Today was a fairly easy ride. We rode 95KM and climbed about 2,300 feet. Which now seems like nothing. We started off paralleling the coast but inland so that we couldn’t actually see the coast. At Fier we turned inland toward our destination of Berat. The challenge today was that our route had a lot of traffic on very narrow roads that were in terrible shape. The roads have been patched so many times that the surface is very uneven, there are large gaps in the pavement and holes everywhere. There were sections where the pavement had completely washed away. As a result it was challenging. Somewhere on today’s ride it was so bumpy that one of my water bottles bounced out of its holder. I was so intent on trying to miss the worst that I didn’t even notice.
On any tour there have to be some days like this where you just have to get to the next stop and there is not much to see. The scenery today consisted of olive groves, vineyards, range land and many small towns. We went through 2 larger cities, Viore and Fier. In each there was lots of construction and traffic grid. Even though we see a lot of people riding bikes, they are on older very slow moving bikes so that Albanian drivers don’t seem to have an awareness for bikes moving nearly as fast as the traffic.
We are now one fourth of the way through the tour. I am feeling good and am clearly getting stronger each day. My only ailment is that my outer two fingers on my left hand are mostly numb from the pressure on the handlebar. They are almost back to normal at the beginning of the day but then I have to ride again. A minor issue.
Some thing I forgot to mention yesterday is that in the mountains there are thousands of bee hives. You see them everywhere and people set up tables along the road to sell the honey. This is of course a good thing and I am happy to see them but yesterday coming down the mountain I passed through two swarms of bees. Going though the swarms at 30mph feels like you are in a hail storm. While I wasn’t stung, bees hitting you at that speed do sting.
Not much in the way of pictures today since I couldn’t take my eyes off the road due to the road condition. Tomorrow we go to Tirana, the capital, and where we will have a rest day.
