Vienna > Gyor [Tue 24 Jul | 166.23 km]
Gyor > Visigrad [Wed 25 Jul | 122.67 km]
Visigrad > Budapest [Thu 26 Jul | 42.92 km]
I should've known how things were going to go on this ride when we spent the better part of the morning waiting around the Ernst Happel Stadion in the slowly clearing weather. We'd intended to leave at 10am, but I don't think we got going until at least 2 or 3 hours later... It was a great ride, though - easy enough, basically following the Danube out of Austria to Bratislava in Slovakia, and then into Hungary the first day.
The plan was to hit Gyor the first night, and then take the next 2 days to get to Budapest. We were seemingly making good time, but our routing started to fall apart a bit once we hit Slovakia, and we had some waiting time running through Austria after losing a few riders. The border crossing into Hungary went slowly, but smoothly, in sharp contrast to the crossing out of Austria and into Slovakia, where a few messengers got turned away for improper visas. Interestingly enough, they all got across the border at another point, and met up with us later on.
Once we figured out way out of Slovakia and into Hungary, though, things really started to get crazy. The border crossing into Hungary, as I mentioned, went slowly, and as we were already running late at that point, put us squarely into the sunset hours. The group rapidly started to break up into smaller and smaller groups, as riders decided they knew the route and took off into the waning light, despite there being only 2 or 3 of us who had actual maps of Hungary and the area we were covering. Fortunately for me, I was one of those people.
We ended up in the dark, on a gravelly dirt road, completely disoriented, and separated from most of the group. At this point, I was very happy that I not only had the map, but a good set of headlights. It came down to basically tracking everyone down with the aid of various peoples cellphones - I managed to track down almost everyone, checking the callbacks with the listing of people on the ride, and forged ahead, planning to catch up with the rest of the group in Lipot, and have Mo and Yac (who'd flatted repeatedly quite a ways back) meet us in Gyor. We successfully met up with most everyone else, and continued in one group to the outskirts of Gyor, where we then ended up on the hunt for an ATM so as to get everyone Hungarian currency. At some point there, though, the large part of the group took off without us, headed god only knows where, and we got pulled over by Hungarian police for riding through stop signs... Turned out to be our lucky day, though, cause they were' quite helpful with real directions to where the campsite was, and after another hour of stumbling around looking for a campground we didn't even know the name of, we found it, well ahead of the group that had left us behind.
A crazy day indeed. Some horrible examples of how not to tour with large groups, and perhaps the happiest I've ever seen people to see someone with headlights. It was frustrating, though, and I promised myself that the next day I was just going to let people go their own way, cause shepherding a group of 50+ riders who were hell-bent on going their own way was just a bit too much to deal with.
We arrived in Gyor at around 2am, in contrast to our booked arrival time of 10pm, and lo and behold, the restaurant staff, bless their souls, had stayed up all that time waiting for us, and were ready to go with goulash and pasta, which I think we pretty much ate them out of. As far as introductions go, you couldn't have sold me better on the Hungarian people. Anyone who stays up til that hour of the morning ready to prepare food for a bunch of stinky bike couriers gets major points in my book, and we tipped like drunken madmen, often doubling our bills in gratitude for their hospitality.
The following day was a simpler one indeed, follwing the Duna (Danube) along its path through to Esztergom and the Danube knee, to spend the night in Visigrad. The route was a bit more basic, certainly, but some people, exhausted from the previous night's insanity, chose to take the train for some of the route before we all met up in Esztergom for the ride up to Visigrad and the campsite for the night. Things started to get a bit more hilly, landscape-wise, and the country became increasingly beautiful as we approached the knee. Esztergom itself is a beautiful old city, which would be neat to explore in it's own right. We were, once again (and unsurprisingly) running late, and had a bit of a climb to get to the campsite, which was situated near the top of a hill overlooked the river.
On the climb up, we passed a medieval castle, and a Rodelbahn, both of which attracted substantial interest from various parties, since we only had about 40km to travel in the morning, and thus wouldnt be leaving until about noon. Once again, we were late pulling in, but the restaurant near the campground reopened for us, and made pasta for everyone, which we consumed with the usual fervor. This campsite was nicer than the one in Gyor, with excellent views.
The morning brought an early departure for myself, Fish and Jur, headed over to the Rodelbahn for a little alpine slide insanity, ending with me flipping a sled at about 30km/h, much to my entertainment... Some of the rest of the group headed down to the castle, where they ended up tromping around and doing archery. We all ended up back at camp, waited out a short thunderstorm, stalled, took a group picture, and then headed down the mountain for our casual ride to Budapest.
I made no pretense this time round of even bothering to be concerned where everyone was, as the ride to Budapest was, in my mind, an innately obvious routing. Instead, I brought up the rear, figuring that at least that way I could pick up any stragglers... Alas, though, calamity was to befall me, as I managed to shatter the bearings on one of my pedals, and ended up spending a bit of time on the side of the road pulling the pedal body off of the spindle so i could pound the bearings out so as to ride on a bearing-less pedal... It beat walking, though, with 20km left to go...
After that mess, I rode the last bit in with Hermes and a few others, and ended up getting to the campsite well before most of the people who were ahead of me (again, remember that I was the one with the map...). It had been a great, chaotic ride, but In a way, I was glad to see it come to an end, especially on an island filled with so many familiar friendly faces...
Maps used:
Kompass Rad- und Freizeikartern #152 (Austria, Slovakia, Hungary)
Frigoria "Cycling around Hungary" (Hungary)
On to Budapest and the CMWC