TCRno8 day 8: dog dodging in Romania

Back-filling some missed ride reports 🙂 After the parcours in Montenegro and the first day in Serbia, this was going to be an easier day, I thought. The relentless mountains of southern Serbia gave way to flatter terrain as the route approached Romania, and I was expecting a faster day. Somehow that didn't happen, though. It was a long, tedious day in the saddle, spent mostly in the aero position, riding through mostly homogenous landscape on mostly the same wide, long-distance arterial roads. Much like I'd done in Croatia. When the route turned north, a terrible headwind kicked in. I don't actually remember much about it now as it was all rather samey. I was leapfrogging cap no. 197 (Robin) and 233 (Kristian) for most of the day, and their proximity kept the pressure up, but by the end of the afternoon I was really flagging. Crossing into Romania was interesting, as the number of stray dogs immediately went from not that many to way more than I wanted. They got particularly feisty after dark, and would often chase me down the road. Thankfully it seemed to be all barn and no bite, and I discovered that simply hitting the brakes and slowing down would nearly always get them to back off. I guess they didn't want the confrontation 🤷 I'd decided to stay in a hotel once more, as I wasn't sure about the practicalities of bus stop bivvying in Romania, so I booked into a hotel in Targu Jiu for the night. Unfortunately, I miscalculated the distance and ended up having to ride 50 km further than I wanted that night – arriving only at 02:30 am, and having to phone a very confused person on night duty to let me in (who was actually asleep), who spoke no English at all.