It took me less than ten minutes to get everything at CP3 and by everything I mean a race stamp and a proper notion of the time advantage that race leaders had on me. I left the control and went back to town in a search of some resupply options. It was already after midnight, I didn’t find a thing, so I left Plužine in the hope, that the little bit that I had on me will be enough, at least for the parcour.

There was nothing more wrong I could do. The parcour started hard. Heavy and steep climb with switchbacks and through the rough and long, and neverending tunnels. Don’t get me wrong, it was really impressive, but I was so tired and so sleepy, that my eyes were closing themselves on their own. I decided that on the first flat bit I’ll try to get some sleep. When the tunnels ended I found a tourist table, where I put my bivi on. I did fall asleep fast but also woke up not long later. It was pretty cold and my thin bivvy wasn’t enough for this temperature. So the cold was what kept me going. I did continue waiting for the first light, hoping that it will bring some warmth.

When the sun came up I finally realise such a beautiful place I was in. It was like moving back into times when I was a child and remember walking with my parents around Beskids in Poland. They were like that back then. Empty, deserted, endless fields, small country roads, beautiful meadows. I loved it, and it was probably the best place I have been in the whole race so far. The road was climbing up, gently, nothing steep, but all the time I was riding higher and higher. With the kilometres passing, the landscape was changing. From lovely countryside style to more of a rocky mountain area. It reminded me of Irish Black Valley, but more green, and welcoming. Horses were running freely there, some crossing the road slowly just before me. One stopped in the middle blocking the road. When I came closer, he started to chew one of my aero bars, and we were standing like that for about a minute. I was out of breath, not from the climbs but from the impression of being somewhere really remarkable.

With all the beauty of the route, the work still had to be done. I reached for my top tube pack for some food. It was empty, and there was still a big chunk of parcour until Žabljak. It was rather challenging without even a tiny breakfast, and a rubbish supper last evening. I continue climbing up, there was nothing else to be done. The higher I was the more clouds were closer, sometimes covering me completely. Amazing feeling.

At some point I was empty. I felt that if I won’t eat something I’ll fall off my bike, so I started to reach for flowers I was passing by. There were a lot of white flowers with long green stalks. They were no taste, really, but they gave me the mental impression of eating something. Have you ever eaten flowers?

I somehow managed to get to the top, where the parcour ended, and just like that, from out of the clouds a friend showed up. Such a big surprise, Bjorn was waiting for me on the „Sedlo”, out of nowhere in the heart of Durmintor National Park, at 1907 meters above sea level. It was extraordinary to see him there, I was wondering what was his story of the race. I knew he scratched because of his Achilles tendons but nothing more after that. We spoke for a minute, but as I was really hungry and super tired I didn’t want to stay there for long. There was a petrol station in Žabljak where I was hoping to get myself together again, so we agreed that we will meet there later and talk a bit more when I’ll be having my breakfast. He drove with his car, I descended to the city.

I was happy because my big „finish the race in 10 days” plan was still up and running, and it was looking like I can make it done. There was no time to waste for me on the top of the mountain.

At the petrol station, I got everything I could get, sandwiches, snacks, crisps, drinks, everything. While eating on the bench outside, we chatted with Bjorn about the race, his story and what he was up to, and we planned our meeting at the finish line, where he was going right now. It took me nearly 30 minutes I believe when I felt ready to ride again. We hugged our way out, and split. The next section was about getting to Serbia and from there long awaited Romania, which I was both excited and terrified about.

Endless climbing is what I remember the most from the rest of Montenegro. And to not make it any easier, the same thing was after crossing the border. Nothing else than constant up and down and up again and again. My routing through Serbia was based on experience from 2017 and 2019 where I never had any issues with drivers and was happy with how they behaved. I decided to take the main national road towards the city of Čačak from where I was going to take small roads northeast to the Danube river and the Romanian border.

What I learned that day was that as long as the Serbian drivers behave well on the small roads, they are terrible and dive like crazy on the big ones. The whole day on national road number 23 was dramatic. I couldn’t focus on riding, couldn’t find my rhythm, and I was scared for my life at every passing lorry. I was stopping a lot, trying to search for a sensible detour to avoid this road, but it was hard to find something reasonable on the go. Such an ironic situation. This route supposes to be much faster, in comparison to small roads I could take with more elevation and distance, but because of the stress that I got, because of the moving traffic, it became my burden and slowed me down a lot. In the late afternoon, Krystian caught up with me. He didn’t seem to worry too much about lorries passing us by super fast and super close. Maybe I’m too old for that I thought. We chatted only a bit, there was no room for that. After 6 pm, when the traffic got crazy and the road was super big I said enough. I stopped in the roadhouse with a restaurant and a little hotel. Went to the reception desk, booked a room, ordered food, paid for it all from the top and headed straight for the shower. When I finished the food was served in my room. The hotel owner was super friendly. I ate, went to bed and set my alarm for three hours, and was hoping that together with the night, the traffic will ease a bit.

I wasn’t sleeping that long for a while now, and having three hours of good bed sleep made up for all my downtime. I went back on my bike pretty easily and under the dark sky already went back on the big road. At first, it felt it was ok, but after a while, big fast tracks started their crazy ride again. It was 9 PM and it wasn’t much better rally. Managed to find some small roads avoiding the main one for some time. It gave me some more elevation, but also gave me another hour or a little more until I came back on national road 23. After 11 PM it started to be a bit better. From constant heavy traffic, it changed into waves of few tracks every 5-10 minutes, which was more bearable. There were a few tunnels that I didn’t want to ride through really. By avoiding one a came across two gates that I had to climb through. It made me laugh a bit.

I was happy when I finally got off this main road. I took Čačak from the north through some small roads and then came back on the same main road heading north, but only for a while. And as it was after 3 AM, the traffic was finally close to none. In the morning I was already on my way towards the Danube river through some small Serbian roads. They were the ones that I loved and I finally felt that I’m making some good progress there. When I reached the Danube I felt like I’m flying, and I was impressed by the size of this river. It was making its way between mountains, it was wide, it was slow and majestic.

When I got to the border crossing it was packed with cars, trucks, and motorbikers. I started to overtake the long probably a few hundred meters que and suddenly some drivers went out of their cars and started to shout and tried to catch and stop me. They were three motorbikes behind me doing the same as I did, and actually, one of them was thrown out of his bike and the whole situation escalated into a little fight. I used this as my chance and fled quietly and rode straight onto the border control. The officer was nice and let me go out of the que order. I was in Romania.

Only a few minutes later I knew exactly that I was in Romania. I had to take a national E-road for a short moment, and straight when I got on it I felt like in a real war zone. Huge trucks were crushing their way forward without looking at anything. Everyone that was passing me by was also speeding me up by sucking air. I put my head down and pushed as strongly as I could. I wanted to leave this road as quickly as it was possible. Welcome Romania, I smiled to myself there. There was nothing else to be done. If I was going to die there I couldn’t do anything about it.

As expected I didn’t die. After this crazy few kilometres, I got to the first town. Stopped at the petrol station, and straight after walking in, my love-hate relationship with Romania started. Why? Because people there are just amazing, they just have to be outside their cars. They are always so helpful, and there is something, that feels like they are a unique nation. I felt that I can find a common language with everyone I did talk to.

I continued north, towards the Carpathians, where CP4 and the famous Transalpina road were placed. Taking small roads was the key to my success. That was my plan. Avoid huge traffic, and go through this country as stressless as possible. And here you have to choose. Small roads mean more Romanian dogs, and big roads mean more crazy lorries. Of course, I choose the dogs, and just after leaving the first town, I remembered everything from 2017. Dogs are to play with, and for me, that was the only way to manage them and the number of encounters that I was going to get there. Every dog chase was like a little game. I was talking to them, shouting at them, laughing at them, discussing and arguing with them. All that was making my time pass by.

With that mindset, I pushed forward into the evening. My time was good, and my progress was also. I made it a few hours ahead of the rest of the chasing pack, and I felt that it was good time for a short sleep. I manage to book some kind of apartment room, 60 kilometres into Romania. Again in the late evening, around 8 PM, I fall asleep after a great shower but a pretty rubbish supper. I couldn’t get anything better than few cans of fish and sandwiches. At about 11 PM I was back on my bike making my way towards the Transalpina, and 100 kilometres later I was already on one of the most famous climbs of the whole Eastern Europe.

Before sunrise, I started thinking about the ferry and was calculating what is possible, what are the crossing times etc. I realised, that ferry will be the moment, where all my hard work for the last two days will go into the void. And it was probably all for nothing. I calculated, that there will be no chance for me to get to the last ferry today, and by getting to the first ferry tomorrow I was going to lose all of the advantages that I have earned to the chasing pack. I suddenly felt really sad and tired about it.

It was nearly morning but still dark when I entered the Transalpina. The dogs were chasing me from time to time. The worst one was the Sheppard Dogs. They were huge and didn’t seem to be scared of me shouting at them. Pretty scary. Transalpina felt like a never-ending climb. Sunrise came before the summit and the view from the top was nice. It didn’t impress me the same as Transfagarasan did a few years earlier, but it was still really beautiful. Who knows, maybe it was because my mind was more focused on that I had to ride down to the valley to get the CP stamp, and then climb back up the top Transalpina, and take the actual offroad parcour from there. All that didn’t seems to be nice at all, but what could I do?

I descended more than 12 kilometres, and with every kilometre, I felt that I will have no power in me to climb this mountain back. It was a hard mental game there. I reach the CP4 hotel around 8 AM. My good friend Sebastian, the CP volunteer, gave me a great welcoming hug, and I also met Cristi, a man behind Carpathian Arch Race. Of all the controls that one was the one where I spent the most amount of time. I truly needed that to continue.

To be continued…

Check my TCRNo8 ride on RwGPS > here <

Cover Photo: Charlotte Gamus, The Transcontinental Race