Day 2 Sept 4 Alsobucka- Dunaujvaros 65 km

A hot day was forecast and I became much hotter, when I realised that both bikes had flat rear tyres🤬

As Sue started to pack the bags I started replacing the tubes in a shady bit by the motel.

When the bikes are not loaded it is fairly easy to remove wheels and tyres.

I decided to replace the tubes with new ones to save time.

Annoyingly, the new tubes had different valves, so I couldn’t seem to inflate the tube at all. Neither pump appeared to work🤔🤔.

Finally I removed the tube and realised I’d been sold a new porous tube😡. So many holes it just wouldn’t pump up! Made in China of course

Luckily the other one was OK and after lots of frustration, we were ready to leave into the midday scorching sun.

We followed a small road alongside the tributary of the Danube, then it sent us onto a very pot-holey sandy track that was hard work but much more scenic.

Unfortunately this soon led us onto a busy narrow main road, which we had to share with buses and lorries for 20 km. Not fun at all, especially trying to avoid roadside potholes; equally as bad as the UK ones!

This was the first time in 2900 km that we’d been subjected to these scary riding conditions for so long.

We finally made it to Rackeve, and found a little shack under a vine, selling catfish & chips and cold beer!

It was at this point we had a serious discussion about the remainder of the trip.

We became suspicious as we’d only seen one other touring cyclist on the EV 6 since Budapest, 80 kms away. So very different to before Budapest, when every few minutes you passed someone else.

It made us realise that this was probably going to be the norm for the next 1000 miles to the Black Sea: a lack of cycling infrastructure through the eastern countries as they don’t seem to have the resources to develope them.

We had long ago decided that if either of us were no longer enjoying the trip, we would not pursue it regardless.

We’d been told that the Serbian/ Bulgarian/ Romanian drivers were rather dangerous and also that there would be plenty of road cycling in the future.

We decided to continue to the next crossing point of the Danube and decide whether to continue heading south east following the river, or to cross the river and head westwards.

The trail then became much better, and more scenic, making ourbdecision harder.

We arrived at the bridge crossing of the Danube and decided to head west and say goodbye to the original plan. 😪

It felt like we’d given up on a long time ambition, so I was slightly disappointed, but also relieved that we weren’t subjecting ourselves to miles of scary road work.

Instead we’ve committed to exploring the pretty parts of countries we’ve yet to visit.

The new plan is to head west and explore the interesting parts of Hungary, including Europe’s largest lake: Balaton, then head west to the Adriatic Sea, via Slovenia and Croatia.

We’re now on a new mission and will keep you all updated.