Unpaved Road

Who expect that some national road in Latvia has been still unpaved?

There are about 30km off-road between Ventsplis and Kolka, at the northest point in Latvia. Wach out for every cyclist!! It is not listed on your map and on my map as well!!!

I really wanted to go to the point and to see from the coast to the Baltic sea and the Gulf. That was the only road connecting from Ventsplis to Kolka. I had no option except for that harder road.

What is hard to pass on the off-road by bike is that firstly, to keep my balance. My bike has about 30kg for the stuff and I am around 60kg. In addition to those weight bicycle itself has 15kg or more. The total amount when I riding of my bicycle is over 100kg. It is not easy to keep it and sometimes my tire has fall into the sand and I had to get out from the bike then I need push it up! The second obsession is cars. As I told you before, there is not a lot of cars in Latvia compared to eastern Europe.Cars in here are passing by me every 10 minutes or more. However, when it passed me, it will make a storm of sand and my way will be full of those smoke regardless of the direction!! Drivers in Latvia has less attention to the cyclist and I was in the small storm every 10 minutes.

That's why my avarage speed fell down to 10 or less, which is half speed to the asphalt.

By the way, that area was really wild, I guess it is one of a conservation area in Latovia. I saw some deers and foxes in a forest. They were afraid of me and got it away soon after we came across. That was really nature!! Futhermore, there was no shopes around there. When you try to take that road, you should have enough water to pass. I was really thirsty and close to drink a beer which I bought at Ventspils.

The destination of yesterday was Kolka, but I finally couldn't get there. Instead of it, I made my tent at Mazirbe, 20km southwest from Kolka, near the Baltic sea. I got some water from the tent site at there.(I slept on the coast not in the tent site) I tasted beer inside the tent as usual.

Even the last 20km from Mazirbe to Kolka, there was another unpaved road appered in this morning! Half road has harden by asphalt and there was under construction area. It won't be long before those roads are constructed by asphalt at all.

That was one of the hardest road of this journey!! I had no flat tire at there! I was lucky!