Perfect
Or almost a perfect day. I forgot my credit card, so I couldn’t stop anywhere to grab a Snickers or refill my bottles. The last hour of the ride was a bit rough as I had already gone through my two water bottles and two small bars (thinking I could stop to buy more energy and water 😁).
There was a moment, about 3 hours and 45 minutes into the ride, halfway up the “home”-mountain, and just before I was about to descend, where I was close enough to home that I could’ve made a quick pit stop. But I feared that if I stopped at home there was a (pretty) good chance I’d end up staying there. So I yolo’ed it.
Even so, it was still a pretty near perfect day on the bike.
Cro Race Stage 3
That was pretty much all I got to see of Cro Race this year 😄
Stage 3, the one that usually goes through our village, was cut short due to strong winds. I was in town that morning, and on my way back, I saw all the team cars transporting the bikes to the new start location in Novi Vinodolski. At first, I thought they had canceled the stage altogether (and judging by the bit of the race I caught on TV, I think many of the riders probably wished they had).
I briefly considered heading over to Novi Vinodolski to watch the new start, but I’m not really that much of a fan of pro cycling, and it was raining outside 😁
I love that Cro Race exists as a way of promoting Croatia as a cycling destination, but having watched a couple of the stages live, I’m a bit over that experience, and as I said, not that big of a pro fan. Although it would be really cool if they could get Pro status in the coming years, something they are working towards and hoping for, as it will hopefully (or surely) attract more WT teams and more star names to the race.
Stage 4 Krk – Labin
For Stage 4, I had planned on taking some photos of the peloton a little bit after they would cross the Krk bridge. My plan was to ride my bike to a carefully scouted location, snap some shots, and then continue with my ride. I arrived about 15 minutes before they were expected to cross the bridge. But then, it started raining. On top of that, there was a pretty nasty wind blowing – I was not about to stand around there in the rain and wind just to take some photos.
I figured that was the beginning of the end of my ride as well. The four hours I had planned would be cut short to just an hour and a half – the time it takes to get to the bridge and back home. That is if I could make it back at all – had the rain picked up a bit more I was considering to stop at a café and call in the Opel.
Or so I thought.
About 10 minutes after leaving the rain, I hit completely dry roads, not a drop had fallen! I could even see sunshine in the distance, towards the direction of home. I ended up having a really nice four hour ride doing some loops in the mountains back home, in great weather.
