Day with a Duck

Duzce to Gerede
July 29th
100km (2,436m vertical)

It was my turn to carry the lame duck with me today, and capture its travels in photos. It was actually a lot of fun to think of interesting places to photograph the little rubber ducky.

Breakfast at the hotel was bread, tomatoes, olives, cucumber and coffee – not really a proper cycling breakfast. On the last tour, people complained enough about these sorts of breakfasts that hotel spreads were always fortified with tour group muesli. Hope that happens again.

Today had the most climbing of any day since we started. We were on a main road though, so the grade was usually only 8% or so. There were two long climbs over large hills, and then a steep little climb to our campsite at the end of the ride.

The camp is located at the top of a hill, where there is not a square of flat land anywhere to put a tent. Its also very windy and quite cool, so everyone has pulled out their pants and jackets for the first time on the trip.

Just before lunch, we learned that Ben (one of the two tour leaders) had been hit by a dump truck on the first climb. It was going 70km/h or so, and knocked him off his bike and (luckily) onto the shoulder of the road. He was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, where they thought he had broken his arm. Luckily, the x-rays did not show any break, but there was so much swelling that they couldn't really tell what was wrong. He's back at camp now, with the arm wrapped up like a mummy and taped onto his chest so that it doesn't move. He's going to stick with the tour, and hopes to be back to normal in a few weeks.

Bucket showers in the pit toilets at camp tonight. I also did some laundry in the sink, which hopefully will dry in all the wind. I also cleaned my bike and put some more lube on the chain, so I feel like I had a productive afternoon.

After a day with me, Lame Duck put on a few extra ounces of ice-cream weight:

The hills are beginning to look more like mountains:

Manon climbing a hill:

Lame Duck and a Turkish Eye charm:

Lame Duck looking down on Gerede from half-way up the last hill to the campsite: