Ride Lugged

OK, today (Sunday 22-04-2007) we went for a one way ride, one of the luxuries of life in a country with mass transit.

We were supposed to ride with a colleague of Verča but after not hearing from her all morning we got a call saying she was going to be working on her doctoral thesis instead of riding with us, hurumph! That girl is going to have to get her priorities straight tone day. (ed. Now we are even more hurumphed at the colleague. apparently she later decided to blow off her thesis and go for a ride. At least she is learning, right?) Anyway it was nice because we had a leisurely morning waiting and a nice late breakfast (which fueled me all day long.)

So Verča was a little reluctant to take this 50-60km ride (31-37m). It seems she had been invited to do the same ride last October by some very active (read ‘fast and strong’) guys she rides with a bit. She had passed it off and they had moaned the next day about how tired they were and how hard it was. So Verča was happy to have missed it; and today was making excuses, like ‘I have a headache’ and ‘I have to clean the bathroom’. I was a bit worried. If she was going to prefer to clean the bathroom then to go mountain biking, then I would be screwed. But I persisted, it sounded good. And we all know that I can go a little longer without cleaning the bathroom myself.

(First off we had to get out of Prague. Cross the river and drop this little set of stairs. There is a path around but Verča was sweating it, so she tried a few times then stuck it and we were off.)

(We cross the river at a big highway/beltway bridge, underneath of which is some nice legal/ignored grafitti.)

Anyway I looked at the topo map of the area (a lesson I learned to do pre-ride last Sunday to Okoř); and it didn’t seem too rough. Maybe a overall total of 250m of elevation change in 50-60km, how bad could it be right?

(Holy Crap! a steep dirt chute we had to ride up as the first bit of trail.)

Well come to find out (if you either look real closely at the map or just ride it) the trail takes about 5 turns from the river valley at 275m up to the ridge/plateau at 450m and then back down again. And it does it steeply. I’m talking about the steepest singletrack you’ve ever ridden for a km or 2 (because they were right at that border line where any steeper and your front wheel would never stay on the ground,) one of the downsides to a nation of hikers/walkers (read: billygoats.) Then from tops there are beautiful fireroad, doubletrack and singletrack descents into the next little old town. Such nice downhills, you almost forgot that there was another 3km fireroad climb just ahead.

Anyway, there were nice flat and rolling sections on the ridge, and a sweet portage section with some 5.3 climbing moves up something that would make for a beautiful series of waterfalls during the rainy season.

One real rocky descent dropped you into a small town, fresh out of some fairy tale surrounded by sheer rock cliffs.

(get ready for this picture to be repeated shamelessly as I catch us both riding together!)
Verča has lived here too long and has grown callous to the scenery. She wouldn’t even turn around as I gawked at what we had just ridden down through (see those cliffs behind my enormous head?!) If the rocks weren’t only 150m high you would think you were in the Austrian Alps.

We also zipped through Karlštejn where you may recall a post this past winter with some foggy castle on top of a hill.

Beautiful riding, beautiful weather. Sunny with a high of 18 (66F).

We rolled into Beroun 4 hours and ten minutes after we rolled out of our building, and 4 minutes before the next train back to Prague.

We quickly scooped up a pair of tickets for us and a pair for our bikes in the 1930’s train station, and hurried to our awaiting train.

A quick 30 minutes of so and the train rolled back to a station in Prague and we hopped off for a quick 3km jaunt across the river and back home.

Plus when we got back to Prague. Verča had a txt message from our friends asking when we were going to join them for beer. So after we cleaned up and had a snack we made our way up the hill to a nice outdoor beer garden, and drank the sun over the horizon.

Na shled(anou.)
-Cory a Verča

(I have good pics, and will get them out of the camera when I can and edit the post!)