Continuing the ride from Sveti Nikole to Demir Kapija. Follow me through the beautiful countryside.
#macedonia #travel #cycling
[Music] [Music] [Music] all right continuing on from the previous video we went from fety Nicole to the town of velis now we’re going from velis to deir CIA probably pronouncing that wrong forgive me the absolute worst part about velis was that I didn’t have enough time to stay there over night or even multiple days I really really liked velis there there was just something about it there there certain places that you just go to and they just feel they have a good feel to it and velis is one of those places so the worst part about velis was leaving I was I would be lying if I said that at some point later I didn’t look up um real estate in velis trying to see how much houses cost I found some couldn’t afford them but whatever I definitely wish to go back to velis at some point and spend at least a week there I I really really liked it and The Descent into valis was just epic probably one of the best descents I’ve had on this whole trip I may have enjoyed myself and vellis a little too much uh I had three orders of shap at this little restaurant and it was unbelievable although I gave half of one of those orders to a pregnant Street dog and I probably had about four beers which may made the rest of this ride uh quite daunting I the first part while the beers were still in me and active no problem at all but once that sort of wore off and I got into the uh lethargy stage of drinking it made the ride really tough but leaving valis for quite a while is in this really nice Valley that the city itself is in a quite a valley and it was Lush and green riding around riding along the river it was absolutely beautiful conditions for riding eventually it sort of transitioned from this Lush Valley into more of like the Plains and the plains really remind me of where I live in Colorado I don’t live quite up in the mountains and I don’t live on the Western Slope where there’s you know you know by Utah I live on the plain side of it and this area of Macedonia reminds me so much of the Front Range of Colorado it the plants look the same it was like the same colors this wide open Blue Sky mountains to one side ofia it it really reminded me of home and I I really really loved this area of Macedonia it was so nice was so beautiful as the time went on the road conditions sort of degraded and it wasn’t so much that the roads were just bad they were actively doing construction on them and it makes sense cuz honestly the roads in Macedonia are nicer than most of the roads in America they really put an emphasis on critical infrastructure and it shows um but it was a bit difficult to ride on I stopped off at a gas station got some more water not going to lie had two more beers and then continued on the ride and this part of it it was more of like a dirt road which is whatever um I don’t ride what you would consider a traditional road bike I ride sort of what they now call a gravel bike but is more set up roadwise so I have street tires but they’re 40 millimeter they’re they’re much wider than what you would see on a traditional road bike um the a lot of my components are more you know road bike based but I have like beefier carbon forks and I have all the bosses to mount all the racks and frames and everything so this really came in handy on some of these rougher and more grally roads [Music] at some point I found what I thought was an abandoned Factory until I got a little bit closer up to it and saw that there was actually people there so I decided to turn back and not explore the fan Factory that looks abandoned but actually wasn’t for quite a while it was a really really nice Meandering ride through the Macedonian Plains Blue Sky partly cloudy it was absolutely lovely ride there there was nothing to complain about it was low traffic Road and for the most part except for the construction the road was really nice the scenery was great it was just a beautiful day to go riding and then all of a sudden it started to feel really hard to Pedal I couldn’t really figure out why well I got my second flat tire of the whole trip so so far I’d gone through Hungary Serbia no Flats got my first flat crossing the border of Serbia and Hungary and then two days later got another flat and on car tires or vehicle tires there’s wire tread in them like wire metal wires in there so when they blow out little shards of these wires can come out I happen to run over one of those just perfectly for it to just slip right in my tire and got a flat but is what it is getting the flat was kind of a pain in the ass because to fix it one I have to take all my bags off to take the back wheel off and that it’s just a minor inconvenience but my CO2 cartridges that I was carrying didn’t really have enough in them to get me to the pressure that I need that I prefer to be at it gets me to about 50 psi and I usually ride around 80 especially with the bags on there so one there was the time it took to do the process of changing the tube and then I was riding on a much lower pressure which I don’t know it’s one of my big things on a bike is correct tire pressure and it it really bugs me when I don’t have the correct tire pressure and the now six beers that I’ve had are really starting to wear off so I’m draging ass it’s really sluggish and unmotivated [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah you [Music] [Music] [Music] you eventually get to another town and I find another gas station and the European air pumps at the gas stations at least this one were really odd you had to like plug in in the PSI you wanted it to get at and then hook it up but since it was for car tires it really didn’t go up to a high enough pressure and there wasn’t like a manual override so that was a bit frustrating at least in America they just Turn You Loose with an air thing and if you want to overfill your tires and blow them up well you’re free to do so apparently that’s not the case in this little town in Macedonia [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] luckily at this point I was about 8 miles from my destination and it was either mostly flat or a minor descent towards deir cupia so was just suck it up get it done and get some dinner so the final push it was a little bit more of the same as far as the scenery it was you know nice planes but as I got a bit closer it started to get more and more Lush once I finally got to my destination found a little cafe got some food may have had another beer or two and refueled and just soaked in how unbelievable this country is if you were going to Europe and you’ve never considered Macedonia before it is so worth it this is just an unbelievable chunk of land I really enjoyed it I ate my food went to my room room the hotel I got was absolutely amazing and I think it was only like $30 a night it’s absolutely epic so that’s all I got in this one and next one we will go from demer copia to stard dooran something like that but it’s really close to the Greek border and we’re almost done with the ride so thank you guys for watching and I’ll catch you guys next time