A write-up of the third day of our mountain bike trip from Užice in Serbia to Žabljak Montenegro, August 6th 2008.
We leave the orchard where we camped the previous night, somewhere halfway up Tornik, and head downhill into a gully, where the locals invite us for the obligatory rakija, and tell us that some crazy Englishman passed through there a couple of years ago on his bike, alone. If that was you, we’d definitely love to hear how you managed to get there, and whether you got lost like us!
Thence we have to climb again up onto a sizeable ridge. Sadly, we miss yet another turn (not the worst detour on this trip, that’s still to come) and end up having to clamber up a very steep hill through assorted meadows and orchards, pushing our not-inconsiderable loads.
Eventually we hit the ridge, and after a fairly flat section we reach the point where we have to head down, according to the map through a magnesium ore quarry. Having got down to the quarry, it becomes clear that there is no way to continue down - things have changed round here - and we have to climb up again to a turn we missed and begin the actual descent to the Uvac monastery. I don’t suppose I will ever really know how much time we lost, or excess mileage or climbage we made during this trip…
Down to Uvac monastery
The descent to the Uvac monastery is a pretty long, rocky one and our v-brakes began to show their limitations. In case you don’t know what happens, the continual friction from braking (yes, you do have to brake) between the pad and the wheel rim means things get VERY hot around the rim. This causes several problems - one being brake fade, whereby the friction level just curves off and the brakes get very ineffective, but equally worrying, the possibility of the huge heat actually damaging, even bursting the inner tube or tyre. This is one of the arguments in favour of disc brakes, since the danger to the tyres is theoretically eliminated. Maybe on my next bike…
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We eventually reach the Uvac monastery, and very tiny it is too, with just two monks in residence since 1999, when the monastery was restored to use. It really is in a very picturesque, if remote location though, snuggled at the bottom of the Uvac valley, next to the river Uvac, which can only be forded here and nowhere else for miles and miles in either direction.
Climbing up again
After a quick rakija with the monk, we set off along the valley to find the ford, and after getting our feet wet, we head off uphill again, this time for a ridge overlooking Priboj where we plan to camp. However, this entails quite a climb, and we are definitely back to pushing by now. We finally reach the ridge and find a completely unlikely but very nicely concealed spot to camp, where the only disturbances are an incredibly noisy logging truck trundling past during the evening, and a pack of dogs seemingly roaming the woods around our camp…
Tomorrow we get to race down to Priboj and get a proper cup of coffee (the taste of campfire-cooked smokey-flavoured coffee is beginning to get to me).
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Posted on August 28th, 2008 by markowe
Filed under: MTB Serbia (All)
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