Rest Day in Constanța Romania - 8 km 5 mi Duathlon
27 October, 2023
Well, as you saw from last night's blog, we have arrived at our destination for this adventure in Constanța on The Black Sea coast!
What an incredible last day's cycling we've had indeed. It began where yesterday ended in the archaeologically significant town of Adamclisi just hours after heavy overnight rains cleaned the air, of dust, dirt, and pollen! The atmosphere seemed 'squeaky clean' as we rolled out of our overnight accommodation and 'curry house' at 9am!
With just over 60km, under 40miles, to ride we had a spring in our pedal knowing that it was an easy distance, in beautifully clear autumnal weather, so it ought to be a 'no brainer'.... well. It was, and it wasn't!
We had, what must have been, the last hill of all thrown at us immediately after turning left out of the front door.... 15mins, and a 'sweat-on' later we breached that barrier, then cruised quite happily for perhaps the next 25km. We passed more vineyards, still with grapes hanging on the vine, evidently slowly dehydrating to boost their sugar concentrations, and thus their ABV yield..... some at 14%..... to be treated with huge respect!
Then, most happily, we passed the first, and last of it's kind in this eastern half of the journey, a wine grower's retail outlet! I simply had to stop and visit and see what was on offer. Soon, I emerged from the shop as the proud owner of over 4kg of the domain's produce! A standard sized bottle of Chardonnay, and a 3 litre box of Merlot to return home with to share with family and friends. One can never really say they've truly visited a country until they have imbibed some of their finer victuals, be they solid or, in this case, liquid. So, here's the dilemma, buy now, worry about transport later.... now, worry about transport now!! Somehow I must make 4kg of wine merge seamlessly onto/into my already wildly overloaded bicycle!! No problem, I've been here before, and undoubtedly, I'll be again in future. My first instinct was to get ruthless early.... that is chuck away early what's going to get discarded very soon anyhow..... or use my bungee cords, in new and innovative ways to secure this newly acquired load, and most precious cargo! Hey, presto sorted!!
With the products of my retail therapy now fully secured, off we rolled. The only issue as it turned out was that with this 4kg all resting a good metre above ground, my new center of gravity took a bit of getting used to.... especially when stationary! While rolling the handling is almost self adjusting, but whilst stationary, one can easily drop the bike.... I become very wise, very quickly after one near drop!!
At the 20 km mark, the very sturdy Westerly wind that had been gentle easing us along in our SouthEasterly travels came straight on our backs for 25 km of the remaining 40km. We were literally flying at 25 to 35 km/hr depending on road gradients! The Cycling Gods were indeed rewarding our hard earned efforts over the previous weeks, and months by giving us these most pleasurable conditions in the home stretch! This was all combined with some superlative tarmac, and a final 135m decent off this remaining sliver of the European Continental land mass!
As usual, our unbridled joy of easy cycling was tainted once again by the Luciferious Lorry drivers, and Chronically Crazy Car drivers so much so, that we both agreed a stop at the 40km mark for coffee and cakes was essential to regain our composure, and metal for the remaining 20km!
The remaining 20km was simply no better, motorway access roads brought cars, vans and trucks at us from all angles until we finally hit the Constanța City limits, where the speed limit drops from a disregarded 90 km/hr to an urban speed limit of 40km/hr, also disregarded, but still considerably slower!! We breathed sighs of relief at this new found quiescence, and headed straight for the most difficult to find beach I ever almost never found!! On and on we went, being presented with one set of cliffs after another, until ultimately we made it to one of the many Black Sea beach access points in town on Neversea Beach. Down we went bikes and all to sea level where we could shake hands, embrace each other in hearty congratulations, and change into our swim suits, to be baptised in the waters! It was most incredible!
We hung around that beach for nearly an hour 'chatting with strangers', who are now friends before heading to our overnight resting place. First though, we both agreed, we'd better get to the bike shop we'd identified as a possible supplier of shipping boxes. Luckily we did, as some 'personal crisis' was shutting their shop almost immediately! We fortunately got one box that we transferred to our accommodation, and began researching where to get another!
Between Paul and Marius on the phone we had Plan B already into action for the next day! As we arrived at the hotel my two oldest bungee cords both yielded under the strain! Literally, they both were thrown away as useless the very minute I didn't need them any longer!! What luck!
Shower, change of clothes and beer.... in that order. Then to the local steak house for 'Surf&Turf' like neither of us have ever had before. Tiger King Prawns and an Argentinian RibEye to die for! Paul, the sommelier, somehow or another got us 'up sold' to perhaps the most expensive Romanian Red wine they had in their cellars! You know, if their was ever a time to be 'up sold' to a better bottle of wine, this was it!! It was actually very funny, and an excellent bottle of wine!!
Slept like logs until I woke up at 4am, not believing what we'd just finished , and only dozed after that.... acheing muscles didn't help either!
Job Done!!
Doug&Paul
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