Off the Beaten Path - Czech Countryside

Oh how our adventure has truly begun now!

Yesterday, September 9th, we were picked up in Prague by Ave Bike Tour company. When I booked our bike tour I knew it was a local Czech company and it seemed to be on the small end of bike companies.... But I don't think I really understood how small Ave was until Pete, a flustered Czech man kind of resembling Einstein, picked us up. Pete was driving his personal car and did not really speak English. We hopped in the car not having any idea what was going on. Our state of confusion continued... 2 1/2 hours later we arrived in the town of Cesky Krumlov and to our surprise Pete unloaded our stuff at Pension Gardena (the Inn we stopped at) and we didn't have to do any biking for the day.

We were rather relieved that we had one less day to bike. It was great to be in a small town in the country and get a break from the busy city. The Inn manager didn't think it would be possible for us to explore the whole town in one afternoon, apparently he doesn't know our turbo touring. We explored every inch of the town with time to spare. We toured the local castle, with a cool tower that over looked the town and countryside. We also wandered through all of the castle gardens which were very peaceful. We went into at least 5 toy stores- Cesky Krumlov makes wooden toys which were very cool. From the advice of the Inn manager we tried two authentic Czech restaurants which both had huge portions for very cheap and high quality food. We ate so much!

Today was our first day of biking and we did a lot of biking, more than we bargained for.... We had no idea it would be this hard and we were clueless to how hilly the Czech Republic really is! Yikes! Note to all our friends out their who may be interested in doing a bike tour in Europe, GO TO HOLLAND!

Lets give you some background- Pete gave us a map and step by step directions for each day....seems manageable when both of us are NOLS Alaska alum and we have a great sense of direction. This was our first misconception. Also, we figured that our 60km day of biking wouldn't take longer then 6 hours (logic being we both can run a 10 km in about an hour). Wrong again! It actually took us 9 hours and they were painful hours.

From the very beginning of leaving our Inn we had to go up a huge hill which lasted about 4 km- starting the day walking the bikes is never a good sign. Shortly we entered onto a winding road through the country side and forest. It was absolutely beautiful. We enjoyed a state of shear bliss for about 3 hours of riding. We loved the amazing Czech country side, the great weather and actually getting some exercise. It was a combination of some roads but also a fair bit of mountain biking with lots of rough terrain.

We had had good luck with the ambiguous directions of turn right in the town, these are small towns but there is more than one right in every town. But we were right on track and having a great time when we came to a bridge crossing but unfortunately the bridge was closed for repairs. There were lots of Czech people boozing under the bridge and we immediately became their entertainment. We didn't have very many options... We checked the bridge out, disregarded the signs, and discovered it was missing more than half of its floor boards. We carried our bikes up stairs and then balanced across 2x4's across the bridge- it was rather frightening. Then we had to carry our bikes, which were rather heavy, up a huge flight of rock stairs and over a barricade.

We thought there was smooth sailing ahead.... Until Jorie got a huge flat tire. This was no let's just pump it up flat tire. After taking the entire tire off, working with the pump and putting it back on, things were still not looking good. Thank goodness we were on a main road, where surely someone was bound to help. Oh no, wrong again, we flailed our arms at bikers, car drivers and motorcyclists as they went by, but we were blatantly ignored. While sitting contemplating our options and eating our leftover breakfast (first bit of food), Jorie got stung by a wasp. Finally, after about 45 minutes, a gift from God- a Czech man stopped to help. He tried everything we had already done and couldn't seem to figure it out. On his last try of inserting a new tube, it worked. We were so excited! Thank goodness for this nice man!

We continued on our way, and within minutes missed a turn, due to a lack of road signs, which seems to be consistent all around here. This led us to a steep and long climb, which may have been the largest hill in the Czech Republic. When we got to the top we discovered our mistake.... 45 minute detour. From this point on the signage only got worse making getting lost very easy. No one in these small towns speaks English, nor is very inclined to help, but we found a few nice souls that we practiced our sign language with.

With the end in sight we hit another bump, or should we say hole in the road. A crucial bridge was missing due to construction. Luckily we found a near by foot bridge to get across the river. The last 10 km were luckily flat (for the Czech Republic) and we got to the town of Trebon by 6:30. Our butts were so sore and tired of being in the biking position, and we were so hungry and so dirty.

Oh how it has been an adventure. Who would have thought that 38.6 miles would be so hard. Jorie and I are still friends after this trying day and we have managed to laugh it off. We both are happy and safe, but our butts are sore from the more than 38.6 miles we did today. Hopefully the next 5 days of biking will go a little bit better. I hope this brings everyone some comic relief.

Oh yeah after eating so much food, a random lady handed me her baby while she got her stroller out... Apparently I look trust worthy enough to hold a baby but not enough to stop to help with a bike.

In closing, A valuable lesson in physics, what goes up must come down and what goes down must go up. This pretty much sums up biking in the Czech.