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« on: August 08, 2024, 04:07:00 am »
Bicycle touring in Poland August 28th 1994. A quick look through the tents front door proved the bicycle was still there. And now what to do for the day? Clean clothes was the first thought that came to mind, being a steam and sauna kind of guy. Bar soap and Bambi shampoo rubbed in by hand cleaned the filthy dirty clothes of dirt, smoke, b o and air pollution as sink folds of dirty water Rinse down the shower room drain leaving my threads smelling as fresh as daisies. With the wet clothing flapping on a line strung between a tent pole and a large oak tree, I stuffed a camera into my black nylon hip pouch and headed into town on shanks pony. Leaving the bike and gear unattended at the tent was something of a worry, for they might be stolen.
Last night near the office in this campground there was a dome tent with two touring bicycles locked to a nearby fence. Now a man and a woman there we're getting ready to leave on their bikes. They had packed away all their gear. I said hello and we had a short conversation. They were husband and wife from Denmark on a fortnite cycling tour. They described their previous tours. The man said that his $75 Nike cycling shoes had been stolen from where he left them on the fence to dry. They both had cycled extensively in Europe, and that was the first time they had ever been robbed. They asked me about cycling experiences and I told them about my tours. When they wheeled away out of the campground they said they were cycling to Prague.
I walked across the street, through the large parking lot, past the big shiny air conditioned tour buses, past the stalls, and snapped five photographs along the way. The throngs of people in the shrine rooms and in the hallways were incredibly packed and moving at a snail's pace. Larger than life-size sculptures of Christ bearing the cross stood outside. Priests sent in confessionals lining the walls in a semi-opened courtyard. People lined up and waited at each confessional. The place was really crowded for much of the day. I walked in one end and out the other, taking a good look around and getting photographs on the way. From then it was over to a main Street lined with stores and shops, pizzerias, ice cream stands and food stores ad joining the sidewalk. Other stores sold only religious items such as rosaries, pictures of the Christ, pictures of the black Madonna with child, ornate candlesticks, crosses, crucifixes, and clothing for officiates of religious ceremonies. A bistro supply delicious coffee and pastry. Constant exercise builds a gargantuan appetite and it greatly heightens the sense of taste. After a long days on the road, even a simple cup of tea, with no sugar or cream in it, can taste like the nectar of the gods. I walked again past wooden stalls selling religious trinkets and toys for children, and back to the campground, with a stop at a post office to buy an envelope and three postcards. It was a relief to find all the gear was still there. With the journal, map and pen in hand, I repaired to the campground restaurant to write letters and make entries in the log.
The campground was spacious, maybe 10, 15 or 20 acres, and was amply shaded by many oak and broad-leafed trees. The grounds were grassy with spaces for tents, cars Vans and caravans, all of which were present. Nice rental A-frame cabins set at one end of the grounds. A large A-Frame restaurant guarded the entrance. It's 40 ft by 40 ft rear patio consisted of flat stone work set in a cement base. It was sheltered beneath a roof of corrugated, galvanized sheet metal held up by steel poles. The patio was actually a very nice airy place to rest and eat, and a drink and EB Special Pilsner beer brewed by Elbrewery company LTD.
The sunny warm morning had given way before a gray, overcast, breezy afternoon. Shorts and a long sleeved t-shirt were comfortable. The feelings were still good. A few nights of solid sleep would have helped. Beginning touring with no physical preparation and cycling 20 days straight over hills, against headwinds and over a mountain range with 60 lb of gear on the bicycle had been challenging. I really owed myself a one-week layover and one of those nice A-frame cabins, but the wallet kept screaming no no. The tendonitis in the right heel had dis-inflamed. The pain in the right foot and ankle had vanished. Not learning some Polish before starting the trip, at least a menu and a hundred words, was regrettable, but three jobs had left no time for such preparation. But it was passable to plod along, grunting and pointing to things I wanted to buy, and then handling over some money, hoping on the one hand that it would be enough, and hoping on the other hand that they would give me the correct change. The legs were just getting into cycling trim. I was somewhat more apprehensive now about cycling through Ukraine. After the warning from the Polish cyclists, I had given cycling there more consideration and concluded that what the Poles told me was more a result of inter-country rivalry than an accurate estimation of Ukraine. Later I would find out how right they were and how wrong I was. But who was I to argue the validity or demerits of their opinions? The farther east the road continued, the lower was the standard of living. Having written to the American consulate in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia before beginning the trip, the American vice Consul General answered by letter stating that, " Crime had become a major problem in all the former republics, and in Georgia, police authority was non-existent outside the cities." Ukraine was still a few days away by bicycle and the proof would be in the pudding. The worry was that they might charge a whopping big visa fee to enter. Those poor backward countries charged more for their visas then the most modern progressive countries. You would think that such poor countries would welcome tourism to their economies. Instead they impose a Visa tariff. Their facilities were almost always grossly substandard. Their restrooms looked and smelled worse than pig styes. Eat in their restaurants and you risk at least diarrhea, and perhaps something worse that you may never be able to get rid of. And there was the constant staring. Whether it was a town, a village or a city, women, men, children, young and old stopped whatever they were doing and stared until I was out of sight. Well, there was still a long way to go, and it ain't over till it's over, and it wasn't over yet over there.
Now my comments on the new low-rider rack over the front wheel. The benefit is that the rack lowers the center of gravity by attaching the panniers closer to the ground which adds to the bikes stability when it is moving. The benefits, however, or negligible, and mean little compared to the problems the rack creates. Medium-sized panniers hung so low that they were not loose by bumps, rises and bushes hundreds of times while pushing the bike through the woods. Sometimes, when traffic was exceptionally heavy, you must cycle close to the curb, they preferred method being to raise the right pedal to the 12:00 position, those allowing yourself to close the distance between the bike and the curb that was taken up by the pedal. Bulky panniers hanging from a low-rider rack fill the space negating the advantage of cycling that close to the curbside. Low-hanging panniers getting caught can send a fast moving cyclist careening out into the traffic. Unlike conventional front racks, the low-rider rack does not allow for stacking extra gear on top.
Some of the roads in Czech and the Poland had shoulders, or paths, but they were so littered with debris and pothole it was necessary to stay to the left of the white line and out in the traffic anyway. As for bike paths anywhere, and this goes for the United States too, most were carefully planned, frustrating obstacle courses. Light poles, recessed manhole covers, drains, parked cars, bumps and cracks between concrete slabs hindered constantly. Most had very bumpy transitions from the path to the road and back making them unsuitable for loaded touring on a bicycle. Many had unannounced dead ends. So-called bike paths in 18 countries were intended as some kind of a bad joke. Most were obstacles strewn danger zones apparently built by non-cyclists so that politicians could say their Town had bike paths. If roads were built and maintained the same as bicycle paths, traffic would slow to a crawl and in many places halt. Motorists would scream to Washington. It is often best to avoid these obstacles regardless of the signs that are posted on them. Not all bike paths were that bad, but most that I saw were that bad. On a long tour, a sign that says bike path usually means where not to ride your bicycle. It may sound strange to the non-cyclotouristes . Try it sometime and you might see for yourself. When cycling on the roads watch for expansion cracks on Bridges. Some can be quite large in this part of the world. Watch out for drains along the roadside, especially those that have uncrossed gratings that run parallel to the curb. They can swallow your wheel and send you head first to the concrete. Wear a good helmet. Keep an eye out for broken glass, bumps and grooves in the road. There are often uneven edges where old roads abutt against new roads being built, that can send you flying. The cyclist must always remember to exercise great caution on long, fast, downhill runs, especially where the road is bumpy and where it twists and bends and is unfamiliar to you and thus is concealing what is waiting for you around the next turn. As for motorists, no matter what anyone says, no matter how the law reads, they systematically discriminate against the rights of bicyclists. That's the way it is.
After writing in the journal at the restaurant, I went back to the tent for a rest. After that, I walked through the parking lot and over to the stores in town and bought 1 quart of milk, two bananas, two nectarines and a loaf of bread. Back at the tent I devoured it all, plus two cheese sandwiches and three nutella sandwiches. The bike and chain needed cleaning as did my dirty body, and all three soon shined. I sat cross leg in front of the tent in the shadows of the tall trees. The sun hovered just over the horizon. Dogs barked in the distance. A train rattled cacophonously far away. The population in the campground had thinned out considerably. Gone were the four tents near the shower room. Only my tent and another remained where nine were pitched the night before. The keepers rode their golf cart over a narrow, gray, gravel path that snaked through the campground. A patch of Blue sky beamed through the gray. And what of all things had captured my thought? The front tire. Hopefully it would wear for at least 3,000 miles. The equipment had been operating satisfactorily. The clean dry clothes stuffed inside a nylon bag made a comfortable pillow. Wow! Clean clothes! Tonight would be a time of much needed sleep. The sky began clearing as it if it were holding the promise of a pleasant calm evening.
I was dozing in the tent when the wind began blowing a storm. It was not as powerful as the one in France, but it was near the same order of strength. Next, there was a short flapping sound, like somebody trying to crack a bull whip and not hitting it just right. The wind had struck the rain fly with such Force that it tore a corner peg out of the ground and sit the fly to flogging. I went out and reset the peg by hand. Thinking that the problem was ended, I called back inside for sleep. Suddenly, another big gust of wind tore a side pig loose and flung it so far away that it could never be found. I went out, replaced it with a spare, and went back in for sleep. Another torrent of air uprooted and and the pig collapsing the center pole in the rear. So I got out to fix it again. Kneeling in the grass, I had a tent firmly gripped in one hand, the tent pole in the other hand and the rain-fly between my teeth. Again, I secured all fastenings and crawled back inside the tent. again, another hard gust of air collapsed the front pole and uprooted pigs. It was obvious that the predicament required special attention. I carefully examined the ground. A thin layer of soil and grass covered a substratum of crushed rock. The plastic pigs would not penetrate the rock using hand power alone which necessitated pushing them in at an angle that did not allow a purchase fast enough to withstand the driving force of the wind. The problem analyzed, The next step was affecting the solution of driving the pigs tightly into the substratum of layer of rock, for staying up all night, or for hours reconstructing the tent after every violent gust was not my idea of how to spend the evening. I reset the pole, push the pegs in by hand, put on shoes, and walked across the narrow gravel path looking for something to use as a hammer. There was a light, chalk colored brick under a tree which I brought back to the tent and I used it to slam the stakes into the ground all the way up to their heads. It was a hell of a job driving them in. the brick kept breaking off in pieces. It looked as though it would break in half. It figured it would be that kind of brick. At length, the pegs were buried so tightly that all hell might have broken loose, flattened the tent, and blown the fly to tatters, and those pigs would not have moved a tad. That meant there would be one hell of a job getting them up when it came time to leave. Had this storm been equal to the one in France, the tent would have remained flat until all natures hostilities had ceased. The wind kicked up for two more hours, then settled into a gentle rain.
The 21st day of this bicycling Odyssey was the first day of rest from cycling. I walked around the town and the shrine, bought food, eight, showered, caught up on the journal and enjoyed the shady, tree-lined serenity of the campground. This was the city of Czestochowa, Poland where monuments to the suffering and the death of Jesus Christ told a story as old as mankind itself, a story in point of man's inhumanity to man, of injustice, suffering, torture and death, and salvation. and what more appropriate place was there for those great works of art than Poland, the past home of Auschwitz concentration camp where tens of thousands of human beings were systematically tortured and murdered and exterminated under the brutal, bloody regime of Nazism? In Poland there were many survivors of the worst that mankind could do, and each survivor could recount something of terrible suffering and death. It is a story as old as mankind itself, an old story who's horrific, bloody theme was at that very moment being played out upon the stages of Yugoslavia and Africa. I thought I knew something about what some of them had endured. I wondered about the dark secrets behind those tough worn faces.
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