Slovenia D4

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Day 4Tonight the rats were not put on the spit again, although it was touch and go with the heavy shower from Bled on a 10km gravel road followed by a hill with an 18% gradient. The day set off nicely with a roll down a beautiful valley full of quaint villages on the road from Bohinje. At the end of the valley I was thinking about rain and then realised that I had left my rain jacket on the pension. A quick phone call to TrekTrek office and they obligingly had their baggage driver drop it off in Bled for me at the Restaurant Panorama where we had planned to lunch. The lunch was preceded by a long hard climb for 15k with gradients of 8 to 10%. Part way up I had a shock when I was grinding up an 8% gradient at 5mph and at 80% max heart rate when I heard some tapping behind me. I looked back to see a chap on cross country skis with wheels overtaking me at about 10mph. I felt humiliated in the extreme but amazed at the power of him and his fellow skiers passing me in his wake. Apparently there was a Serbian Biathlon taking place which involves cross country skiing and shooting. The descent was cool and I stopped for coffee at a bar and chatted to a young girl who had worked in London and Melbourne until her visas had run out. She was planning to go back to Oz since the work is poor and intermittent in Slovenia and was joining the exodus of young people. I came out and dropped 500 metres only to see the rest of the riders at another bar. So naturally I had another coffee to warm myself up. Lake Bled is truly beautiful and has churches and a castle overlooking the emerald water quite majestically. After a bowl of spaghetti we left the town and headed north until the Tarmac ran out and the dry weather with it. Such a shame that we could not see this wonderful country at its best. As the gravel ended Greg had his chain break and fell off and bent his rear derailleur on the nasty hill Geoff did a quick repair and he was off again onto another gravel patch before the last 10k on an excellent cycle path which was an old railway line leading us to the very nice Hotel Spik. A good meal and sleep - heaven.

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