Great rides: Border crossings: Albania-Montenegro

When Pip, Cycling UK’s HR Projects and Office Coordinator, asked whether I fancied an adventure and a ‘plod’ across Albania, I had imagined joining her and friend Rob on foot. That was until a hip injury put paid to any running training and left me wondering how I could still come along.

Buying a bike when we arrived seemed a reasonable solution: they could run, I could pedal, and we could still share the journey.

A few weeks before departure, I contacted Najs Retro Bajs in Podgorica, Montenegro. They assured me they could find something suitable when I turned up, which was enough to turn a vague possibility into a plan.

The thrill of leaving quite an important part of my adventure largely up to chance and on-the-day availability was simply too appealing to ignore, as well as being quite significantly cheaper than flying my trusty gravel bike over.

Packed and ready to go

Trip planned, flights booked and chafe cream packed, we flew out to Montenegro with the smallest hand luggage we could manage. Pip, Rob and I parted ways almost immediately at the airport – leaving me to grab a taxi and head to the bike shop.

They had started their run to the Albanian border, and I went off in search of a bike on which to catch up with them. After waiting a while for the owner to turn up (“no-one ever runs on time in Montenegro!” I was told) the owner of the cultural centre it was based in arrived, along with the café manager.

Over a drink I learned about their plans for the space, how to develop culture in a largely deprived, post-soviet city, and the impact they were already having on so many pockets of the local population. While lingering in conversation, the bike shop owner returned, and I soon knew I was in safe hands.

He took our slightly silly adventure with a kindness that made it feel a lot less precarious – giving me his mobile number in case of emergencies and setting me up with some basic tools and extra innertubes, slightly despairing at how little I’d arrived with.

For my steed, I picked out a steel-framed West German commuter bike with five gears. Not exactly a comfortable, mountain-capable tourer, but it was recently serviced with a functioning derailleur and pannier rack already fitted.

Pedalling off

A couple of hours after arriving, I finally said goodbye and pedalled away, with Pip and Rob somewhere up the road and their spare water strapped to my new €80 purchase.

Heading towards Koplik, I made my way through Podgorica’s busy streets before finding myself in the mountains rather sooner than my legs would have liked. With our luggage on the back and only five gears to choose from, climbing became a hot, sweaty introduction to the bike’s capabilities and my own.

Hauling myself uphill, the leisurely conversations at the cultural centre began to feel a long way behind me, while the runners remained frustratingly far ahead. Rather than following a planned route, we just had an end point in mind for the first day, meaning I was aiming for a moving pin on the map in front of me.

Heading up and over the mountains that first day offered incredible views over everything we had to come: lakes, flat stretches of dusty road and little towns dotted between.

Crossing the border

By the time I reached the Albanian border in the late afternoon, the runners were sitting waiting for me, ready for us to cross together. The soviet-era crossing loomed over us, the high roof edged with swallow nests, as we lined up among the cars and lorries with our passports.

Tortoises provided unhurried company by the roadside for the rest of the day, and I quickly became used to ditching the bike and scooping them out of the way of oncoming lorries. With the beautiful Lake Skhoder on our right for the rest of the day, we had an easy navigation through to our end point.

Booked at lunchtime, we found a hostel with warm showers and clean beds for the night. The runners patched up their feet after the 55km day as we watched the sun set on our first day in Albania.

Day two, we realised over breakfast we were already ahead of schedule. You’ve got to have a slight screw loose to want to run 250km over four days, but on day two Pip and Rob realised that after a stronger-than-expected first day, they could do it in three.

Increasingly pleased that I’d opted for a bicycle, I set out ahead of them in search of a roadside café for breakfast so we could mull the plan for the day. With a rough plan in place for the runners, I headed off on a solo excursion carrying their kit and some extra supplies.

I was aiming for the Mesi Bridge: an 18th-century Ottoman stone construction, about 5km north-east of Shkoder. A magnificent structure with cobblestones and ice-cold blue water running beneath, it was well worth the pedal uphill.

Meeting up with the marathoners

Now in full swing with my bike and having got to grips with its quirks, I rolled my way back down through the bustling, dusty village of Mas, through Skhoder and towards our intrepid ultramarathoners.

Cold war bunkers lined the sides of the roads; with an estimated 175,000 throughout the country, they provided an ever-present militaristic edge to the rolling scenery.

We finished the day together in Lezhë. A busy town that we sadly didn’t have time to visit properly bar wolfing down some dinner, and our runners were starting to feel the effects of two days of 50km+ distances. Having covered 100km myself just on day two, I was also relieved to get to sleep as soon as possible.

Punctures were the theme of day three. I’d ridden ahead to find some lunch options in the next town but encountered my first puncture after an hour cycling. I soon realised I didn’t have the spanner required to undo the bolt on my rear axle.

I tried to patch the hole without removing the tyre, but such was the size of the hole I went through several patches just to make it a few kilometres down the road.

Walking my bike along the road trying to think up a plan, I stumbled upon a little road-side shop. Having seen no other cycle tourists so far, in a baffling stroke of luck there was an English-speaking Dutch couple touring the Balkans sat outside. They jumped into action but didn’t have the required spanner either.

They were able to pump my tyre up enough to get me rolling along another couple of kilometres, and headed in the opposite direction to me, they promised to let Pip and Rob know where I was.

Tea break

Tired, hungry, and just verging on grumpy I walked into the next town to find a tea and some food to keep me going while I waited on the runners. At this point, I realised we hadn’t remembered to change any Albanian currency, and nowhere took cards. We’d been relying on euros so far which were largely accepted, but alas not in Milot.

Looking after the rim as much as possible, I rolled back down the hill, figuring I might as well track down the runners to see out the day together.

Mid-afternoon, we crossed paths and took a break at an abandoned superphosphate factory (had we known this at the time, we possibly wouldn’t have sat on the floor). Taking in the distinctly soviet feel, we had an explore, marvelling at the scale of the place.

We walked as a trio to the next town, and putting forward Rob, a man who could truly strike up a conversation with anyone despite a language barrier, found me a small roadside mechanic and negotiated a fix.

Kindness of strangers

Not exchanging a word in English, never getting up from his plastic chair and his cigarette firmly lit, the gentleman had the wheel out and tube back in in moments. He didn’t accept any payment for his handiwork – I think our slightly tired faces, clearly a little stuck, helped as he waved us along with a smile.

Having somehow condensed four days of ultramarathons into three, and following a slightly stressful morning for me, I spent the remainder of the afternoon with the runners.

Knowing we had a whole day spare at this point we took it a little more leisurely. We stopped at a swimming pool to ease tired feet, basking in the sunshine and surrounded by mountains it was a glorious moment of cool calm.

Plugging away at the final kilometres towards Tirana, weaving our way through quiet towns and villages, I rode on ahead to get us booked in to the final hotel. I finished my 231km with just a slight drizzle of rain on my back.

Our runners, however, got caught in the almightiest thunderstorm any of us have ever witnessed. They finished their adventure looking more like drowned rats than accomplished runners having crossed borders.

Our final day we spent entirely in Tirana. The runners, exhausted, took a taxi to town and I battled the rush-hour traffic, enjoying the last few kilometres on my beloved red bicycle. I’d been on the phone to my dad that morning, trying to hatch a plan to fly it back to the UK I’d grown to love it so.

A sad goodbye

However, as if it knew it had reached the end of its journey with me, a mere two kilometres away from the town centre, the derailleur exploded. In my years of cycling I’ve not seen anything like it – it simply gave up the ghost. Even if I had a proper tool kit with me it would have been unsalvageable.

And so it was, I left my little bicycle with a ‘free’ sign on it tucked onto the side of a busy street just outside Tirana, hoping someone would be able to make use of it. While it did make our break-up a little easier, I saved the location in my phone on the off chance it would stay there and I could rescue it later …