The cycling part of Day 5 was the shortest of the whole Tour for the participants of Route 2. The ride from Veliko Gradiste to Dubovac should have been approximately 50 km straight through Serbian grasslands, cornfields and villages. But due to a non-passable road caused by the heavy rain that came down in the days before, the participants had to make a detour.

Although it turned out to be a bit longer, the group still arrived at Viminatium in the scheduled time. Viminatium is an...

At 6am on Day 4 the participants received a rather early wake-up call from the hotel. Due to construction works on the city’s water pipes, supply for the hotel could only be guaranteed until 7am. And even that was only because the city of Drobeta Turnu Severin did prepare for the participants of the Tour by filling up a huge water basin to supply the cyclists.The cycling started on time, and after cycling 13km along a busy road, the Serbian border was reached. The crossing went smoothly again,...

Whenever a participant left the hotel in the morning, their first look went towards the sky to check out the weather, if they haven’t done it even before. The two heavy thunderstorms from the previous days made the weather the top subject of discussions, even though most participants were still relaxed, stating that sometimes “it’s great fun to cycle in the rain”. Most were relaxed as they did not need to wear their raincoat yet on Day 3.The waiting-time at the Serbian border was relatively...

In the morning of Day 2, the cyclists found their bikes right where they left them. The Bulgarian police took care of them, and also did a really good job showing the participants the way or slowing down where the roads were in a bad condition.The cycling distance for the participants on Day 2 was rather short. Going from Lom to Vidin, took only about 5 hours with a lunch break included. The participants still talked a lot about the thunderstorm from the day before, calling it “fantastic”, “a...

People say that first impressions last the longest. As participants gathered in front of the Romanian Parliament to register on this cloudy Tuesday morning in June, they tried to soak up as many impressions as possible. A Swedish couple wanted to know if there were any fellow countrymen on the Tour, while the attention shifts to a recumbent tandem from Jeanette and Hans from the Netherlands. Pat and Ron from Scotland had actually cycled to get to Bucharest. They had taken the ferry from...