I’m to Budapest in a couple of weeks and planning to ride down to Sofia through Serbia. I’ll be covering about 100 miles a day but am not sure whether to go with my singular swift that has got midge drop bars on it and skinny tyres or my carbon audax bike.

Kind of feels like it’s more of an audax type trip really but have no idea what to expect of the roads. ANy ideas? Also a bit nervous of how the baggage handlers will treat my bike but think I’m going to have to take a risk on that one…

Drivers and esp. lorry drivers have no time for you. As a pesky cyclist you will be the lowest on the foodchain. Better than Bosnia and Kosovo though.

so best to stick to quieter roads I’d imagine…any idea what the surface is like?

Roads not fantastic in Serbia; they spent all the money on a couple of ill-concieved wars. Croatia is a much much nicer country. Are you going through Belgrade? I can put you in touch with my agent who is a cyclist and speaks English.

I hope you like meat, they eat a lot of it in Serbia, with lots of salt.

Go on Cycle Chat and find the posts by Vernon who has just come back from a tour of the same areas. Here: http://www.cyclechat.net/threads/im-outta-budapest.161212/

i cycled through montenegro/kosovo/macedonia recently, so not quite the same but i’d expect similar conditions – roads were mostly fine with a few exceptions on smaller routes, one part had roadworks meaning no surface for a couple miles etc.. but not bad for the most part.

i found trucks to be reasonable, most beep (to let you know they’re passing – that might be fairly close at times but i didn’t feel at risk). Vehicles will overtake each other coming towards you which is disconcerting, and will pull out from side roads as if they haven’t seen you (but seemed to do that with any traffic really – if they can get a nose in, they will go) so anticipate both and you’re fine.

100 a day should mean you have plenty time for either bike though i’d go for the audax personally, if both have skinnies then it doesn’t make any difference anyway.