The Fellowship of the Bike

I was up at 5:20am and packing, I had not really slept that well the night before for some reason, had a few dreams, not that I can really remember them. Packed up and headed down stairs the owner looked half asleep still and he was fairly quick to help me put all my stuff outside so he could lock up again and go back to sleep.
Zach and Elise were up and just starting to have breakfast when I arrived at the café. Cornflakes and Milk with Bread butter and jam, good way to start the day, we were on the road just after 7am and heading for the hills, the first 50km were up and down hills, but before that we had to make it out of the city and find the road we needed to be on, it was a bit harder than it sounds, the roads have hardly any signs, so it was compass bearings and asking the locals.
After we were fairly sure we were on the right road we headed out on what reminded me a lot of home, steep hills covered in pine trees, the smell of the pine was beautiful after the stink of car and motorbike fumes . The roads rolled out through the hills, there was a few climbs up and down, some of the climbs were steep but we battled our way through, forging ahead and making progress on covering the 137km for the day. We did a 2km drop at the 50km mark and then pulled over for second breakfast at a road side café, bread, cheese and sugar cover strawberries.
After this it was back on the bike, now I have to point out here that Zach and Elise are on single speeds, that’s right the crazy buggers, so when it came to the hills for them it was all about power, for me I just dropped in to low gear and spun my way up. Also because I was running Disc brakes and they just had V brakes I could go a lot faster downhill as I had so much more stopping power. So on the downhills I would scream a head and then on the up hills they would catch up and most of the time pass me, so it worked out well.
The fellowship was still holding together.
After breakfast and a few more Kms we had a big hill to climb, I felt that we had not really lost to much altitude so the climb would I think have taken us to about 1800m above sea level, at the top of the pass we had beautiful vistas of the area below where we were heading, it looked like it was going to be a fantastic downhill run. I was looking forward to it. From the top I thought I could just make out the sea so 50km away. Because of the height it was still fairly cool, this would change as we headed down.
We got one of the locals to take a group photo for us, just in case we did not make it down, which was a good thing and a bad thing, after the photo we were surrounded by locals, looking at the bikes and asking questions, I had one guy who wanted to compare muscles which was pretty funny, then one guy asked (well pointed and made out he wanted to ride my bike) and another guy jumped on Zachs bike, so we weren’t going to be doing the downhill after all. We managed to get the bikes back when there tour guide told them it was time to go. After this we made our escape.
The road down, was a twisting rollercoaster of a road, no ups all down for the next 24km, It must have taken the Vietnamese a while to build the road, there were large areas where they had had to blast the rock faces so they were able to connect the road together, it did make for a stunning ride.
As we shot down the road, the brakes were screaming in protest, luckily there was a bit of a wind coming up the valley which helped with slowing down. We stopped and took photo’s on the way down as required, Capturing images of each other in the head long rush down the hill. At one point I checked my brake discs and in a matter of a second they were too hot to touch even with gloves on. They were getting a work out.
We were dropping fast in altitude, screaming passed the locals on the side of the road, there were a few cars that were trying to make the ascent that were parked on the side of the road with hoods up looking over heated, but we passed them by in seconds, a few times I was hard on the brakes as the road deteriorated into a single pot hole filled lane, then it was back on the peddles and more speed.
Yes more speed captain..
The closer we got to the bottom which seemed to take a long time the hotter it got, by the time we were doing the last few corners it was like riding through a fan forced oven, the heat at times felt like a physical barrier, punching into me. We finally hit the cafes at the bottom and stopped for a well earned lunch, we had not lost a single man, women or child on the decent, which is always a bonus when riding in a group. After a coke and a big plate of rice and pork we were ready to go again.
The road deteriorated somewhat after leaving the hill, it became a single lane pot hole Struan monstrosity, from the road down which was dual lane this was bloody horrible, excuse the language but it was awful, we struggled on through the heat, dust and pot holes, some as big as our bikes, if you made one wrong move that was it you could disappear in to a pot hole and never be seen again, if it was going to be like this for the next 42 km into Nra Trang it was going to be a slow ride. God save us. Because of the heat and the atrocious road it took us 1 hour to do 6km, we would not be to Nra Trang till mid night at this rate.
Luckily after our stop the roads started to improve and we were able to make more head way, because Zach and Elise were still in low gear single speed mode, I was putting distance on them and then waiting under trees till they caught up, it was decide not by me but by them that I should forge ahead for Nra Trang, leaving them behind, we would meet that night or the next day. The fellowship of the bike was over, after only 110km it had come to an end. I headed towards that fabled city of Nra Trang alone once more.
The road had got a little better, and some of the pot holes were not as big so I was making good progress, my legs were feeling it and I had to stop for food and liquid sugar(red bull) to keep going, by the time I hit the 10km to go mark I was back in the busy roads with thousands of motor bikes everywhere, after the mountains this was a complete change.
I busted my way through the traffic and finally found the beach at Nra Trang and my god was it packed, I have seen pictures of beaches like this in Asia but this was the first time I have ever seen it myself. People everywhere. It was packed. It took me a while to find a hotel as they were all full, finally found one that was alright, it would do for a night then I would find somewhere else tomorrow. Headed out for food, which my body was screaming out for and then pretty much to bed, my body needed rest, I’ll have to see what tomorrow brings.