rain picked up I decided to continue shirtless because I would dry out much quicker than my shirt/jacket. Eventually it was just about a downpour and I was soaking wet. It reminded me of the occasional late summer thunderstorm back home in Salt Lake (which when I was a kid I would put on a swim suit and go and play in the gutter). In addition to the rain the quality of the roads deserve mention. As I said, Serbia lacks any sort of cycling infrastructure. They also lack any secondary roads as well as any highways. This means that the one road that approaches Belgrade from the east gets all the traffic. And without any shoulder at all it was a somewhat hairy situation. I don't particularly care for riding in traffic, especially not in the rain. I don't like the idea of getting run over by a lorry (semi-truck). To defend myself out on the road I take what some might call a rather interesting approach.

In these circumstances (rainy, lots of traffic, no shoulder) most cyclists would instinctively tighten their helmet straps and move as far to the right of the road as possible, hoping the motorists will go around them. I do just the opposite. To me, safety is all about being noticeable. A cyclist wearing a helmet on a normal bike sticking to the far right side of the road isn't easily noticed. They're normal. We see them all the time on the road. And the consequence - occasionally one of them gets hit. But thetouringtandem? We do things different: we ride in the middle of the road, without Clayton's shirt on (if Katy didn't have a shirt on then drivers would be too distracted) and with a nice ponytail blowing in the wind. We also like to attach carrots, baguettes and other items from our panniers. This way when cars approach we are well noticed (also being in the middle of the road forces them to slow down or go around) and they pass safely around us. Our last line of defense is also used occasionally - when we here a particularly loud engine approaching Katy will just twist around and stare right at the driver - no one messes with my Katy. Sounds a little unconventional, but so far it seems to be working. And so in the pouring rain we rode into Belgrade attracting the stares of almost everyone present. All was going well until I foolishly moved over to the right side of the road (it was a tricky situation as train tracks from a tram car went down the middle of the road) and as we rode through a puddle that puddle turned into a giant pothole and we went BOOM and our front panniers flew off our bike. We weren't going too fast and we didn't crash, but it did scare the bigezzus out of us. Luckily, after a slight retightening of a couple spokes our wheels are still in tip top shape. (More on this topic here.)

And so today in Belgrade. Another rest day. Rest days are often the hardest part of this trip. You would think the opposite, but not so. I think it is because we have done a bad job about planning meaningful activities on our days off - and so we end up spending a lot of time just wandering around and eating. And so today I told Katy that I think we need to add some sort of academic or thought provoking entity to our trip (you can only eat > sleep > cycle > repeat for so long until your mind also craves some sort of stimulation). And so we kicked off our quest for mental stimulation by watching a documentary called Death of Yugoslavia. It covers the end of Marshal Tito's rule overYugoslavia, the life of Slobodan Milosevic and the Croatian (91-95), Bosnian (92-95) and Kosovo (98-99) wars. It is something we have both been interested in (seeing as we are here) but also something we know nothing about. After we watched the first 2 hours (a lot of which is original footage of protests and rallies in Belgrade) Katy and I went out and walked around town where some of those events took place. It is strange to think about how much has changed here in such a relatively short amount of time. For example: as we walk around town we wonder to each other - how many of the people we walked past today fought in any of these wars? How do they feel about what has happened in the past 20 years? I wonder how these people feel knowing that their President, Slobodan Milosevic, (who they may or may not have supported) was tried for committing war crimes and genocide? We read on the news that less than a week ago 13 Bosnian Serbs were arrested for war crimes during the Bosnian War. It is strange to think that such terrible things occurred here (and not so long ago) because everyone we meet seems so happy and friendly - but I would assume that deep down there are some very strong feelings that we are entirely unaware of. In a couple of days we will be in Bosnia where I am sure we will have many more questions to ponder.