Black Sea Day 19: Cycling İnebolu to Doğanyurt

Where is my sandal?

On our last morning in İnebolu, we woke up and enjoyed coffee and breakfast. When I went to put on my sandals to walk to the restroom, I could only find one. We looked under the tent, under our bags, in the sand. Nowhere to be found. Selim mentioned that he thought perhaps a dog took it. I agreed that it was a possibility. We both set off to search for it near the different dog hangouts. Luckily for me, Selim found it next to one of our sleeping friends. Unlucky for me, the straps were completely gnawed through. If you looking for a chew toy for your puppy, I recommend Kong toys, not Decathlon sandals. They take wear a lot better.

The Cobbler

We headed into town to find a cobbler and lucky for us, there was one. The door was open and there was a young man drinking coffee outside. Unlucky for us, he was the son of the cobbler that could do some things but didn’t really know how to use heavy-duty sewing machine like his dad. This was his critique, not ours. The first question he asked me was which color thread I wanted. I told him I want the strong one. I’m not sure he realized that I just needed an operable shoe as this was my only pair. Our job was a more difficult one so after a few tries, he concluded that he would need to give this job to his dad. We wanted to head out that morning but we thanked him for his help. I asked for thread and safety pins to try to DIY my shoe back together. The safety pin fix held and did the job I needed it to do for awhile. We could advance!

The Show Must Go On

This expression comes from show business. I realize that some of our readers are not native English speakers so I thought this might be interesting to highlight. Here is a Wikipedia article that explains the phrase. When I teach English, many students love learning new idioms. I think it’s interesting to learn them in other languages, as well.

Once my shoe was in working shape, we starting pedaling to our next destination, Doğanyurt. It was only 33,6 kilometers but a positive elevation gain of 1005 meters. It would be a day full of uphills. And of course, downhills, but we don’t talk about that so much because that’s the good part! I’m actually often surprised when there is a big downhill section of our path. Selim is not. He uses OsMan, an offline mapping application, to closely follow the contours of our trip. I just like to know the cumulative elevation gain for the day and then how many kilometers we have left.

At the peak of any big hill, Selim ensures that he is in front. This is to stop me from going too fast. When I was a kid, the fun part of bike riding was going as fast as you could down the hills. I had never heard of anyone purposefully going slower than possible! He explained why in fact, I should go somewhat slow on the downhills. The type of brakes that I had on my Carraro rely on a cable so they’re not foolproof. And if you ever watch the spills in the Tour de France, you will see that regulating speed on steep slopes is important.

Yes, I just compared myself to the folks in the Tour de France. So maybe you might be wondering how we stack up? We were, too! The Tour de France happened while we were on our trip so it came up in conversation. During our trip, we cycled maybe 15 km/h max while they do 40 km/h. And the participants cover 225 km each day! On this day in particular, we did a bit less than 35 km. They have some things working for them like really lightweight bikes and no luggage, tons of money, years of training, etc. So, it’s best not to compare. I still did and felt bad about myself for about 30 minutes. Selim reasoned me back to good spirits. Thanks Selim!

Jamais Deux Sans Trois

Never two without three. I googled to verify and this is actually a saying in English, as well as in French. I’ve never heard it but it exists according to the internet. Within 24 hours, four important items “broke.”

1. My sandal. OK, this didn’t break. It was chewed with intent. Unclear what the intent was but there was intent.
2. My kickstand. This broke without any hope for repair. Sometimes, Selim’s kickstand would fall off or the screw would come loose. In the situation, I kicked mine too hard against the pedal and it snapped. Selim shared that there are other kickstand options that are good for touring. For example, there is the twin or multi-kickstand as well as a V-style stand which is good for supporting a loaded bike. Check out some kickstand options on this bike site.
3. Flat tire. I got my first and only flat tire on the trip. Selim replaced it as I was too busy chatting with a French cyclist named Maude. Then, he repaired the one that had just popped with a bit of sandpaper, glue, and a rubber patch. What had caused the hole? A piece of metal that looked like a staple.
4. Chain. Selim’s chain has a “master-link”, otherwise known as a “quick-release link.” This allows you to easily and without any tools reconnect the chain, even if a part of it is broken off and lost. The only trick is that you need to be able to find the master-link or have a back-up. Alternatively, if you have a standard chain or have lost your master-link, you can use a chain tool, also called a chain splitter. Here is an article with some examples of chain-breaker tools. We didn’t have one of these as Selim accidentally forgot it in Tunis. I didn’t have one because, well I didn’t know it existed. Or that we should be able to repair a chain if it broke. I’ll add that to the our next packing list!

Doğanyurt Arrival

Because Selim had some trouble with his bike, he arrived well behind me to the town. He rolled in and recounted what had happened with his chain. I felt bad that I hadn’t been there to help though he said he didn’t call to stop me because there wasn’t much I could do to help. I was a bit disappointed as this meant that I wasn’t cycling at Tour de France speeds. He had just had to stop to search for his master link. After this day, if I passed Selim, I would realize that that meant there was something wrong with his bike, not that I had become magically much stronger.

We asked a customer in the café who had struck up conversation with us, where we could pitch our tent and were directed to a beach two minutes away. We made dinner, surrounded by several very hungry dogs. And tried to give the dogs what we could. We now knew that it’s best that we choose what the dogs chew on. 🙂 On this night, we took special care to tuck our sandals underneath the tent and organize our belongings out of reach of the dogs.

Many cyclists, Selim included, have horror stories about dogs chasing them but for us, we really had mostly good experiences with dogs after encountering a lot! The worst thing that happened was that one chewed my shoe. Ok, there was one in Izmir that we scared and who came after us but be careful, word on the street is that the Instagram video (if you saw it) was made possible by financial backing from The Cats of Izmir.

Tomorrow, we’ll head to a beautiful beach outside of Uğurlu where we end up staying for two nights. See you then!