It woke up rather late and only then did I see how pretty the view from my hotel window was a pretty one, overlooking a lake.

Nice view from my hotel window

was around 8 am that I was ready for the ride of that day - or so I thought.

Alas, a few hundred meters into my ride, I noticed my first (and not last) flat tire on my rear wheel on this trip. Darn! I am not a real handyman - plus it was rather chilly that morning. I spotted a large firefighter building and thought they would not mind if I started the operation there.

As said, Turkish people are really nice, they did not mind, moreover, one of them mentioned (via Google Translate) his younger brother had a bike shop in town. About twenty minutes later by car, the younger brother showed up, we dismantled the read tire, we drove it to his shop, he opened up and inserted a new tube, patched the old one and found a crooked nail that burst the tube in the first place. In no time, we were back to the firefighter station, back tire up and off Iwent aorund 10 am. Once again, tesekür!

Tesekür! The firefighter in the middle, the bike shop owner on the right, the author in red

I got to the town of Gerede, where it was outright chilly, people walking around in winter apparel. No wonder, there the peaks around the city were hinted with fresh snow. This was a far cry from the pleasant 25 degrees or so that I was hoping to experience in Turkey - but now the trip had an adventurous taste to it, cold, rain - and even snow...

Speech

Well, shame on my head, I only covered 85 kilometers that day and about 800 meters of elevation. Here is the map.