Ride Lugged

OK, so up to date, but still no pictures. It seems that I don’t have a USB cable for my camera and no card reader, so the pictures I have taken so far may live inside my camera for a bit longer. (they will come though, don’t worry!)

My second Saturday here we went for a shorter ride in Zbraslav a Točná, south of Prague. I had been complaining about riding 30km on the road for a 50km ride then 30km home. The long lead ins to long rides were going to kill me if I didn’t ease into them. Anyway Verča heard my complaints and somehow her first reaction wasn’t to hit me with something. Also, it had been her sister’s birthday over the week, so we were scheduled for afternoon tea. A shorter ride was therefore in order.

We headed to the same area as the Trans-Brdy ride from last week, promising long climbs and fast dry rooty terrain. We took the main bike path south out of town, but were able to bail earlier than normal for a powerline doubletrack climb avoiding some of the masses. We ambled up some more urban interstitial singletrack as the path moseyed like a cow trail. Verča had tried to find her way through here before with little luck. There are literally so many little paths that people take everyday here, it’s hard to tell which one will go your way and which will end up at some bus stop or in some driveway somewhere.

We did find our way though, and climbed up a small dry creek bed away from the town. (It seems to be abnormally dry here, so I’m curious if we will get a bunch of rain and the trails will get muddy?) The trail up winds a singletrack through a pine forest with a couple of nice idyllic clear views back to outcroppings of the city. Nearing the top on a forest road we come to a clearing I had crossed in January. We are confronted by a few young girls learning to ride horses and a slew of folks on foot and on bikes. The weather has been great and the Czechs definitely spend more time going about outside (not much sitting in front of the tele in this culture.)

As we approached this little rural grass airfield on the edge of the plateau, we heard some goings on over a PA system. It seems there was a little Ecology setup at the airfield. (Only now writing this do I realize that it was Earth Day on Saturday, so I guess they were being earthy.) We dropped back into the woods for some nice rolling Schaffer-style riding; quick, hardpack, with no major climbing.

This looks to be a place I will probably be taking a bunch of short solo rides on. But there is plenty of exploring to do. There are probably a hundred little offshoot trails of one form or another, that weave in and out of the area. We didn’t really have a specific route we wanted to take, so we jut pedaled. As w approached the southern end of this area, we found a sharp change in terrain. This little riding enclave is bound on the south by a little 200m gorge as a creek has cut its way through the hillside to the river to the west. It exposed the rocky ground beneath the ridge, and has made for some dry loose shale on the exposed south face, much like you find in southern CA. Up another 50m on a steep loose climb and we were riding a knife edge trail of loose tan shale gravel. Here we found a couple of nice little step type drops on some harder rock outcrops and beautiful views down the hill’s very steep sides.

Getting late in the afternoon, we decided to try to find our way home. After wandering down a couple of dead end educational nature trails to view points, we found a quick and steep chute down that Verča remembered (not so happily, though.) As quickly as we came around a corner we were back to civilization and dropped to the freshly paved bike path along the river Berounka (which we will follow as well on Sunday) that flows north to the Vltava and Prague. The trail wasn’t actually done being paved yet. Strangely they were working on it on Saturday (apparently immigrant labor who hasn’t taken to the easy going Czech style just yet), so we got to take a short detour through some dusty construction site. (All these low lying areas were ravaged by floods a couple of years ago, and there is a lot of rebuilding.) We even got to ride through a nice little mudbog where a small stream was trying to find its way back to the river. (Verča however rode around a bit not as willing to be covered in mud as I am.)

A few km of bike path and we were back in the city. After a quick stop in my new shop krab cycles to get a tube and we were back home in a few with three hours and 4o-45ish km of riding.

Keep an eye out for a post on krab cycles. Verča and I dropped by there for a chat with owner Ondra Krab on Friday and to deliver some Chris King product and pimp some SIC stuff. They are a really nice shop with a downhill focus and right on the path out of town.

OK, I need to get some work done, so ciao for now.
-Cory na Praze

OK so here try this Route slip works in the Czech Republic. (although I couldn’t really follow all the trails. I missed a bunch. probably 5 or 10 miles worth, but whatever you get the idea.)

Plus some glitch make the climbing look impressive.