It was amazing!
Weather was balmy - just perfect for a day long ride.
Now for the report,
I started the journey around 8.30 full of hope for a pleasant and interesting ride. I knew that the plan was tight (way too long for the 8h) but I was really looking forward to the trip.
Quickly after start I realised that I forgot to take a picture of the odometer. I fixed that during the first stop at the railway crossing (click to enlarge)
The culprit
I moved south towards mountains.
Before the real mountains I had to go by the artificial ones. Results of coal mining in my region.
The back of the pic is a coal mine heap (some of it already covered by vegetation) and coal mine buildings. The front is collapsed ground filled with water and my motorcycle (far from collapsing).
After reaching Wisła (let's call it the gateway to the mountains during this trip) I stopped for fuel. Later that day I decided that this will be the start to my Backroad150.
Odometer 550km, time 10:11 and the first receipt from petrol station
With Wisła behind me I started climbing the mountains on PL/SK border. The sights became better,
the roads more twisty (that's middle of a hairpin)
The air became chillier but still pretty pleasant. Everything was perfect. Except the quality of the roads.
I knew, though, that it will change for better on Slovakian side.
Before I got there I had a chance to grab a couple more pics.
A wooden church
Park just before the border with a long zip-line ride, a climbing wall and some other fun stuff.
Then the border happened. I was 132km from home and 50kms into BR150. A quick snack and a sip of water and onto recording the spot.
Left - Slovakia, middle - the hero, right - Poland
No mention of speed limits for bikes :ponder:
In Slovakia I was mainly looking forward to three things - the twisties on road 520 (newish tarmac), the beautiful castle on rock in Oravský Podzámok and different architecture (typical wooden houses) in villages of Orava region
First came the 520. Lovely stretch of empty road with some high speed curves and stunning views. No places to stop the bike though, so only one photo taken right after the last turn. I've made the first promise of the journey - research action cams, as I want to share the views with my family/mates and here too, of course.
Next was
Orava Castle.
Promise number two - the next time I'm in Orava I'm going to walk up and visit the castle.
It was around 2pm and traffic was picking up slightly. On my next stop I started thinking about grabbing food, and decided to wait with that until back in Poland. In the meantime I grabbed another snack at Trstena Dam.
The back of the dam
Panoramic photo of the dam and water
Several kilometres from Trstena I returned to Poland. As there was no possibility to stop on the border I stopped a few hundred metres further and snapped an obligatory milestone pic. (bright green tree is in Slovakia). This border marked 285km of my trip and 209km into BR150.
A little bit further into my country I got a beautiful panorama of highest Polish mountains - the Tatras (also border with Slovakia but further south-east)
and a close up
The next stop was by the Żywiec lake - the trip there was uneventful - few nice views of mountains and (unfortunately) more and more cars. Also the speed was not picture taking friendly
But the dam and water were calm as ever
Next part was a climb towards Straconka Pass. A favourite place of local pedal bikers. I shamefully have to admit that I could learn a thing or two about high speed cornering on descents from them.
Here's where they get liquid courage in form of a beer. I grabbed one too. Photo that is.
On the descent I realised that I was getting close to the reserve. I was curious what fuel consumption will I get from the day's ride. Soon I had to flip the petcock to RES - after 320km. After refuelling I calculated consumption - 4,16l/100km (56mpg).
I forgot to get a pic of odometer but not to send the refuelling info to my
app. It was 331.8km from Wisła. So just the pic of the receipt
The rest is an easy ride to the end of my BR150. I decided to finish it at a beautiful lake (rather than at home)
I give you the last photo of my bike on the grassy parking place in Wisła Wielka. I think that's my favourite photo of the whole trip (says a lot about my photo taking skills lol).
This lake supplies big part of my region (Silesia) with water. No motors allowed, only sailing.
And finally the odometer at the parking.
A short summary with numbers
Total distance - 478km - 297 miles (home-home)
Distance for BR150 - 370km - 230 miles (Żywiec - Wisła Wielka)
Time for BR150 - 7hrs 11mins (Żywiec 10:11, Wisła Wielka - 5:22)
Last two pics - a summary of the recorded track.
and the recorded track (can't embed my kmz, so just a screengrab grom GMaps)
If you want to see more photos from my trip visit
HERE
Thanks for reading!
Matt
