Slovenia-Slovakia
From Celje it was my plan to get closer to check point 3 in the high tatras. Therefore I planned to cross Hungary. It got hot, I mean really hot and it was weakening myself. Getting out of Celje and doing some roads that I already knew from the frist edition of Hardcro, I turned into a cafe and askd for a little breakfast. As the waitress declined my request, I asked if it was possible to get some eggs, maybe fried eggs. After she said that this was no problem, I got four fried eggs and two grilled sandwiches with ham, salami and cheese. Just perfect! Climbing, heat and still a little stress of being chased. It was time to end that and make myself free from that stress. I stopped setting inofficial targets for every day. I had trackleader installed for half a day and I deleted it again, to be free. I cycled the entire day and finally I still wanted to get into Hungary. But firstly I had to finish the hilly climbs of Slovenia. I met Pawel -from my first night in Geraadsbergen- but Emilian was missing. Obviously one part of this pair really wanted to do this race and Pawel did. For sure he suffered but he was enjoying so so much! It was just great to see! During noon it got hotter and hotter and finally I hit a borderstone of Hungary, shortly after graveling around in the Selo hills. It took a good while to get to th first village on the Hungarian side as I crossed into a reservation area.
Coming into Oriszentpeter, scanning where was the supermarket and jumping for resupply. Pickles and delicious Hungarian salami, Ice creams and tons ice tea. This was my first Hungarian dish! The pickles and salami edition was chosen some more times laterly. Well enough prepared to get ahead in the heat I left my shadow shelter, but it was totally clear that my speed was dropping in this heat and I was getting exhausted, somehow. Normal for that kind of game, I know. But still worth mentioning it. Having longer rests, avoiding riding around noon and cycling in the night, common measures to get along with heat. 45degrees on more than only one day, already having 35 and more before 1000 and until 1800 was not so easy. You can adapt to many things, to some at leat I cannot.
In Ostffyasszonyfa I had a rest before the night in the yard of a church. I got on my lightest jersey and chased through the late evening and night for a good while still towards Slowakia’s High Tatra Mountains. In this night I passed Gyor and entered Slowakia at Komarno. It was late and still there were riders around having the same plan, getting ahead. I stopped at a petrol station at the end of the town, charging coffee, chocolates, wafers and other sugar stuff. I made myself comfortable outside as they had chairs and tables. It was like 0230 in the morning and there were still people around me, chatting and being happy. I was worried of getting too comfortable and tired so I was ready to leave. Suddenly Dragan showed up and I had to stay a little bit more as we never really talked. After some minutes he fell asleep so I could head on. This night I cycled until 0430 in the morning, unfortunately I had to reroute as I misinterpreted my garmin. It was borrowed from a good friend, as mine was in service for more than five weeks. I found shelter ans sleep in a pretty rotten bus station.
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