The Albanian portfolio

On the road to Valbona, Albania

To say that Albania is a strange place might seem unfair, especially since Kosovo is not exactly itself the most normal place to live. But it is strange. Because of a combination of politics, history, and geography, Albania during the Cold War was neither East nor West. If anything, it was Far East, a country that followed a very austere and Maoist version of communism, a country that couldn't be friends with Washington but didn't want to be friends with Moscow. For decades, until after the fall of communism in late 1990, private ownership of cars was outlawed. The country was constantly preparing for invasion, with cement pillboxes growing like mushrooms out of the landscape, and a brutalist style of architecture that... well, at least that part reminds me of Pristina. Today the country is still neither here nor there, but in terms of time rather than direction.

Sharing the road above Tamara

For cyclists, this makes Albania a very strange place indeed. The roads are either unpaved or
constructed of ancient asphalt with refrigerator-sized potholes (I fell into one of these last year and fractured my hand), or they are brand-new feats of Italian engineering, with asphalt so smooth and unworn they fall under what Sean Kelly referred to as "grand tour perfect." So, too, are the other vehicles occupying the road. The country still hosts a suspiciously large number of Mercedes, but increasingly (especially during the summer months) there are new and highly expensive Audis or Land Rovers, sharing the road with large numbers of bicycles and all manner of agricultural livestock. The other day I saw a 5-series BMW trying to pass around a herd of cows, but having to give way to oncoming traffic which consisted of a horse-drawn cart-- and this on the main highway between Tirana and Podgorica in Montenegro. In practical terms, Albanian drivers are generally faster than their cousins in Kosovo, but also far more aware of side traffic such as bicycles. But some of these roads, they seem to be made only for cyclists.

From Kosovo, there are only two crossings (both near Gjakova) which we use into Albania directly- these lead to the region around the town of Bajram Curri in the northeast of the country. If driving to Albania and then starting, we typically focus either on the city of Shkodra to the north, or the coastal cities between Vllora and Saranda in the south. A few weekends ago, we followed up on the Kulle Pass ride into Montenegro with a ride to Albania out of Gjakova. The original idea was to go to Valbona, a gorgeous canyon and national park in the far north of the country, a long but gradual climb out of Bajram Curri into the Accursed Mountains. We did this ride in September with Jen Whytock and the Tolga-led group of local cyclists, a remote area but one which did contain hotels and its own collection of adventure tourists.

But we didn't go to Valbona that day. The first goal, one insisted upon by Gjengiz, was to complete the long Ragam climb to the south of Bajram Curri. We had climbed from the other direction several times before and so knew the descent, but few people had climbed from the other direction. Accompanied by Agim and Bashkim, we set out from the outskirts of Gjakova, along a rutted road that led to the border climb. Nothing like the border with Montenegro, the climb to the Albanian border as a gradual rise of some 600 feet, cresting where very friendly guards scan our IDs and wave us through. After the border is a long, 15 km descent, with a left turn that climbs into the village of Ragam, and from there the 10km climb to the summit. The view of the valley from that road, cut into the hillside as it snakes up 1500ft (450m) in elevation, is always stunning, the sort of place they could have filmed Lord of the Rings-- at least had they needed a real set for Mordor.

With Tolga (in gold) on the hottest day of 2016, northern Albania

I say that because it was hot there. It was always hot there. On one ride in the province two years ago,
my Garmin recorded 52C (126F) on the road, so hot that I worried about tubes blowing out just from the heat. The area is also very remote, with few villages, few sources of water, and little on the road besides some hardscrabble goats and some crazy cyclists. On this climb from Ragam the temperature held to the mid 80sF (low 30sC), and we pushed hard along the relatively easy 4% grade to the top. Psychologically the climb is not easy, though. Coming around the first corner of the climb, one can see the road snaking along the mountainside, seemingly forever ahead. Especially when going full gas, it can be a sobering sight. A family in a van were at the top taking photos of the view, and were nice enough to offer water to Gjengiz and me. We descended down to the one spring along the road, passing Agim and Bashkim climbing still, and when the other two caught up to us Agim said he had an idea to avoid Valbona and try some thing different.

There is no road between Bajram Curri and Shkodra, despite the map distance between them being fairly short. One follows a road into the head of the Kukes Lake, takes an old ferry along the water some distance, and then drives along 20km of rough, rocky road. Buses from Bajram Curri to Tirana, then, typically pass through Kosovo. Agim's idea was to follow the road as far as we could, until the pavement ran out.

Roads cut into the hillside

This route, not being overly long before we reached the end (not even 20 miles or 30km), sticks in my memory as almost other-worldly. I kept thinking of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, that had he been not been adventurous enough to experience Africa, all he really needed to do was write about trying to find Kurtz in northern Albania. The landscape looked like Norway but the air like Iraq, winding down a deep canyon to the deafening buzz of cicadas and the elemental heat that quickly rose above 40C (well into the 100sF). The road, carefully perched above the water some hundred meters, didn't seem to belong there. We passed rusted out ferries, the still-working car ferry along buildings that housed sleepy cafes, and then beyond that even deeper into the canyon.   I then went from Conrad to thinking of song lyrics from the long-forgotten group David & David:

Fifteen long years
On a losing streak
And a lot of bodies unburied
And there comes a time
When you cannot turn the other cheek
You have got to ride the ferry
Past the battered old bodies
Of dead dead dreamers
Past the tethered and fettered desk-bound schemers
Past the punks and the drunks
And the bad guitar players
And the dewy-eyed teenage dragon slayers
You come to this place

We did make it back, although the climb back to the Kosovo border is traditionally hard, hot and exhausting. Back in Kosovo the weather turned oddly cool and rainy, a strange experience as the rest of Europe was in the grip of a never-ending heatwave and deadly fires to the south in Greece. But I was frustrated, needing to find more climbing time before the August race in Switzerland (where it is also baking right now-- I sincerely hope that changes), and many times in Pristina being rained out from frequent thunderstorms. So I made quick plans to spend a day or two in Albania riding out of Shkodra, and I make public apologies for not inviting Tolga along on this ride (though he might thank me for saving him from heat-stroke. It was a brutal day and a half).

Stormy climb to Razam

Gjengiz and I stayed in the Havana Hotel north of Shkodra, along the newly paved and flat road north to the Montenegro border. Gjengiz's idea was to ride east toward the historic village of Theth, although I had learned from Uta that the pavement ended at the top of the climb, and we could not ride all the way to the village. Still, it would make for a decent afternoon climb, despite the oppressive heat when we got out of the car near the hotel. It would cool off as we climbed, we thought. The problem was that the road to Theth falls into the first category of road, ancient asphalt that might have been put down by the Romans. Even a 3-4% grade is tough when the surface requires more of a mountain bike or hybrid than a road bike, and after a few miles my hands had already gone numb. It was cooling down slightly, with large, black storm clouds rolling down from the mountains.

We abandoned the rough road to Theth and instead took a newly paved side road up the hillside toward Razam, through a series of switchbacks to the village of Vrith. It was here that the skies opened up on us, and we quickly backtracked down the mountain, around squealing pigs, until the heat suddenly came back as if someone had turned on a microwave. The rain stopped instantly and the temperature rose 30F in a matter of minutes. I suppose at least we were dry when getting back to the hotel, but a little worn for a relatively shorter ride.

The next day would be easier. We would climb familiar roads to the village of Tamara along the Montenegro border, then the fairly gradual 5.9% slope from Tamara up toward Gusinje. Well, we thought it would be easier. It wasn't. At all.

The first climb we had done several times before, from the village of Hot up to Ragsh, but we'd only

Roads climbing through the Tamara Gorge

done the climb in the spring or fall. That morning, despite leaving early enough that we reached the foot of the climb at 10am, the temperature quickly spiked to around 40C on the 10km climb. We struggled to find any hint of shade along the road, but at around an 8-9% grade, it was impossible to cool down while still climbing. We reached the iconic overview of the Tamara Gorge, but unlike previous times we didn't ooo and aah over the view. We were already soaking wet and tired, and still had longer climbs to come. We quickly rode down the gorgeous switchbacks of the cliffside to the idyllic village of Tamara, but again didn't stop as we usually would. We just kept riding, waiting for my Wahoo GPS to give a warning of the start of the HC climb to come.

This was where we had been fooled. Looking at the Strava profile, the 17km, 1000m climb looks like a steady grade of just under 6%, similar to the Prevalla climb we often do out of Prizren. Instead, we found the road had frequent flat sections and descents, meaning that in order for the 6% average to work out, all the climbs we did do were more on the order of 10-15%. At this point I should mention that I'd had trouble with my rear cassette, and had swapped out to a spare 11-26. When climbing long sections of road above 10% gradient, the difference between 26 and 28 teeth on the lowest gear is massive. (For the record, I'm taking an 11-32 to Switzerland. I don't need surprises there.) The heat was again unrelenting, though luckily the climb features a number of spring-water fountains. As we climbed, I began to understand the Strava leaderboard for the segment, where two guys (at the top Theo) were an hour ahead of everyone else. Upon closer examination, Theo and Miti had ridden the climb in the off season, not in the intense heat. Climbing in the August heat was foolish, exhausting, and aggravating every time we saw another section of road rise up steeply in front of us.

The descent therefore had climb-outs (not as bad as Cheaha in Alabama, but nearly as frustrating), and we still had to climb back out of the valley and along 30km of intense heat to the hotel. Funny thing about Gjengiz is that he can tackle any climb anywhere, but put him on flat roads (especially when windy) and he just collapses. Having grown up on the Great Plains in the Midwest US, that just seems weird to me, but knowing Kosovo roads are all straight up or straight down...

The descent from the border back to Tamara

This blog describes the ride as a real slog, but the benefit, the thing that tempers the heat and sweat and pain, is the beauty of the place. Albania has an almost indescribable wildness to it, yet it's fleeting, like the American West of the 1950s that opened up with new roads flying past farmsteads and cowboys, then disappeared into nostalgia. Albania still has those rough edges, yet these sleek ribbons of asphalt suggest a future where what we see now won't last-- now is the best time to see it, while bikes can still take one into the past. And the place just feels different. It's not like riding the mountains in Switzerland or Austria, where everything is orderly and rule-bound. In Albania, one can ride only 30km and yet feel like they are in another world, one removed from modernity save for the strip of road underneath. The sights, the sounds, the feeling of the place can only be experienced by hiking or cycling.