Cycling from Greece to England Vlog Day 14 – Cycling Fier to Durres on SH4 in Albania

There is little option when cycling between Fier and Durres in Albania, but to take SH4. It is a busy, two lane road, but bicycles are allowed on it – Along with cattle, donkeys and carts, and anything else you can think of! Here’s my vlog from day 14 of cycling from Greece to England.

Thank you good morning everyone I think this is Vlog 14 now so where am I I’m in Fier which is a town in Albania which I mentioned in the last Vlog update and today I’ve got an 80 kilometer cycle ride to go to duras

Now some of that road is going to be on a highway a dual carriageway it’s debatable whether slow-moving vehicles are allowed on there but as several people have explained to me this is Albania so apparently it’ll be okay on a bike so no worries but I don’t expect

The cycling to be all that Pleasant because it’s just going to be fast moving traffic so it’s probably just a case to get my head down and get the miles in really uh is there anything else to say ah I’m going to do another short video just straight after this one

Before I set off which is about my waterproof gear that I used yesterday so it rained all day yesterday and it’s raining through the night as well so the waterproof gear was absolutely fine yesterday I was kept nice and warm majority dry because the waterproof gear it never keeps you entirely dry because

Obviously you sweat inside especially when you’re cycling up hills and things like that but um but yeah it kept me brilliant yesterday so I was like lovely and warm but the day after that’s where you have a problem what do you do with your wet gear then so that’s what this

Second section of video is going to be about stay tuned welcome to the bathroom of my cheap Albanian Hotel and I am using it to dry my weather gear so my wet weather gear is kinda divided into two parts we have this which is a an entirely waterproof coat and that’s a

Gore-Tex coat which means that it’s breathable again things are never entirely 100 breathable because if you’re cycling uphill and you’re putting a lot of exertion in it’s just you know sweat does build up on the inside but yes this is an awesome coat if you can afford one buy one that is my

Recommendation so that is now dry so if I wanted to I could pack that away no problem these are my waterproof trousers again they did the job they’re waterproof not incredibly breathable but not bad again they’re dry so I can pack those away no worries

On to the seal skin socks then now the purpose of these socks are actually made out of a kind of wool so the purpose of the socks is to keep your feet warm so they do absorb water but that means the next day you have two

Choices you can put some wet socks in with your clothes somewhere or you can wear the wet socks now I think I’m going to choose to wear the wet socks because my feet will just warm up again quite quickly the same with the sealed skins hat again

It keeps my head nice and warm when I’m wearing it it has like an insulating property so even though it gets damp and wet and it is still damp and wet now it keeps your head warm do I want to put that on my head now not

Really to be to be honest but maybe I will have to we’ll see and in the shower area I don’t know if you can see because of the light these are my cycling shoes obviously these are not waterproof and they are still damp so I think

In hindsight a little bit of a clean as well wouldn’t they so I think I need to wear the the socks the waterproof socks with these shoes today because they’re both damp anyway and hopefully they’ll dry out a little bit in the sun today again so waterproof gear is fine if

You’re like a day cyclist and you want to do a day trip but on bicycle touring what do you do with your wet stuff after so it’s always a bit of a toss-up as to what you do so I’m going to wear half of

It and store half of it away so I hope that answers any questions you may have or had had about what wet weather gear for bicycle touring thank you very much and it’s time to pack my gear away and hit the road I’ll try and film some scenes of the

Highway on the way to Doris cheers for now so this is me cycling out of fear coming down towards the Dual carriageway if you look on the left hand side there you’ll see a guy running with a donkey and a cart the donkey car is still a popular

Means of Transport for goods in the rural areas and a lot of Albania is rural of course there’s cars on the road there’s plenty of cars in fact the Mercedes is one of the most popular cars in Albania there’s a long story attached to that as to why that is I’m sure you

Can do some Google research of your own after the collapse of Communism um Albania basically started from nothing I mean the people had nothing you hear stories of hell when people found a discarded Coke can they were put on the mantelpiece for something to look

At I’m not sure if things were ever that extreme I’ve envisited a lot of countries and in some countries with communist regimes in the past people hark back to the good old days how it was better in the communism not one person I’ve met in Albania says this I

Think that proves just how bad it was really anyway back to the road this is me cycling along the road I thought cycling would be a bit of an issue but of course it wasn’t and then this guy is coming up the Dual carriageway the wrong way

Now that’s not entirely his fault I mean there’s no there’s no fault here um the EU are pumping a lot of money to do a road system in Albania but what they’ve not done is put any slip roads or Service Roads so people that live either side of the road need to cycle

One way or the other to get to from A to B that’s just the way it is so this guy here I’m just about to overtake him now you see this is quite common with the plastic crates attached to the back of the bike [Applause]

And as we cycle up here you can see the traffic is just slowly building and you’ll see another donkey and car ahead of us there so although it’s a dual carriageway I mean this guy has got no other way to get to where he’s got to go to because you know the infrastructure

Isn’t in place yet again in another five ten years time the infrastructure will probably be there and there may be another road people walk in their cows from one place to the other at the side of the road it’s kind of like I say it’s a developing country and uh but you’ve

Got I think there’s a lot of pride in how it’s developing there’s a lot of positivity as well I think people can uh can sense that over on the right hand side we just passed a fruit and vegetable and again we’ve got another horse and cart there

And no doubt there’ll be a Mercedes part ask me in a minute so it’s a combination of all these things um I think there is a big divide between people that have got money and people that and people that haven’t got money uh but isn’t there everywhere

I sort of cycle along here and you’re going to see this in a few more Clips if you keep looking on the road just before the barriers you’ll see that there are some drain ditches there’s one there and all the metal grates are not in place

Now the story is is that all these Drainage Systems had metal gratings on in place but they were all stolen for scrap metal I’m not sure if this is true or not they’re certainly not there now coming into Juris then I found a psychopath isn’t that amazing well kind

Of amazing give them credit because there’s a hole where there’s a drainage ditch and in the end I just give up but you know 10 out of 10 for effort but maybe you know three out of ten for practicality of cycling along this cycle path thank you foreign [Applause] Cycle ride I covered the 80 kilometers to do a wrists pretty quickly I think it was about four hours averaged about 20 kilometers an hour to do the 80 kilometers so I’m good at maths aren’t I and I’ve ended up in a cheapy hotel which is 17 Euros 50 a night and that

Includes the breakfast now there’s a reason why I’m staying in hotels more than camping normally I prefer camping I prefer wild camping but on this trip I have some quite tight deadlines to me and one of those deadlines is to get to Dubrovnik for the 26th of May if I don’t

Do that I’m in very big trouble by the way so to do that I need to put in some miles and in in effect it means that I can’t really choose where to Camp I’ve got to hit certain targets so big cities are one of them so duress doesn’t have a

Campground or not one that I could find so I’ve ended up in a cheapy hotel but for 17 Euros 50 including breakfast what the hey you know so that’s why I’m here um I probably should also say that I’m doing Albania a bit of a disservice by

Zipping through it so quickly uh I full I’m fully aware that I’m skipping large parts of it that I’m missing out some of the best bits which is uh to get out up in the hills and the mountains and go through the small villages and see the

Archaeological sites that you know a few people have ever heard of and have got a list of them and I think Albania is probably going to be the next country on a bicycle tour for next year and I’ll probably try and do six weeks here or two months even if I can

Uh so in effect I’ve got to really whiz through here Wiz through Montenegro and get to Dubrovnik for what is now four days time I think it is uh so there we go uh today when I got into the hotel I went to the supermarket over the road and stocked up with loads

Of like treats I’m gonna turn the camera so that you can see what they are so I don’t normally drink Fanta I don’t normally drink Coke or anything like that but I’ve decided to treat myself you will notice an absence of beer and a lot of bicycle tours my own included

There is beer and wine now I give up drinking I think it was October so I think it was that seven months eight months now without a drink and I feel pretty good for it actually but maybe I should do a vlog post just about uh the

Effects of giving up drink which have been all beneficial I found some peanut butter so that’s gonna top up and a lot of this stuff is just topping up uh stuff that I’ve used on the road so over there you can see there’s a nest Cafe because my coffee is getting low I

Managed to leave my toothpaste somewhere so I need to get some new toothpaste and uh obviously the bread I’m not going to eat all in one go now so half of that will be dinner tonight and half of it will be lunch on the road tomorrow let

Me turn your background so you can see my ugly face again hello so tomorrow’s run is going to be quite a long one and this is one of the bigger challenges of this cycle tour I’m going to get to a town called skoda I think it’s pronounced and that’s over 110

Kilometers maybe 120 kilometers away I have very little idea of what the terrain’s like if it’s all flat awesome if it’s not I it could be a very long day cycle so I’m going to spend a little bit of time planning that route out to see uh See what’s ahead and that’s

Pretty much it really so I’m gonna stop talking so I’m sure you’re bored a bit by now and I will talk to you tomorrow instead see you later bye