Ride Lugged

Ok, so this time I was tricked into going for a little hike in the mountains.
There are actually some nice mountains, maybe 3000 feet, about half a mile higher than in Prague, and pretty close to the city.
Not at all bad really, so I hear. Anyway it’s been warm and everyone keeps talking up some weather inversion.
It seems that when it’s overcast in Prague, it’s sunny in the mountains, so it should be great, right?

Anyway, so it snowed, and there was a cloud bank so thick you could see about 100 feet in it.
What you could see was quite picturesque though.
But you couldn’t really take any good photos, what with the fog and snow, that is.
So I’m told, the “inversion” caught up with us or something?, whatever!

So anyway, the apparent reason for the trip was to show me something.
A unique Czech creation. Some famous piece of architecture.
(and to secretly gauge my response/reaction to it, so I learned.)
the Hotel Ještěd. Apparently, it is something that sits majestically atop the mountain.
anyway all I saw was a cloud, and some pretty trees covered in snow.

finally as we were almost upon it..
(and thankfully we had just stopped for food and beer, and to wait for the cloud to thin a bit, after the arduous trek up the mountain, which was really only very difficult in the steep sections because of the ill planned footwear of the men on the icy/slippery slopes, but I digress… )
Hotelu Ještěd.

so there it was in all its bizarre glory.
a spaceship from the late 1960’s landed on a foggy wintery mountain.
(or so I must assume. I have to this point climbed steep hills and passed a couple of ski lifts (at both the bottom and top!!), but as of yet, haven’t been able to see enough for any real reference.)

and here was the ascent party (of whom all had independent opinions, but were bound all by a common disdain) to such a freakish construction atop the mountain:
Veronika, Tom, and Vendulka (and of course Cory with the camera)

Luckily the spaceship was in the Czech Republic still, so there was a pub inside to warm your bellies with beer and pickles.
(ok, so we didn’t have any pickles, but I’m sure they were available upon request.)

Then we of course had to hike back down.
The way up was 6km I think?, and back down maybe 7 or a little more.
Anyway it was an all day affair, what with the stopping for refreshment and all.
plus the snow. (note + additional time for snow)
but only 90 minutes from Prague, it wasn’t bad.

We did manage to find a small path with 15-20cm of untouched snow (hiding ice at points) thanks to the expert map reading of Vendulka and Veronika. Thankfully the walking/hiking/biking trails in the Czech lands are both well marked/signed and well mapped, because…

We saw a very nice sunset.
(did I mention that it cleared up a bit, and we could actually see some of the other mountains from the top at Ještěd. yeah, no good pictures there, but trust me it was nice.)

The only problem was…
We were still about 2.5km from our car (and the sunset, remember… )
Thankfully, the fresh snow helped our night vision and again there were the nicely marked trails.

So a bit after dark we arrived back to our car, aided by a well placed and well planned bottle of Fernet citrus (click ano, and poke around) after an earlier similar helpful pint of czech potato rum.
All was well. We all had a good time.
After numerous slips and falls and a couple of gallant break-throughs testing the way over some ice over puddles along the way,
all were warm and the men had only some wet feet.

Not so worse for the wear.
I’d try it again.

go to Hotelu Ještěd’s website and look around, it’s bizarre (did I say that already?).

take care.
ciao -cory

there are strange names
for things here, but it’s
still Christmas in the old
town square, and with
appropriate dreary grey
central europe weather.

details as yet are sketchy at best:  either a saturday or sunday ride, 50 miles, starting in towson.  no big hills, just rolling north b-more terrain.  all are welcome.  beer and wings to follow.  in quantity.  wouldnt want to lose any of that precious christmas fat…  it makes you faster on the downhills, i hear, just like lead railed carbon saddles.

i’ll try to keep everyone posted.

So it is Christmas Day, so we went for a bike ride. The weather was pretty bad, so what else to do besides ride?

We started at ‘amerika’ a big stone quarry 40 minutes sw of Prague, that’s verča riding away from the first one on a very slippery trail.

Then the now muddy world traveler Moots on the trail along the edge of ‘little amerika.’

So, the trails here are a bit odd. Mostly they are doubletrack or very old and well worn gravel forest roads, all very well signed.

but sometimes around the corner there is a castle…

or you are riding on singletrack hidden in the old brush and brambles of a fence row between two fields.

actually a lot of the trails seem to be just some farmer’s path next to his field, very often connected by short stretches of normal roads, but they are always well marked and have excellent maps, and all interspersed through with old village cart paths, cobblestone roads, and town squares. Hey, and some times you even find a bunch of kids on big bikes hitting the dirtjumps and shore-style stunts.

keep the rubber side down across the pond.
-cory and verča

Ok, so this one is for the family folks out there.

It’s Christmas time again, and the wife and I are in Prague celebrating. And we are doing it in real Czech style this year, not like the halfway attempt last year in Maryland. So we put up the tree the day before the day before Christmas (Ok, so we were a day early for Czechs.) And we had a traditional Christmas Eve dinner. We bought a carp (thankfully farm raised here in the Czech Republic.) Veronika fried it up and made a traditional potato salad. Both were very good (suprisingly the carp wasn’t bad, although it is very bony and I took the worst piece first.)

and for the piece de la resistance, Verča broke out the candles and sparklers, and we lit the tree. (strangely enough with all this fire/fireworks on the tree, she claims to have never caught the tree on fire. anyway it worked for us. no fire trucks were involved in the making of this post.)

merry christmas brought to you by the letter ” č ” and the number ” osm ” !
-cory, your voiceofreason

Ok, so we started the day off with a little light shopping. Off to Bauhaus (euro - Home Depot) we went. Luckily verča drives a big truck. so we hauled a bunch of weird metric sized lumber and laminate flooring back to the apartment for some quick post - Christmas work.

Actually it is a good thing that Bauhaus is close to our haus. I’m not sure how much farther the Clio would have wanted to go. But luckily I’ve got a strong wife. It’s quite surprising. She’s rather small, you know.

So after a morning of hard work just getting ready to work, we walked up the (big) hill from the apartment to the Vyšehrad castle. It’s cool, it’s old, it’s close, and it’s pretty much all old stone and brick. Plus there is a nice view back to the city center.

There is also a nice cathedral on top in the castle. For a country that is not religious, they certainly have a lot of cool churches. Anyway it was a bit cold out 1 or 2 degrees celcius, but the sun was out and the sky was clearing off, so we had a nice Christmas Eve walk.

So Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!
love - Cory and Veronika

ok, so verča and i just got back from a quick ride in prague. it’s kinda cold (just above freezing and after a long downhill i thought verča was going to lose some fingers.)

anyway the ride was nice. it started with a crappy climb in the city. watch out for the tram tracks. then from the top of the hill down through some sweet urban singletrack, with cobblestone drops and a cool dirt chute, with a hard turn bermed onto an ancient stone wall of an old fort.

then we followed the vltava (river) south out of town on a bike path to the town of Točna, where i was drug up a unexpected slog of a singletrack climb. The we were in the Zbraslav forest where there was a big network of trails. You ride along on wide smooth Schaffer-like trails an then all of sudden you are on some crazy narrow singletrack on a sidecut on the side of a cliff. The area is a series of ridges above the river that are rather rocky. a couple of little abandoned shanties and then a long fast downhill in a wide chute you can carve the sides of, with some nice dirtjumps on little offshoots and a couple with some shady gaps and drop ins back to the chute.

Then back on the dirt/paved with big chunky stones/gravel/paved/cobbled bike path back a few miles to the city.

All in all a good ride. maybe 2 1/2 or 3 hours with a wife i forgot to feed whose hands were freezing towards the end.

mír -cory

Does this just seem like a bad idea to anyone else? There is a video on their site. It’s interesting.

James will have to post more, but i was supposed to leave him pictures, so i put them on a cd and took it with me to the czech republic. oh well, so here i am in Prague and will start out the post.

On Sunday we did a nice ramble.

Five folks, a bit over 45 miles. first road, then singletrack, then a bit more road, then gravel to dirt roads to more singletrack, a little doubletrack, a nice overlook a stream crossing, a farmer’s field, lunch on my sister’s back porch, then a brutally steep road climb and downhill home.

Fun appeared to be had by all. we weren’t in a big hurry, but made pretty good progress withstanding some very rocky terrain at points with everything from 23c carbon tires up to some sweet fat 35 cross tires. And of course finished all off with a couple of beers.

don’t forget to check out John’s link at the Frederick Fixie Fellow for more coverage.

peace out from prague -cory