Day 31: Paralia Ofryniou-Xanthi (105 km, 803 m ↑)

On our day to Xanthi, we had some more bike issues to deal with. Udo had his fourth broken spoke on his way to Paralia Ofryniou, and my gear shift did not work as it should after the repair in Thessaloniki. So, we made a stop half way to Xanthi in a bicycle repair shop near Kavala, which we had called the day before so that they knew we were coming and would need direct assistance. The mechanic there, Kostas, was very skillful and fixed Udo’s bike. He said though that once one spoke has broken and you continue riding the bike over a certain distance, that you risk that more and more spokes will break. It would be better to buy a new wheel, which he did not have in stock, but he recommended us another bike shop in our next stop, Alexandroupoli. He also adjusted my gear shift, but it was still not working as it should afterwards.

Just one hour later, I realised that my rear brake was not working properly once more. After some swearing that this happened directly after visiting a bike shop, we stopped next to the road, removed the brake and the brake pads were falling off. Apparently, when I fixed the brake the last time I had missed the hole in the brake pads with the screw that keeps them in place. I’m not sure how that happened really, but we have become so used to fixing brakes by now that the whole process did not take more than five to ten minutes, and we were good to go again.

The rest of the ride to Xanthi was a bit monotonous along a rather busy road. But the town of Xanthi itself was quite nice with many restaurants and cafés. In Xanthi, we stayed for two nights because Friday was a working day.

Day 32: Xanthi-Alexandroupolis (108 km, 799 m ↑)

Our last stop in Greece was Alexandroupoli. We left Xanthi after a coffee and croissant in a café in the morning. The ride to Alexandroupoli was first rather flat, but had one climb towards the end before we reached the Aegean sea again.

In Alexandroupoli, we first made sure to bring our bikes to the bike shop. There, indeed, the mechanic had a new wheel for Udo. And he adjusted my gear shift again, but stated that the new crank I got, did not fit perfectly to my gear shift. So it was difficult to make the shift work smoothly. I will probably have to live with the fact that I have to shift up and down a couple of times before the chains falls into place properly, and eventually buy a new crank again.

While our bikes were in the bike shop, we had a quick salad and souvlaki dinner. And then we headed home to watch Schalke vs. Darmstadt and see the fifth victory in a row.

Tomorrow we will leave Greece and cross the border to Turkey, or should I say Türkiye?