The start the next day was scheduled from the town of Mojkovac to the Biogradska Gora national park. The town was supposed to be quite small, 4k residents according to Wikipedia. Hopes of finding a new rim for Andrey to replace his bent one, and a spare tire for me, were rapidly melting away. I wasn't as anxious yet — Doomer mentioned that a 26-inch inner tube could be stretched onto a 28-inch rim, something he had seen Alexey, widely known in narrow cyclist circles, pull off.
I tried it — and, oh miracle — the trick worked. So it was only Andrey whose knees kept shaking.
Along the way, we admired the Tara River Canyon
Across the river near the village, as already mentioned, a remarkable bridge has been built — an outstanding engineering structure, and all that. But I won't show you a photo of it, because we haven't actually made it there ourselves on foot or by bike yet — we've only crossed it by car so far. Once we make it there, there will be photos.
This is what our abode looks like from that very bridge
Along the way we saw a monument, and here the highly artistic photo was already taken by Doomer.
The “three-in-one” style, so popular in broad Christian circles that it's exploited even by rappersin the form of Kanye West and Jay-Z.
After some time, we reached the town.
A dried-up reservoir
There was a small bazaar in the town, where a Ukrainian guy was selling all sorts of knick-knacks, including some bicycle-related stuff. He told us that market day in such small settlements is only on Mondays, and that we were lucky, because we arrived there exactly on a Monday. Unfortunately, out of the rims for sale, there was only a rear one.
We poked around a bit, snacked on some cheap (1 euro) and tasty burgers and pies from a food joint at the bus station, and moved on in search of a rim, to the city of Bijelo Polje. By the way, the pies were called “Burek”, does that remind you of anything, think about it?
Highlight the black text with your mouse to see the answer: “cheburek”.
We arrived in a little over an hour. This city turned out to be sized at 15 thousand people, and visually much larger. Parking in the center, we started asking around where we could find a bike shop or a workshop here. A local woman answered Oleg, and a man grabbed me by the shoulders and led me in the right direction, but upon seeing that we already had a guide, simply sent me over to Oleg's escort.
She led us a couple of blocks away, where we discovered this interesting door, inspiring great hope in the unfortunate Andrey.
We didn't call, because the lady hollered for the mechanic. His name was, I think, “Raka”, or something like that. The mechanic opened the magic door, and — oh miracle — behind it was a genuine, full-blown bike workshop, with the most authentic parts from leading manufacturers.
And right at the entrance, hanging from the ceiling, was a fully assembled rim!
For the rim and the labor, the mechanic asked for just 25 euros, very reasonable. True, as it turned out later, this was with a discount, since he took the old rim.
The mechanic isn't averse to admiring some nudity
Andrey can't believe his luck
The whole process took very little time, and we briskly rolled back, since the start of our today's event was scheduled specifically from the town of Mojkovac.
On the way, we were pulled over by the police for speeding (speed signs in Montenegro are often invisible, seriously), but the issue was resolved to mutual satisfaction, at the core of which lay the number 10.
A water fountain near the church
To sum up, let's just say that the wheel-hunting epic ended brilliantly, not least thanks to the patience and calmness of the participants, drivers, and the organizer. We had to drive an extra two hours there and back, not counting the time to replace the rim and a few more of my flat tires (because of thorns left in the tire or whatever else), but it paid off handsomely — no one let anyone down or left them in the lurch, and Andrey was able to ride with us for the remaining days instead of just stupidly sitting in the house and moping.