When you decide to travel, you are bound to hit some challenges and struggles along the way. While my blog can appear to be all about rainbows and unicorns, there are also a side of struggles and challenges. Some have been easy to solve for me while others made me scared if I would ever make it.

Be warned, a lot of complaining a head!

this is my "shits about to get serious face, so sit down and listen"

1. My knees, my goddamn knees!

Every bikers fear is the knees...
Probably the first and the biggest problem I had when I started out was, that both my knees started to hurt real bad, worse than ever. I was so frustrated I just wanted them to go to hell. It was actually at the point I was scared of if had to stop my bike trip.

how did I deal with it?
Instead of being the super hero that just ate the pain all day long, I took the harder path and did the opposite(trust me it required lots of patience)

I started to listen to my body
Every time my knee started to hurt, I either stopped or pulled my bike. (one day I actually just pulled my bike a whole day, until I found a place to rest. I also sometimes stayed more days in one place to give my knees a break.

This was really not my idea of travelling by bike. The dreams and thoughts of just crushing one mountain after another, going fun and strong everyday. You have to remember this was merely 1 week into my trip so I was so excited to live out my dream, yet I couldn't.

I also started stretching, shit tons of stretching and I did it at least 3 times a day. I think that was my root of my problem, the inflexibility of my body. Eventually after already two weeks of slow and boring '' biking'', the pain slowly went away. After a month it was completely gone I still stretch everyday.

By now I can finally live the dream of biking all day long and I can feel that my body can keep up with my ambitions. If I ever feel anything, I usually just let my body rest. Keeping myself out of trouble.

The loneliness

Another early challenge, but I always thought myself at being good at it. But when you spend day in and day out listening to your own stupid brain, you do get tired, bored and somewhat lonely In the end. Making you wonder if it's really worth it to travel alone.

How I dealt with it?

I still think that being alone can be good, and at times I actually prefer it. But I didn't want my trip to be about being alone. So I got better at approaching people on the way. If I saw somebody who seemed interesting I just stopped up and approached them. At start I did it by making a promise to myself to at least approach one person a day.

By now I have gotten better at both, I have no problem just approaching bigger groups. Sometimes leading to some fun night at the camp sites and hostels... or unexpected adventures. But I also don't mind spending a evening or two for myself.

Although I travel alone I dont want to be alone, a bit of a paradox, I know.

small complains of a tour biker

Okay those two was so far the biggest problems, but here's some smaller:

3. My Credit card!?
My credit card gets thrown out of every automat for no reason. This means I have no solid way to acquire cash. It still works in supermarkets etc. So I'm not starving. But it makes a lot of things complicated and I have no idea how to fix it yet. Gonna call my bank again a second time I guess.

4. My biking gloves messes up my beautiful sun tan look

a bit of a joke but no need to explain this one.

forgetting to drink water in mid summer Croatia. Leading to massive headaches.

forgetting to keep your mouth shut when biking fast down hill = getting some extra unwanted protein from potential bugs.

Cars does not always respects your personal space

Mountains and hills.

When it's cloudy i miss the sun, when it's sunny I want it to go away.

I think we just stop here, but it felt good getting some of it out there! Here's a beautiful picture of a sunburned me to lift our spirit again:

Hope you enjoyed my pile of rants about the unfair live of a tour biker!

Stay awesome!

-Holm