#Circaduemila

from Trieste to Istanbul 

Marco e Claudio

www.circaduemila.it

After succesfully testing the Hobo prototyoes at Tour d’Afrique 2013 we decided to spend some more time on the road by testing the Hobo in fully loaded condition. Marco and Claudio accepted to ride 2 Hobo prototypes on their trip from Trieste (Italia) to Istanbul (Turkey). #circaduemila (roughly 2,000) kilometers done with a lot of fun and great feedbacks from the bike.  

“Before leaving, we were not able to calculate the right distance; there was no defined road map, no exact schedule of our trip, just the idea to get to Istanbul by bike. We chose a route to follow day by day, finding new roads when we were lost.

And this already happened our first day. We moved to the South, along the slovenian coast: and, you know, it’s not easy to leave the sea view. We just wanted one more day on the coast, having a dive in the sunset. But the price we payed for this was really high. As we climbed higher, the landscape changed abruptly into very steep mountains. The landscape variety has been a leitmotiv of our trip. During the early days, maybe the hardest of the whole trip, we were really scared of failure. However our desire of East was higher.

Day by day we became stronger, sensitive, expecting the unexpected. There were a lot of unexpected events, one for all was the loss of the passport in the Sarajevo hostel. It was not easy to explain to the Montenegrin policeman that we had passed the border anyway. Obviously he told us that a driver’s license was not acceptable in lieu of an international passport. So, Claudio was deemed a citizen of the middle ground, a no man’s land, between Bosnia and Montenegro, two countries divided by a river.

This was actually our luck, since at the foot of the bridge there was a rafting camp run by very nice Bosnian girls. After seeing our faces they found a driver who spoke Italian because his family had taken refuge in Palermo during the Balkans war. Fortunately the only one who forgot the document was able to exit the middle ground… after a five-hour frightening trip by car he got his passport back. No time had been lost thanks to facing the unexpected event as a part of the trip through eight countries:

Slovenia , sun and sea breeze;

Croatia strenuous climbs, slopes of 16 degrees and wonderful forests once you reach the hinterland;

Bosnia, large spaces between one city to another, the land of mosques, war, the land of Sarajevo, a city of emotions and awareness;

Montenegro, the outdoor sports paradise, amazing rivers, mountains, colossal peaks above 1900 m, winter temperatures ( around 8 ° C, a sharp change in temperature compared to the averages of 40-45 ° that have accompanied us in the earlier days);

Kosovo, still deeply scarred by a war that has brought destruction and economic damage , affecting the social life of the country;

Macedonia, land of passage, actually lived for only one day , and hot flat territory,

Bulgaria, long plateaus and mountainous days;

Turkey, endless fields of sunflowers surround super fast roads that led us straight to Istanbul, the gateway to the east;

Istanbul, a chaotic, frenzy, magic and full of poetry town that immediately filled our hearts. It was amazing to think that we had reached Asia by bicycle.

This has been an intense journey from the very first day, a trip of two friends who faced different territories and people, receiving hospitality and friendliness everywhere, even with just a smile or a greeting on the roadside. This is perhaps the most beautiful aspect :

the beauty of the human person we met.

In every place, in every village, even the most obscure or the most hidden, we received hospitality and courtesy.

Amazed to see someone ride two bikes in their territories, full of life and things to see, often forgotten, ignored or even judged by who has never been there.