Through the neighboring country
The sixth stage of K. Mieliauskas’s expedition “Europe’s Vertical: off-road” stretched through neighboring Poland – starting in Krakow and along the eastern border of the country through Lublin, Bialystok, and Augustów, heading north to Lithuania. In total, 1070 km were covered during this stage, which took 4.5 days to complete.
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This time, along with K. Mieliauskas, motorcycle enthusiast Deividas, a production company manager, traveled through Poland to improve his off-road skills. “Deividas’s main goal on this trip was to develop basic off-road riding and motorcycle handling skills. He chose Poland because this country is partly simpler, and the selected route had no high mountains. The route started in Krakow and led through the eastern part of the country along the Ukrainian and Belarusian borders to Lithuania. This is an easier ride, suitable for those who have ridden off-road less so far,” says K. Mieliauskas.
The motorcyclist reminds that “Europe’s Vertical: off-road” is an expedition through 13 European countries, with a route from the Greek capital Athens to the northernmost point of Europe, Nordkapp in Norway. The main condition of this expedition is that the route runs exclusively on unpaved roads and off-road. Alongside the well-known traveler, one motorcycle enthusiast rides in each stage, who wants to both try off-road riding and ride it but aims to gain more experience and embark on an adventure.
Poland presented surprises
The ride in Poland coincided with a recent storm that caused significant damage in Lithuania. K. Mieliauskas says they encountered very heavy rain while riding, so what was supposed to be a fairly easy stage also presented its surprises. What kind can be seen in the video of the sixth stage.
“I have already learned that when riding north, you shouldn’t complain or worry about whether there will be enough cold and snow because such thoughts can bring so much of them that it won’t seem little. Something similar happened with Poland – I thought there would be nothing difficult, maybe even too easy, since it was quite close to home. But as if on purpose, from the first day of the stage, we got a huge amount of rain, which changed the situation drastically. Everything got soaked and softened, tree roots and individual stones became slippery, there were ruts in the gravel surface, and even more difficult ditches,” recalls the motorcyclist.
According to him, if such a situation occurred in the mountains, one would have to wait until the rain stops and the trails dry at least a bit. There is less danger in low hills and plains, but even here the pace slowed significantly, and there were falls on the side, which caused no serious consequences for either the motorcyclists or the CFMOTO 450MT motorcycles.
“By the way, riding a motorcycle, the effect of such weather is felt several times stronger than when driving a car – after all, you can’t wipe the windshield wiper to see better. We were well dressed, did not get soaked through, but you can’t escape moisture. Such weather lasted for a couple of days, and a simple route was no longer so simple,” emphasizes K. Mieliauskas.
Navigation challenges
K. Mieliauskas reveals that route planning for a project of this scale, which plans to cover more than 7,000 km and requires preparing alternative routes, takes many hours at the computer analyzing different maps.
The motorcyclist says that the two main analysis tasks are to understand what surface the route will follow (topography) and to analyze satellite images where you can see the surface of the chosen route, whether it is asphalt or not. He emphasizes that with such a long distance, the task is difficult, and in any part of the route, one has to guess about its conditions.
“Additionally, international publicly available routes and various apps help, and we can see a large part of the world’s roads with ‘Street view.’ But even after analyzing all available sources, there is a lot of guessing when laying out the route. Why? It is not always possible to determine what kind of road surface awaits, whether the road is private or closed, or maybe a ditch was dug a week ago. Speaking about thousands of kilometers, such things are almost impossible to know in advance,” reveals K. Mieliauskas about the expedition’s subtleties. Moreover, he emphasizes that he encountered especially many navigation and route challenges precisely in Poland.
Driving bans and border zone
“Theoretically, the drawn route and reality can differ greatly, and Poland is a particularly good example of this. For example, in a very large part of Polish forests, driving any motorized vehicles is not allowed. Even if these are forest roads and the forest is not a national park. The rules are unclear, so while riding, you can simply come across a sign prohibiting further travel. Local Poles confirmed that they themselves do not fully understand how it works, so you just need to carefully watch road signs,” notes K. Mieliauskas.
Additionally, the motorcyclist says that riding through eastern Poland is complicated by strict border protection. Although motorcyclists did not directly encounter border guards, some roads in particularly remote places were closed due to enhanced border security.
When planning the Poland route, K. Mieliauskas tried to have roads run through as many forested areas as possible: “But the reality was that it was raining, wet, slippery, and when we arrived, we realized there was no passage or while riding a path, we came across a newly built railway line with such a narrow tunnel underneath that it was simply impossible to pass through. Or we found ourselves in front of signs prohibiting traffic. And this happened constantly in Poland – you will see such situations in the video of this stage.”
In each case, solutions had to be found. K. Mieliauskas also recalls another situation when from the city of Augustów in Poland to the end of the stage near Kapčiamiestis, it is 60 km by car on the road, but by motorcycle on unpaved roads, it was almost 200 km. However, as he says, although there might be a temptation to shorten the distance, the motorcyclists covered it by gravel roads and forest paths.
Feeling of home
K. Mieliauskas says that despite the challenges overcome, riding along the eastern edge of Poland, he was immensely impressed by the nature, the Białowieża Forest, which reminded him of his native Druskininkai forests: “I have been talking about home for several stages now, and after crossing half of Poland, the forests really became similar to Dzūkija’s, the villages started to look like Lithuanian ones. Having started the expedition in Athens, the feeling of homeland and home was already felt. On the other hand, this stage is about the feeling of home and logistics, because for the first time I finish on a motorcycle right in my home yard, no planes.”
The traveler reveals that he will not stay home long and will set off directly from there to the penultimate stage of the expedition. Deividas also decided to continue the journey with him.
K. Mieliauskas says that the upcoming stage is special because it will cover three countries – Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia: “It will be very interesting to see the natural beauty and differences of the three Baltic states. In general, riding off-road, I discover many interesting, unexpected things, such as crossing a river by a mechanical ferry. Therefore, I invite you to continue following the project – reading, watching videos and photos, and seeing many impressive places.”
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