In this video, you will join me along an exciting eurovelo 8 bikepacking trip as…
I woke up early, had a quick breakfast and checked out of the hotel. I started cycling at 11 am, hoping to avoid the thunderstorms that were forecasted for the evening. I only had seven hours of daylight, so I had to cycle fast.
To join the Velo8 route, I had to exit Alexandria through a busy road with trucks. It was scary and stressful. Then I took an alternative route that was more hilly than I expected. The views were nice, but the climbs were tough.
I passed Valenza, a tourist town with a beautiful bridge over the river. Then I passed some hill towns that looked like ghost towns, such as Monte.
The downhill roads were rough and bumpy, and sometime along the ride, I got a puncture. I didn’t notice it at first, but then I felt my tire losing air pressure super quick. I was in the middle of nowhere, far from civilization. That was a pickle situation.
I realized that my plan to reach Turin was canceled. I had to fix the puncture somehow.
Luckily, after many kilometers of field road, I got to a small village. I stopped there to inspect the puncture. It took me 30 minutes to take the tube out of my Brompton tire and find the hole.
I tried to apply patches, but they didn’t work. The patches couldn’t cover multiple holes on an uneven surface. I was frustrated and worried.
Then something amazing happened. A guy named Gabriel passed by and stopped to help me.
We had a great chat about cycling, bikes and multireflexology and spiritual pain meditations. He was very friendly and helpful.
My air pump battery got low and we had to come up with plan B.
I thanked him for his help. He was one of those people who make you grateful for life.
It was already 4 pm and it should rain at 6 pm. I had lost two hours patching the puncture. I continued cycling with the patched tire, hoping it would hold.
But it didn’t. The tire went flat again after a few kilometers. I was so frustrated and tired. I decided to call it a day and look for an Airbnb nearby.
I found a classy bed and breakfast with authentic furniture, a big bed, a big living room and a fireplace.
Tomorrow, I will try to reach Turin again. Hopefully, nothing will stop me this time.
Thank you for following my adventure!
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EuroVelo 8 (EV8), named the Mediterranean Route, is a 7,560 km long EuroVelo long-distance cycling route running from Cadiz, Spain to Athens, Greece, and then continuing to Ä°zmir, Turkey and to the island of Cyprus. The route runs east-west across Europe mainly along or close to the Mediterranean coast, passing successively through 12 countries: Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus
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I woke up in a hotel in Alexandria spending the last day exploring the city while avoiding thunderstorm last night good morning guys it’s refresh morning 7 it rained yesterday overnight the streets are still wet so I’m very lucky that I got this booking and the good
News news is that the weather for today is favorable for us it will not rain for a whole day today and tomorrow so I have plenty of time to get into Trin without the fear of getting wet after early breakfast I check out of the hotel okay
Guys I’m ready to go I’m back check out and it’s 11:00 a.m. we have uh not much time today maybe 7 hours of ride and who knows what kind of surface I will face today so I will take it slow and we will see if I can get to Trine but probably
Not because it’s more than 20 kilm again fortunately it’s not that hot it’s 30° CIA here in uh Alexandria and the weather should be favorable at least for the first half of part of the route the second part is closer to terine will be very tough although there were only 7 hours of
Daylight left I was glad that it would not rain until evening this man that I could still make good progress on my journey to toine so I have to say that during the day there are a lot of beautiful girls which you don’t meet in rural areas or uh in other cities during
The day it’s like in other major cities that oh what a cute dog and there’s a on the street what a surprise after weeks of cycling my butt was in colossal pain even two nights in fourstar hotel didn’t help however I I had no choice but to
Keep going I have to say today is not that hot 30° versus 37° is a damn difference especially when uh you are cycling and you feel the breeze to join a 8 route I had to exit Alexandria through a busy road with trucks which was very stressful no cycle ways a lot of
Tracks speeding up I hope that alternative route from Alexandria would be noted hilly about them this is again very demanding uphill route until we get to the river and imagine that I would have to ride this route when it’s raining would be totally impossible but after a while I shifted to quieter route
That turned out to be more hilly than expected so I lost a lot of time pushing my bike yeah this is a nice view but fortun I have to push uphill there’s no other way those Farms on the Hills looks amazing it’s completely different view than what have been seeing the past two Weeks okay looks like I can enjoy downhill for a little while and those are the roads wooo so many holes welcome to valenza they have even a McDonald’s must be a big tourist town I wonder why they have an airport here must be a important Transportation Hub
Or something this part is super hilly all in all it doesn’t Worth to do a detour into Alexandria there because you exactly have to go through these Hills and it takes a lot of effort along the way I pass a series of abandoned Hill Towns now I’m in Monte a small village
On top of the hill seems completely abandoned it’s actually not I hear voices inside the houses but houses are totally closed there’s no single soul outside but at least there’s a water fountain you’re cuos then yeah you can make a stop here now let’s go downhill oo Dam that’s view wow what’s this
Town all good Farm gravel roads I didn’t miss you at all but here you are again and I have to follow you for 5 kilomet those will be long kilometers man however the rough downhill roads tooks a toll on my Bramton and I got a puncture somewhere along the way so it’s official
I got my first puncture after maybe more than th000 KET it’s losing air right now it’s losing pressure and as you can see this is the gravel road that last few kilomet maybe 10 kilm nowhere near civilization I need to just somewhere place to sit and to look at
The tire the only thing I can do is uh to stop from time to time and fill up the pressure so it can last few kilometers more until I reach sterilization and the thing with brumpton is that it’s so hard to change tires because of the ancient Legacy
System and you need a lot of tools to pull up your tire I was in a big trouble as I was far from ization and the air pressure was dropping rapidly I had to abandon my plan to cycle to Trine and find a nearby town to repair my tire it
Will take a lot of time to figure out how to fetch the tire first get the tube out then find the puncture then fetch it and then hope for the best hey look what happened yesterday or the day before when it rained hard it’s totally under the water
Water so go figure if I would stay within the tent under the trees I would be totally under the water see this while seeing swampy areas and puddles in the forest from the previous days rain I was glad that I had not tried to Camp outside without a tent and you would
Think that you will be protected from the rain thunderstorm but nope let’s stop in this Village and try to figure out how to patch the Tire luckily after cycling the rough Fields roads on empty tires for many kilometers I finally reached a small village so guys it took me half an
Hour maybe 1 hour to get the tube out and there’s the little hole somewhere okay if I try to pour water can you see there are two holes one two I have the patches fortunately I didn’t have to uninstall the whole bromton U rear wheel it’s quite a complicated
Butes so I fit in the brumpton tire the hole is patched I hope so this will be uh the moment of truth so let Let’s uh pump it up and see if uh the pressure will stays the same okay my battery died so another struggle I have to recharge my xiaomi
Pump just when I was about to give up a local name Gabriel rode by he stopped to help me finding punctures we covered the rever the hole I think after inspecting the puncture I discovered that there were multiple holes in in the inner tube making it difficult to apply pches
Effectively the ones that I had purchased from the catlon were completely useless they quickly fell off that there were only two but there are two more more yeah so I think uh that’s maybe the one only I hope so Gabriel and I continue to chat about cycling bikes and various topics
Including reflexology and spiritual Meditation what is see friend of mine is has the same brand I see uh this this uh yeah wheels wheels I take a picture I send to her yeah sure sure so she has the same bike right yes another color it’s um copper I see this uh it’s a
Particular uh pedal pedal uhhuh do you have bike also yes I don’t the bigger one don’t use yes yes uh you have a a road bike and a mountain bike mhm I have the road bike here I was always on the bike always I lived um in another town
Not here mhm and I was every day on the bike What’s Your Name by the way gabri Gabriel nice to meet you nice to meet you do you practice that yes this is the the bus that came to kazal there’s a couple of brothers that introduced uh
This practice in in in Italy oh this is uh a map mhm of the points that you can stimulate for a head arches and you can see some pain when when you when you press this point and then it’s uh it uh release your pain you know English very well like did you
Travel like I travel once once once upon a time if I listen to someone that knows the word yeah I can understand but sometimes it’s difficult to to remember I learned a lot with the the songs really when when I was uh young okay it stays seems like it’s almost fixed it
Doesn’t go down after many attempts my air pump battery was about to die so I had to come up with another plan thanks for help thanks thank you okay so it took two patches I missed the second pair of uh holes but it seems like the pressure is uh holding with the time
Taking down to 6:00 p.m. and the rain approaching I decided to continue with the patch Tire hoping it would hold up for the remaining kilometers I had already lost 2 hours dealing with the punctures and I didn’t want to waste any more time s some kind of pepperon
Festival so we continue on our a trip uh there was a small setback but I will try to make up for it however as I was cycling through the countryside the tire started to lose air again and I was forced to stop at a small village to find an Airbnb to stay
Overnight all right guys this is a disaster the puncture is not fixed yet it’s in the uh deflated again so um I don’t have much daylight today basically 3 hours and who knows if I can fix it in time and do some distance and cycling so I decided to book uh this BNB
But no one’s at no one’s home you have to enter you’re waiting for the bed and breakfast yeah I made a [Applause] reservation she arrives immediately okay thank you I have to fix my tire in worst case scenario I will have to use the spare tire which I don’t want
To but I cannot uh cycle further it’s still like maybe 100 km to Torino so yeah I will have like a whole night to fix the the bike and hopefully continue tomorrow the weather should be raining maybe slightly in the morning the Airbnb I found was a classy bed and breakfast with authentic
Furniture a big bed and a big living room okay oh very nice okay oh nice okay yeah okay okay so guys this is very classy bed and breakfast authentic furniture and huge living room with a big mirror and the television I love the sofa and there’s H
Some cookie as well how nice so I will drink a tea or something yeah I definitely prefer hotels because the chicken is usually smooth lless despite the high price of the bbnb the owner was quite a angry when I accidentally left electricity on when I stepped out of the
Room I spent the rest of the evening trying to repair the puncture in my tire to my disappointment when I used a new spare I discovered that it had a hole as well so yeah I was wondering why it doesn’t inflate out of five patches I
Bought only three were left and none of them were able to seal the holes in the inner Tu fortunately I had packed four four spared inner tubes for this trip so I still had two spare left so I’m kind of frustrated right now I hope I will be
Able to continue but I have somehow buy more spare tubes and maybe find a way how to fix those holes properly so I can continue I was getting desperate and I was thinking about giving up my cycling trip and going home to resupply with spare components but more about that in the next Episode