15 November 2023, Byala, 49.71km
Alla 35lev [R366]

It was a quirky ride to Byala, 50km south of Varna.
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First we had to cross the Asparuhov Bridge which spans "the canals between the Black Sea and Lake Varna. The bridge is 2.05km in length and 50m in height, weighing 3,200 tons. It has 38 pairs of supports, each one capable of carrying 2,400 tons. The bridge experiences significant traffic, with 10,000 vehicles crossing it every day. The bridge's construction began in 1973 when the need for a larger canal to link Lake Varna and the sea became necessary."
Tunnels are more dangerous to ride, but bridges present their challenges. They are a defined width with no escape from fast-moving traffic. We opted therefore to cross the bridge on the pedestrian path on the flip side of the safety barrier. This presented its own challenges as the path is interrupted by poles from which trolleybus wires are suspended. The poles double as lamp posts and are placed an equal distance apart along the length of the bridge, but not always on the same spot across the width of the path. We had to push our bikes either to the left or right of each pole, depending on its placement. Both our handlebars and our back panniers were just too wide to make this easy. Each pole required a slightly different technique. I eventually removed one pannier and held it on my saddle to narrow the width of the bike. It was not an unpleasant exercise on a lovely morning, just time consuming.
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We parked ourselves on a narrow strip beside the road shortly after the bridge ended to discuss whether to take a chance on cycling a short section of motorway or take the longer, hillier option. We opted for the former. Just as we prepared to remount, I noticed that our tyres were riddled with diwweltjies. In English this thorn seems to have several names including goat's-head, cat's-head, devil's eyelashes, tackweed and puncture vine, the latter proving prophetic. Charl got a puncture in each tyre despite us having carefully removed each thorn!
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The motorway was a pleasure to ride even where the shoulder on occasion fell away to allow for an additional uphill lane. When we were ignored by a police car and later overtaken by a local cyclist in lycra moving fast, we relaxed into all the pleasures of a graded road that spanned deep valleys instead of dropping into and climbing out of them.
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When the motorway ended, it became the much narrower, bumpier Route 9. We took our time, walking hills that became too tiring to ride, taking a Doritos break at a garage where we stopped to pump Charl's tyres, enjoying a delicious soup lunch at an unexpectedly attractive place 6km north of Staro Oryahovo - lamb liver for Charl and pumpkin with white cheese for me.
At the garage, we were approached by a man driving a red Opel. He spoke no English, but was very excited to engage with us, showing us the country stickers on his car of places visited in the last couple of years. There were two women in the car who were totally disinterested in us and his engagement with us, to the extent that the woman in the front seat sat with her window open so she could see herself in the outside rear view mirror, all the better to squeeze her blackheads!
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We found our accommodation easily enough, just 750m from a pretty good supermarket. Fresh rolls and fat sausages for dinner at the end of another good day.