One valley after another…

We had planned an early start today. Since we arrived early yesterday and had plenty of rest, and considering the topography of the upcoming route, a longer stage seemed possible. 163 km is, of course, quite a lot, but there appeared to be no accommodation between Durağan and Vezirköprü. That meant either stopping after just over 90 km or continuing all the way to 163 km.

Since the route overall involved a lot of descending, 163 km seemed achievable and would allow us to reach Amasya tomorrow to visit Shaun’s friend—but it also required an early start. The plan was to ride to Durağan first and then decide from there.

And things went very well! Although there were several counter climbs, they were followed by even more descending, so the kilometers flew by. When we reached Durağan, our average speed was still over 20 km/h (excluding breaks), and we were very confident that we had enough daylight left to reach Vezirköprü.

After a short lunch break, we continued along a reservoir—although at first there was no water to be seen, just a lot of greenery. The water level is probably only high enough in early winter to cover everything. One reason things had gone so well so far was the smooth roads, which allowed us to roll effortlessly. But along the reservoir, this changed. The road became quite rough, making progress harder and putting more strain on our “saddle endurance.” Additionally, the route along the lake constantly went up and down, and overall it was no longer descending.

However, the landscape was once again beautiful. The road led through coniferous forests, which smelled wonderful. The scent reminded me of Swiss forests, like those in the Engadin region.

When the road finally moved away from the reservoir, we still had about 30 km to go. That may not sound like much, but it was quite tough. Even after the lake, the terrain was far from flat: a total of 13 shorter and longer climbs awaited us, and overall it was trending uphill again, even though there were also many descents.

Fatigue became more and more noticeable, and our pace slowed down significantly. In the end, we didn’t quite make it before full daylight was gone. We rode to the nearest hotel and met a few young men who advised us on accommodation. They said the hotel we had just reached was a historic one and rather expensive, and recommended another nearby hotel. One of them even kindly called to check the price and availability for us. After another 2.5 km, this long stage finally came to an end. At 20:09, after more than 9 hours of riding time, we reached our accommodation.

By the way, we’ve been very lucky with the weather again—yesterday we were basically riding ahead of the rain front: a few kilometers ahead of us there was always sunshine, while behind us there were dark clouds, and we occasionally felt a few drops. The same happened today—we felt some drops now and then, but only once did we get about 10 minutes of light rain. It never really started raining properly. Luckily—because it was still quite cold in the morning, and in the evening the temperatures dropped again so much that we had to bundle up warmly.