EV10: Day 16: Rowy to Łeba

Words or these pictures cannot describe my frustration yesterday. I understood before that the #ev10 is not fully developed, but didn’t expect the roads to be in this bad a shape.

It started with heavy rain during the night — even though none was predicted.
The first bit through a national park was mostly ok road-wise, not great, with only a few sandy patches.

However, things got a lot worse right after the little town of Kluki. There was some swamp with only a tight, very bumpy single trail leading through it. And then there were maybe around 30–40 wooden bridges — each maybe only 20 m long — to avoid some wetland/swamp. They were not interconnected. However, all bridges had a 10 cm hard border at either end — and due to my baggage it meant I had to constantly get off and on my bike. These two kilometres already took ages, and a lot of time and strength. At the end of the wetlands!!! — when I was in the middle of nowhere — there was a sign that this trail is not suitable for bicycles, with the official cycle route signage underneath.

That was not the last surprise of the day.

I thought the worst was behind me, but then came kilometres of cracked 80-year-old military concrete slabs, and after that deep sand between Gać and Łeba. For most of it I had to push the loaded bike, in the rain.

It’s hard to see how this qualifies as the official EuroVelo 10 / R10 cycle route, and there were no warnings at all.
I finally reached Łeba, tired and with no appetite for pitching a tent in the rain, so I booked a room. Booking.com promised great WiFi; it was broken that evening.

And half a kilometre before I reached the apartment, my old Android phone, which I used for navigation, popped out of the bag and the display broke. So I hope the battery on my other, newer phone is sufficient to navigate all day long.

A hard day, but only #53km. #cycle2finland #eurovelo10 #ev10 #r10

In retrospect, this was probably the 2nd worst day I had during the whole trip, and the most exhausting. If you’re traveling along this route, I can only recommend that you avoid this stretch and choose the highway instead.

I later learned after my trip that it might have helped to let some air out of my bike tires to get ahead on the sandy stretches.

I slept here.