This route planning is getting quite technical, so for the benefit of future generations of eager cycling adventurers, and assisted by “S”, our self-proclaimed cycling expert, here is our system for calculating a daily target.
Stage 1: Create a time budget:
1. What time do you want to leave? 8.30, maybe 8.45.
2. Be realistic, what time do you think you will really leave once you’ve packed up and paid and got the bikes out? OK, 9.15.
3. When do you want to be in the hotel at the other end, that is, actually checked in and in the room? 5.00 would be nice, if necessary then 5.30, as we’ve still got at least 1-1.5 hours of things to do before we can really relax (see separate post on this topic).
4. How much time do you want to allow for getting lost leaving the first town? 15 mins.
5. And getting lost finding the hotel in the final town and talking to the reception etc? 30 mins.
6. And you will need some time for lunch and snacks and pauses for drinks of water and looking at the map: 90-120 mins according to our tracking app.
That gives us a time budget of 5-6 hours for the actual making-progress-while-cycling bit.
Stage 2: Work out what the best distance you can do is.
1. What is your usual long-distance rate of progress on a reasonably ok road? 22kph.
2. No, don’t give me your perfect-surface-with-a-tailwind speed, give me your usual slightly-rough slightly-hilly slightly-grumpy speed. Hmm, realistically 18kph.
3. What is the worst rate of progress you’ve made? Well, we’ve ended up pushing the bikes through swamps and over cobbles and round monumental potholes and down the wrong side of fast roads. We can’t really plan the whole day based on a worst-case of 6kph! But quite often we find we are only really doing 12kph when the surface is bad or steep or fiddly to find or through a town.
Best case: 6 hours of good-quality cycling: 108km
Worst case: 5 hours of tiring poor-quality cycling: 60km
Both of these might be difficult to keep up day after day. Also remember that most of our days involve more distance than we’d planned because of taking the wrong route and doubling back.
Our early notes when planning our Romania/Bulgaria sections allowed for “120km days, as we will be fit and our legs will have turned into bags of walnuts…” Some replanning might be necessary…
Keep up the good work. Watch out that Mifter Bat doesn't make friends with Bats with BAd Habits in Transylvania.
You are missing the world's wettest June so no need to turn back yet.
I keep trying to comment and Google keeps eating my text, so apols if this appears twice or not at all…
We will be in Romania in 2 weeks' time, so keep posting all/any tips on cycling, hiking, sightseeing, eating, drinking etc.
Stay clear of wolves and bears.
Plenty of mad music making going on back at base but nothing you can't catch up on.
They eat my comment too!! Do they have bears? Yay I love bears! Give them honey. 🙂
Excellent work on the trip! Keep going guys!
Jessie