12th Unitarian Bike Expedition

The day started really early. At 7 in the morning the school yard was full of people dressed up in orange-yellow. We packed the fresh schnitzels, cold water, the last kits and then, before we left, we symbolically thanked our sponsors for having the possibility to go on this adventure this year too. But we also want to thank every kind supporter for believing in us, encouraging us and standing by us in this journey. We would like to thank our dear parents too for cheering us on. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll organize a bike expedition with parents too.

After the family photos were taken, lined up, with the escort of the police, we left the city centre and were headed to Kisbács. We were organized in three groups so that everyone could go with their own pace. Today’s target is 104 kilometres, the goal: the school yard of the Szilágyballa school.

We can’t simply leave the country without having to pass some serpentines, so after 40 kilometres, at Kolozs and Szilágy County’s boarder, we already had to practice for the real challenge: the Meszes. Because you can’t ride a bike with an empty stomach and we promised not to bring home the delicious food, we pulled over and unpacked the tasty eggplant, meat, fresh vegetables and ate it all.

Some faster, some enjoying the beautiful view, some resting in the car, we climbed the 7-8 kilometres long hill. “There will be higher mountains in Slovakia”, we tried to encourage ourselves as we reached the peak. Some of us stopped to rest for a bit, but this is also part of the expedition: to know where our limits are. After a longer stop we started going down the hill, also paying attention to the braking distance. Everything went ok, our headway was being accompanied by the Szilágy County’s police. We passed Zilah too, meaning that we were only a couple of miles away from where we were going to be accommodated. The police took care of us and also offered a ride to those who were exhausted, saving them from having to choose the trailer instead (despite the fact that even the new expeditioners knew that it can be really fun! Reaaally!!!)

At the boarder of Szilágyballa, Mr. Máté Tibor, the expedition’s very enthusiastic supporter, was waiting for us and lead us to the local school’s yard, where we put our tents up and installed the mobile kitchen before the summer rain arrived. After that we started to prepare our dinner, everyone deserved it after a really successful first day. We peeled 150 potatoes (we counted!), flavoured the salad and roasted the sausages. Jogobella (the pig), was really tasty, he died as a martyr. In the meantime the sun was shining, and taking advantage of the good weather, we played football and volleyball (like we didn’t do enough practice today). Mr Paul already proved that he could be a master chef, the meal was indescribably tasty, some of us even asked for more.