The rhythmic dripping of the beads of sweat becomes my beat. Every ten seconds, a new bead forms on the shield of my helmet. It lingers there for a while, swells and finally drops onto the top tube of my bike as a full drop. The speed of this drip-drip-drip even adapts to my cadence. When it gets steeper and I shift down a gear, the drops hurry to catch up with my cadence. Now that my legs have a pacemaker, my head has time to think about other things. For example, why I'm travelling to the Turkish Black Sea coast in the middle of July to go biking.
Of course I knew it was going to be hot. But this trail search simply made me curious. They were looking for a multi-day tour through previously unknown biking terrain, the guys and girls from the bike organiser Inselhüpfen explained to me. With as yet undiscovered single trails. It smelled so much like adventure that I just couldn't say no.
"Only Turks and Ukrainians holiday on the Turkish Black Sea coast. That means we have the hiking trails to ourselves. The only problem is that trails that aren't used quickly fall into disrepair."
So here I am in these karstic low mountain ranges on the southern coast of the Black Sea, pedalling up a long and sun-exposed forest road on my 150-millimetre Enduro. Together with a Turkish guide and six German trail seekers. For five days, I will follow this group through a pretty rugged area. There is no guarantee of a success story. But I was already in good spirits on the journey to the starting point.
We leave Istanbul in a minibus at around 6 a.m. to avoid the traffic and the intense heat. Six hours' drive east of the metropolis, our Turkish trail scout has already found the perfect trail entrance for the tour, which we now head for in our comfortable, air-conditioned minibus. Lars is sitting next to me. He has opened his laptop and is studying today's trail section on Google Earth. Then he zooms out further and shows me the entire planned route. "And then we'll try to find trails in Küre National Park." Lars emphasises the word "try" and adds: "According to the map, there are plenty of trails. The only question is whether they are rideable." Everything looks like a trail-hunting mission planned down to the last detail. On the laptop display, I can see folders full of GPS tracks and digital maps and even a mobile 3G internet connection. Meanwhile, outside the window, a rural landscape passes by. I can see horse-drawn carts and farmers still scything their grain by hand.
At some point, we stick the proverbial big toe into the trail tangle of the Black Sea region by doing a short test lap on the bike. We head uphill on a dusty forest road shimmering in the heat and then back downhill on rocky, loose trail bends. Right up to the front door of a restaurant. Lunch! Completely sweaty, we take a seat at a table and are soon sitting in front of a sea of Turkish dishes. A promising start and certainly just a foretaste of what these mountains have in store for us. Our afternoon tour starts later at a picnic area. From up here, there is supposed to be a trail descent to the town of Safranbolu. Around a dozen picnickers watch us through their thick clouds of barbecue smoke as we search for a gap in the edge of the forest, find it and then disappear into it like a colourful caterpillar.
Pine needles crackle under the tyres and give off the scent of 100 toilet scent stones. Soon the trail climbs uphill again to a viewpoint, and from there we roll southwards down a descent. The trail cuts through an open mountain flank with golden grass before leading us to the entrance of a canyon with a Roman aqueduct. Our Turkish guide Ali negotiates our entrance fee for the canyon, and after respectfully walking the first wooden steps, we still have eight kilometres of the finest trail left to ride. I'm sure that no mountain bike has ever ridden here before. The path undulates rhythmically until it spits us out on a paved road on the outskirts of the town of Safranbolu.
It is almost dark when we reach a rustic wooden house - our accommodation for the night. We high-five each other and have no idea that the best part of the entire route is now behind us.
After dinner, we stroll through the city's bazaar, have a Turkish coffee and try goat's milk ice cream. As a bridge between Europe and Asia, Turkey is an electrifying mix of old and new, Eastern and Western culture. There are mosques next to bars serving beer. Pictures of state founder Atatürk dangle from the rear-view mirrors of cars, bobbing to Western pop music. While the Turkish Mediterranean coast is a hotspot for beach tourists and the rocky towers of Cappadocia a magnet for bikers, the Black Sea coast has practically never appeared on the Western tourist radar. Only Turks and Ukrainians go on holiday here. And that in turn means that we won't find any hikers on the mountain trails along the coast. But just as we are about to rejoice, we realise that if a trail is not used, the thicket will quickly reclaim it.
"It takes us two hours to get down the trail to Amasra - and we're totally scratched up."
For the next two days, we travelled along a relentlessly rough and scorching hot forest path. Sometimes we even try overgrown branches of the path - just to wipe the blood off our scratched arms afterwards. The thorns are really nasty. The only thing that is really beautiful here are the swarms of butterflies that we regularly flush out. In the small village of Catah, we park our bikes in the shade of a minaret and scout out the next section to Kunari on foot. This time there are three canyon descents to choose from. The tourist map of the region clearly shows hiking trails - but we don't spot anything in the terrain that looks like one. Later, we climb another 800 metres up the mountain on our bikes. A horse-drawn cart jolts along in front of us. Its load: half a dozen children on their way to school. We pass mud houses with satellite dishes. Cars from the 80s roar past. Their drivers are men in white T-shirts and polished shoes. Sometimes our tour really does feel like travelling back in time at random.
We stop at a small roadside bazaar near the town of Amasra to buy some hazelnuts. We catch sight of a trail that soon disappears into a forest. A wrinkled woman with a headscarf and a heavy basket of vegetables on her crooked back pushes her way through the picture. She nods briefly without looking up: Yes, this is the footpath down to Amasra. Our next stop! Of course we grab this bait. Two hours and 400 metres down, we actually reach Amasra. Drenched in sweat and bleeding. That was definitely the most overgrown trail I've ever tried on a bike.
Unfortunately, the next two days don't get much better. Amidst all the frustration, there is the occasional pleasant trail surprise, but these are the proverbial drops in the ocean. We therefore place our last great hope in the Küre National Park. Its 370 square kilometres must simply have trail qualities. To be on the safe side, Lars wrings out Google Earth again, scours the GPS portals and doesn't even look up from his paper maps during dinner. One of these maps looks very up-to-date and clearly promises numbered hiking trails.
The next morning we start in Sahin, at the western end of the national park. This time we split into three groups. This increases the chance that at least one team will return with a usable trail in the GPS device. But the yield is again poor. It's exasperating. I've already shouldered my bike over the most impassable passes in India and tugged it through the snows of Afghanistan - in the end there was always a reward in the form of a brilliant single trail. But this time it's different. For the first time in 30 years, I'm travelling through an almost completely trail-free zone.
Nevertheless, the atmosphere at the final dinner on the promenade in Cide is not bad. Of course, you can't offer a tour like this. In the five days of biking, we only discovered a total of 20 kilometres of trail. But it was still interesting. I was particularly impressed by the insight into the work of an organiser. How much will and dedication it takes to present a new tour to your customers. I take a sip of my beer and gaze into the evening sun as it sinks into the sea: So this really wouldn't be a job for me.
Info about the Black Sea coast (Turkey)
The precinct The Pontic Mountains stretch for around 1000 kilometres along the Turkish Black Sea coast. The eastern and central Pontic Mountains, which are up to 2000 metres high, drop steeply down to the sea and are very overgrown due to the subtropical climate. As there is little hiking tourism in this region, the paths and trails marked on the maps are unfortunately very overgrown. The region is therefore not suitable for a trail tour over several days to Küre National Park, as planned by the organiser Inselhüpfen (www.inselhuepfen.de). If you still want to experience this wild and unspoilt landscape by bike, the best place to stay is in the town of Safranbolu. Safranbolu has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its exemplary preservation of the old town centre. There are canyons and valleys all around the city with thoroughly rewarding trails.
Arrival The best way to get there is by plane to Istanbul and from there by bus or hire car to Safranbolu (journey time approx. six hours).
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