April 2nd: Kielce to Rosiejow - “A mole overtook me on the climb up the hill…..”- Grant

A “slight miscalculation” of the route from a 64km planned ride to an 84km one with a 750m climb was today’s ride from Kielce to Rosiejow, a rural summer getaway town with rolling fields, beautiful dams and surrounding forests and reindeer grazing in the open plains.

Chatting to Julian and Grant today highlighted the fact that Poland is not always flat and the climbing stages have begun! They were met with some challenging 14-18 % climbs and Julian has taken great delight in beating his dad up and down the rolling hills. The highlight today was definitely the sunny weather and a fabulous encouraging tailwind that lasted for about 22kms, which makes a wonderful change from the last few days of cold and grey conditions.

“A mole overtook me on the climb up the hill…..”- Grant

Today brought with it some road riding which was pretty scary as they had 60m long lumber trucks thundering past them as they rode on the side of mountain roads as well as Julian being chased by a German Sheperd! Thankfully the flagpole is a deterrent and Julian whipped it out and waved it wildly and the dog left him alone!

Although riding on these roads with no dedicated side paths for cyclists is quite daunting, the road users are incredibly considerate of cyclists and slow down and give them a wide birth.

Hitting or injuring a cyclist or pedestrian in Poland is very heavily fined so they always have right of way and this is very reassuring to know.

Having the waving flags on long flagpoles and the flashing lights on their bikes definitely helps too.

Julian also had his first fall on the roadside today when he stopped at the top of a hill and couldn’t remove his foot from his cleat fast enough and he just toppled off, having to be hoisted up by Grant using the bike’s handle bars as the bike fell on top of Julian on a decline so he couldn’t get up.

Another first for the day was riding on the Eurovelo bike track – these are an European network of dedicated cycling paths in various countries providing safe and scenic riding for cyclists. They used it for a short distance and were quite excited that there may be more of these in the days ahead.

The first photo I was sent today was one of the Crazybikeguys finally eating a much sought after sugary bun from a roadside bakery.

Things are certainly looking up!

Tomorrow update: The boys ride to Krakow where they will have a rest day and a daunting historical visit to Auschwitz.

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In other news from Logwood!

Reece Carrazedo swam in the South African Sports association for the intellectually impaired Games this week and won a medal! All provinces were represented and Reece swam for Gauteng!

Well done Reece, we are so proud of you!

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