September 17, 2012
Dawns the morning cold and damp: Ginci - Brusarci
I WASN'T going to take chances going down the mountain. I rode the remaining kilometre to the col, wreathed in mist, then descended for an hour with brakes squealing. I rode at jogging pace. Yesterday's fall had no greater consequence than blood stains on my sleeping bag liner but that was the physical damage; mentally I was still shaken up and the least bend or shiny road surface made me cautious.
Eventually, of course, I overcame it. I have ridden a bike for 5O years and hardly ever fallen off. But I have fallen, of course, and one tumble has never been more enjoyable than another. Just once or twice they have done more than scrape a little skin. And I wasn't going to take that chance again. Not straight away. Although as my confidence returned
I realised yesterday was a freak, nothing to do with my bike-handling and nothing, therefore, to repeat itself the very next morning. So in time I let the brakes off and took the corners confidently and vertically.
And in that way I got to Montana, an appealing town and a lot more enjoyable than the wretched month we spent in the American place of the same name. The road bowled through fields where bright yellow harvesters half-vanished in the gold wheat they were lifting. I rode through Doktor Josifovo and wondered what miracles he had performed on the ill for his village to be named after him.
And come the end of the afternoon I camped on rough grass between a tree and a ditch on one side and a ridge of low hills on the other. I am writing this to rustling grass and happy birdsong. I have a mug of coffee. Even Dr Josifovo couldn't have a better remedy.
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