Ok, so I don’t really know if I got the name right or any further details, really(and only Verča will know.)

So Saturday was awesome weather. Sunny, 75 or 80. Strangely nice.
I had been in the country for a day and a half, so Verča decided to take me Mountain biking (with her 2 fast friends)… on a 80km (50mile) ride. Let’s say I was a bit reluctant, but it was nice out and I was jetlagged, so I didn’t think straight.

We rode the train from downtown Prague (actually a 2.5 km ride from home) and full on jumped on the train as it was pulling away, because we were running late and we saw our friends in the last car. So we didn’t pay our fare and were wondering if we were going to get busted.

So the train car is set up to hold bikes in a end car. Actually it holds three bikes (and probably not a 29er), and there were now four of us. So the Moots got to hang out in between cars. At the next stop we saw a bunch of people on the platform, so I headed to hang out with the Moots. About 25 more people got onto the already full car. So I got stuck holding my bike while I became surrounded with some 5 shady Czech folks (with some 5 nice-ish dogs), taking turns chugging warm 22’s of Staropramen out of a backpack, getting a bit inebriated.

Oh yeah, back to the ride. So we rode the train 30k out of town to get a start from some little town, Dobřichovice at the base of a some big state(national) forest/mountain. We rode out of town and up about 800ft up the big hill.

Then good riding, lots of it. Like riding in Michaux but dry. Beautiful singletrack and doubletrack with tons of roots through predominately pine forest with thousands of fist sized rocks sticking out of the ground. Every once in a while there is some fireroad or forest service gravel road.

Apparently this is where they run a pretty big yearly race. There are lots of hills up and down, almost no switchbacks. When it is time to climb it will be for a while. But the ridge riding is good when it comes too. There appear to only be marathon length bike races in this country. This race is either 50k or 90k (31 or 56 miles.) We(I) opted for the 50 since we rode to get here a bit and were going to ride the 30k home.

So there was this crazy fast downhill on tar and chip/gravel, followed by a brutal fireroad climb back up, that never ended. I was pretty sure I was going to die. It was fun up to this point. Now I was getting dropped. I decided that I wasn’t going to walk; (but I had contemplated getting off and crawling, though.) I didn’t want these guys who were going to be my new riding partners (one of which whom I smuggled King hubs into the country for) to see me break on the first ride. I didn’t walk. I guess they didn’t see me, cause they kept going. I caught up at the top. (It was very far away.) We rode for a while and I was alive again, although pained. Another long descent followed by a wall of a climb back up. I’m talking lowest gear on a paved climb, a kilo long so steep I couldn’t keep the front tire from going over my shoulder.

Ultimately we soon came back off the mountain through a dirt drive, a construction site, and a couple of fields before being dumped back to another town. We were all hungry and looking for food. We found good food and beer in Řevnice, fried camembert and some fried potato balls.

The fastest guy, Kuba (somehow short for Jakob) coped out and rode the train home to do something with his wife. Verča, Lukaš and I headed home by bike. With a generally flat 30k along the river to go home we were off. Mostly gravel bike path with some road and full on dirt thrown in. Into a head wind the entire way. I was done. My legs were gone. I used my second wind hours before. I tricked the others into stopping for ice cream along the way just to get a break. We fought week-end warrior traffic all the way home, and had a good finish to a long ride. (Although the last 3 blocks home are cobblestone. Big belgian blocks that make Paris-Roubaix cringe. It seems like a third of all urban riding here is like that. Needless to say it’s pretty tough getting home after a long ride.)

So maybe 85k: at least 50 on trail, maybe another 25 on gravel or dirt path, 5 on pavé.
I seem to have blocked out how long it took. We left the house at 10:15am and were probably not back until 4:30 or 5pm

no pictures.
maybe some later once I am more settled.

hope all is well.
-cory