Day 17 – Apatin to Novi Sad

We woke up to gray skies with neither one of us having slept very well. The official route was going to be over 80 miles today, with a couple of very steep hills, so we decided to make our own route to Novi Sad. After passing the bridge to Croatia, we met up with another rider who turned out to be a godsend. Dex rides for the national team and is working on his masters degree. He confirmed the route I had mapped for us to Novi Sad, and said he would get us a good, flat route into Belgrade the next day.  Thanks, Dex!

The towns today were spaced fairly evenly apart, so we made stops to top off water and get snacks throughout the day. The end-of-day jinx, which had given us a break yesterday, hit again today: fifteen miles from the end, I developed a bump in my rear tire where the belts appear to be separating. It made for a nice womp-womp-womp as we rode down the road. Luckily, it was not bad enough to prevent us from continuing, and it held out until we got into town, once again just beating the rain. The staff at the Hotel Planeta, as all our experiences here, were uniformly friendly and helpful. I told the desk clerk about needing to find a bicycle shop, and she said she would research it for me. John took a nap while I watched my friend Brad give his last sermon at our church…thanks, David! When we finally ventured out of our room to find something to eat, the desk clerk called the head of the Cycling Union of Vojvodina and had him and his wife come over to the hotel! They looked at my predicament and said they would come back in the morning with a new tire and tube.  We were flabbergasted.

We had dinner at a very tasty Serbian fast food joint across the street, then walked to the city center where they had just had a big concert, so lots of folks were out and about.  In order to make our day complete, when made the obligatory stop for gelato.