108 km, 5h29, 1115hm
Good morning day 33! This is the view from our Zonguldak hotel room.
Upon leaving the city, we were suddenly interviewed by a local Turkish TV station. It was very basic communication as they only spoke Turkish and I only knew very few words
The last few days had shown us that the Black Sea coast of Turkey was very steep. Therefore, we decided to move inland between Zonguldak and Samsun. It was also mountainous, but we would climb to a plateau and basically stay there until a long descent to Samsun.
As we left Zonguldak, we went straight for the mountains. In one go we climbed to nearly 500 m elevation
There were a few tunnels on this section, we would stop to turn on our lights and cycle behind each other.
33 days on the road hooray!
I was also impressed by Roger's physical condition. He told me he was in no shape but keeping up for 33 days showed some character. A true warrior!
On the top of the long climb, we went down all the way to sea level again. That is how we filled our first 40 km of the day.
The thought that I was so close to the Turkish capital Ankara was somehow terrifying for me. Growing up in Belgium, I have always stood close to the Turkish diaspora and they would speak a lot about Ankara. Now I was here, cycling in their country. Bizarre...
rural Turkey
We kept following the D750.
And the large shoulder of the road gave us place to stay out of trouble
Then we had a 10 km surface of newly paved roads. It was basically rocks that had to be crushed further by passing traffic. For two cyclists it meant more resistance and lower speed
The real view of Turkey?
At some point we entered the region of Karabuk
Karabuk was the city we had aimed for originally and this would be some 100 km from Zonguldak
But then Roger told me that there is a very famous UNESCO site in a town called Safranbolu, only a few km further. Obviously we had to go there...
Roger and his Sirrus in Turkey, not very far from the 4000 km mark anymore
We had to climb a little to reach this town Karakuk. The Turkish word RAKIM means elevation.
As we entered the city, we saw one long climb. We climbed to 350 meters and continued climbing
Eventually we climbed until 523 meters. It was a long climb at the end of the day and we felt it well.
Safranbolu, the Turkish UNESCO site
Another one I can tick off my bucket list
And Roger can say the same
The evening came and it was time for relaxing and eating
We found a nice, reasonably priced hotel and we met some nice people there
The cool part of this whole trip is the people you meet. 90% of them are very friendly and it makes me appreciate countries more.
Another good ride today!
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