OK, I was telling you about this bike. Well, having lived in Novi Sad in Serbia for a year or so I thought it was high time I got a bike, after probably 15 years of driving cars around. I had lost my job with the British publisher I was working for in Belgrade, Serbia in 2000, and with it the company car! Novi Sad is really flat, and there are a lot of cyclists. Also, there are special cycle paths, which is pretty enlightened, even if people do park their cars on it with depressing regularity… grrr…

So how do you go about getting your first mountain bike (it was my first, before that I had just ridden “racers” as a kid)? Of course, you go to the local bike shop and ask them what you can get for 100-or-so EUR! “Oh, these are great”, the assistant tells you, “they’ve got bla bla bla…”, and he reels off a load of features and adds, “…and it’s black, yellow and red!” Well, that probably sold it for me!

Have a look at the picture, and you’ll get an idea of what we’re talking about. It’s pretty much what you’d expect of a 100 EUR, off-the-peg bike. The make is “Capriolo Adrenalin”, made in Backa Topola in Serbia (see www.capriolo.co.yu) and frankly it is a lemon (what d’ya expect for the money). The rear derailleur is a Shimano Tourney (a what?), the rest of the parts don’t have names on them (though I like the Shimano flip-shift gear change and will definitely stick with that). In other words, you just would not recommend anything like that to someone thinking of getting remotely seriously into cycling!

But wait though, you smirk, but I’ve had that bike 3 years now, and I’ve done at least 5000km on it (ok, not that much, but a good 2500 of it was the second summer). I have ridden it round the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro and then over the mountains from Herceg Novi to Podgorica (look it up on a map!), raced it in the Fruska gora MTB Marathon (more about that later!), done a 600km tour around the Slovene mountains (an awesome trip), not to mention a couple of serious mountain biking trips within Serbia. The pic above was taken on one of those trips (don’t laugh at the garb, it was March, and FREEZING!), and all I can say is that when I got to the top there and saw that view, do you think I cared what kind of bike I was riding..!?

OK, it IS time for a new bike, something that will make the whole experience a LITTLE more comfortable, safe and enjoyable, but at the end of the day, I have to say, Capriolo, I salute you! Now, off to be reCYCLED (sorry!)

I’m on the lookout for a new machine, so watch these pages to see how I get on!

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Posted on January 24th, 2007 by markowe
Filed under: MTB Serbia (All), The Bike!