Carpathians-2021

I 🚲 in Carpathians with 🚲🚲🚲 friends. It was awesome and I want more.

We started into the 🌧️ and continued into the totally unnecessary clay.

Only half an hour into it — and we were carrying the 🚲🚲🚲🚲 and even the 👟, requiring for a place to wash the mud crust off our legs in order just to be able to put the socks on again.

We'd squished the water out of our 🧦.

We'd hidden from a ⛈️ at a bus stop in Lavriv.

Without stopping in nice shops of Staryi Sambir, we rode to a crappy one in Strilky instead — same as before. After I finished a dry and sweet poppy seeds bun, the undoing of me had begun.

I was hoping that I had become a tolerable cyclist.

But — alas! It was a «no». I am just a 👨 who 🧡 🚲, but has no 💪.

At some point later in time, the golem of me rolled through the Syanky checkpoint. The Uzhok downhill started, but I did not enjoy it because of having been 😞.

No flatland ensued. We'd begun climbing the gravel uphill to the Husnyi → Roztoka pass, which had the same 260 meters of elevation gain, while the average temperature of +34°C was not helping.

Long story short, the uphill ended and the downhill began. I've had a brake wire partially broken on constant potholes on that downhill to Roztoka. Somehow the remaining wire was enough to finish the trip.

The next 30 kilometers were for us to rest; that was not for too long. At the foot of the climb to Volovetsky pass I've saved a tiny and totally frightened 😿 from the tarmac of this busy 🛣️. It could be that this was the real, celestial reason of me joining to this trip.

Having completed the feline salvage, we 🐌 to the Volovetsky pass. Had fluids down our throats there, enjoyed the view from a big swing, and maybe ate something.

Made it down from the pass.

Only to the knowledge that Podobovetsky is a pass, too, and we had to get our bodies up there, too.

Then, our final destination for the day was close. Just one more tiny, rocky climb of aroung 70 meters, and we're done.

The next day had begun with a descent through Pylypets village and the 🛣️ to the lovely Mizhhirya. We found some food — this being 🥐☕ — criminally not enough fuel for the Synevyr pass climb!

I wanna live in Mizhhirya with a 🚲, and 🚲 the Synevyr pass both ways several times a week. Probably, Mizhhirya is the best town for a road cyclist to live in Ukraine.

I sucked on the climb for two reasons:

This climb turned to be longer than I thought.

I continued pedaling downhill.

The 🛣️ was much smoother on this side, having a few tiny steps where different sections of tarmac met. Had to jump at speed.

It was entertaining!

🦵🦵 were enjoying the cold, refreshing stream.

We did get to Lopushne in the ends, and we've been hiding from 🌧️ at some village shop as some other cyclists were oncoming in the opposite direction. They've asked us:

Yes, you finally will — we've answered. But it will not be easy. Expect these seven kilometers to take three hours!

We've seen 15 meters of smooth tarmac when we exited Lopushne. But we turned left, to the village of Pryslip, in order to ride on another road that was heading obviously towards the terrain similar to the one we'd just escaped from.

Let roadies use the tarmac.

We are the gravel cyclists.

With every meter of the way covered, two things were increasing:

The remains of tarmac have ended.

The substance that could still be called gravel has ended, too.

More hike-your-bike had ensued:

I know now that Carpathians are the kingdom of water.

There was water standing under the long grass.

It was also in the tracks and paths.

The 🌧️ peaked when we were near the edge of Novoselytsya.

A remote shed became a shelter for us.

🌧️ had decreased, and we decided to stop hiding and continue trying to reach our next overnight stay. Anyway, we were totally wet already.

The track went right through someone's territory. The owner was a nice old man who had not seen the civilization too often. We had a smalltalk, and he had shown us the way to the needed mountain pass.

The village on the other side was Yalynkuvate.

Upon reaching the pass, I let my brakes off and trusted my aluminum 🚲.

It went 👍, I lived. Lost some luggage on the potholes.

Some local kid gave it back to me when I returned.

I descended to Volosyanka.

That was it for the day — ten kilometres or so of 🛣️ to Slavsko were left.

I recalled how to spin the pedals and sprinted up a little hill.

We found the place to stay, washed the 🚲🚲🚲🚲 using a garden hose, ingested the 🥘, and had a sleep.

The last day was a ☀️ one — I got my left 🦵 sunburnt.

We gained 1.5k on:

After three days of being 🐌, we engaged ourselves in an attempt to get closer to resembling real cyclists, playing the game of a rotating group of three from Strilky to the railway tunnel after Busovysko.

Our remaining snacks have been eaten in Staryi Sambir, in the company of this 🐤:

This wasn't the 🏁 yet, because the 🛣️ from Staryi Sambir to Terlo is not flat! 300 meters of elevation gain were still waiting for me, while I was completely fed up already.

Well, to cut things short: despite not having any muscle tissue left, I still got myself to the 🏁 of this cycling trip!