Getting closer to wrapping up the cycling series. Going from Sveti Nikole to the city of Veles.
#travel #macedonia #veles
[Music] all right lost track of what day it is but we’re insting Nicole the goal is to get to a town called deir CIA I I’m at a loss for how to pronounce these Macedonian words so that’s the goal it’s like 80 something km 1,500 ft of elevation gain um yeah so it’s going to be a tough day there’s kind of two routes to take to thla Niki and the route I’m taking is like 8 mil longer and it has 200 more ft of elevation gain over the total the total route but looking at it a bit deeper I could do the same amount of miles today but climb more today and climb significantly less tomorrow or I could do the same amount of Miles climb less today and climb more tomorrow I don’t know I’m I’m in better shape today than I’ll probably be tomorrow uh so I figured I would catch the climb today instead of tomorrow that was my logic so we will see how it goes so let’s get to it the ride through cetti Nicole was actually quite nice and rather uneventful as I got outside of town I found this really nice pedestrian bike path whatever you want to call it that was off the street I always really like seeing these it’s definitely a comfort to know that one you’re not an impediment to traffic but also the the relative safety that you get riding on a path meant for pedestrian traffic and and bicycles I stopped off to use the bathroom in the wilderness and a few minutes after that this guy came up to me and he actually owned the vineyard that I was standing by and offered to let me try some of the grapes there best grapes ever uh where V uh Greece okay America Budapest Serbia SMY Nicole desik yeah yeah uh me uh America America yeah [Music] yeah it’s [Music] beautiful either ah hold hold very skin yeah e one I’ll try one you foree fore best this probably the best grape I’ve ever eaten after that I kept riding and I was taking some actually really nice back roads it was sort of like a in America it would be a one lane road but it was you know it was a narrow road very low traffic eventually it turned to dirt which is fine um my bike sort of what you would consider a gravel bikes it was easy enough to handle the scenery started to look very very very much like where I live in Colorado you had big mountains to the west but it was very dry and it looked like the plains where I was at and it definitely reminded me of home it was it was actually quite nice it was a very very beautiful landscape this region of Central Macedonia is probably one of the nicest Landscapes I’ve ever seen in Europe and I’ve been to almost every country in Europe so that’s that’s really saying something I really really enjoyed it the blend of Rolling Hills familiar scenery and small little towns this had to be one of the best days of the ride so far definitely the best day in Macedonia this field reminds me of like the final scene in the movie Gladiator when he’s like dead and he’s walking back to his house I’m pretty sure that was Macedonia too that’s the resemblance is uncanny it was a massive contrast between my first ride from kovo to fety Nicole that was just pure wind and miserable and beautiful scenery perfect conditions perfect weather just Polar Opposites after about 2 hours or so I came across this I I couldn’t decide if it was an abandoned train station or an abandoned house along the train tracks it kind of looked like a combination of both because once I got inside there was a definite divide there there was a it was all one building but there was a wall that the only way to get to the other side of the wall was to exit the building and go to the other side and one side looked like a house but the other side looked like a like an actual train station where you could buy tickets and things like that [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] well stopped off in this region of Macedonia it is unimaginably beautiful it it really reminds me a lot of home before every everything got developed and built over it’s like it’s like what Colorado probably would have looked like in you know the 50s the 40s the 30s like I mean obviously everything’s a little more modern than that but development wise like it’s not it’s it’s just pristine and and nice but here’s an abandoned house that we’ll go take a look at not far from there I stopped in this little tiny town called loovo and got some water got something else to drink just sort of took a break everyone in that Village was super friendly there there was one guy who knew a bit of English and he saw my bike all loaded down stopped and talked to me for a little while and that that was awesome and then after that was the final push into valis here it comes boys [Music] [Music] wonder if this is like mosque ruins cuz a lot of the mosque seem to have a tower [Music] [Music] [Music] you once I got onto the A3 Highway after leaving lovo there was two things that I noticed one was the Striking resemblance to Eastern Colorado as far as the scenery it genuinely looked like if you had replaced the names on the signs with names like you know Platville gy Evans like I I would legitimately think that I was riding back at home you know I just gone East instead of West it genuinely looks like Eastern Colorado to a te if you were just dropped off there in a plane you would think you know they give you a note saying oh are you in Colorado or Macedonia you genuinely would not know the other thing that stuck out is the highway and the roads in general are way nicer than the roads in America it it was kind of disheartening to think about all the money that we spend in the US for things like that and in rural Macedonia they do it 10 times better than we do so that’s lovely but either way I was on the final push into Ellis and it was after leaving that town it was a pretty good climb to a certain point but then the descent into the town of bis itself was so so much fun I think I hit like 46 M an hour going down this hill and the road was smooth very little debris and sand and gravel and I just flew down that Hill into velis it was one of those things that as a cyclist it just just makes you smile from ear to ear it was a very very lovely descent I absolutely had a blast on that descent but once I got into velis I was actually kind of disappointed I I wasn’t disappointed in velis itself I was disappointed that I you know I was supposed to stay in valis but due to the the horrible wind and everything coming from Kum noo toting Nicole I just stayed inspecting Nicole but and and I didn’t have the time to just spend another night in vellis if I wanted to so I was disappointed because once I got to velis it was such an amazing City like there’s certain cities where you just go to it sometimes you go to one and you’re like yeah get me out of here but other times you get to a city and you’re like there’s just something about this place that makes me want to stay here you know I it’s amazing vellis was one of those cities and I stopped off got some lunch had a couple beers but I didn’t really have enough time to stay in Bellis so I soaked up as much as velis as I possibly could and then began the final push this video has gone on long enough already so I’m going to do the velis to Demir cupia in its own video um hopefully that’ll be coming up soon I had a problem with my password getting stolen for my Google accounts so that’s why I haven’t been posting for a little bit so my apologies I’m going to get back on a regular schedule so yeah is what it is so thank you guys for watching and I’ll see you in the next one