_
Ha! I’m finally caught up on my posts, just in time for teh week-end to ride again, Yipee!!

So today being Sunday (the 12th of May) Veronika and I went for a bike ride.
We spent yesterday in Ikea and Globus(~czeck WalMart) and InterSPAR (big grocery) after a rainy morning, and were jonesing for some outdoor activity.

So the weather was a flawless 80degrees, dry and sunny. We headed south out of town by car 20 minutes to Brdy where I went when I was still jetlagged my first week-end here. We rode the ridge southwest(towards where they are going to put the US radar base) trying this time to keep from going up and down the ridge to the valley below.

The first 10km didn’t look promising with a ton of sick steep hills and lots of downed trees still from the crazy spring storms. We did find a nice place with craggy rock to go climbing though, maybe 30 minutes by car from home. After that the trail became nicer and held to the contour lines a bit more than any other trails I have ridden here. We stuck to the main route (red) heading out and caught a few sections of the Trans-Brdy race course I had tried in April. It was nice, a bit less dusty after some strong showers this week.

We had some really nice trail at points, even if the rocky slog up to this section was brutal. Sections very similar to what you encounter from the Shed north and west to State College. But here they always have a good place to stop and take a break. Whether it is a little town or a bench on the trail. You would be amazed at how many beer gardens are on the paths too!

At the southern tip of our ride today we stopped and contemplated a little out and back, but looking close to the map we saw plenty of other less traveled (ie. unmarked) trails. Come to find out these are some of the best ones here. The main blazed/marked trails often become overrun with pedestrians and amateur bikers. Some even end up getting paved. We rode about 5km of paved path that was dirt or gravel when we were here only 5 weeks ago! So anyway the unmarked trails in this area are maybe 3x more likely to be singletrack or are at least grown over doubletrack/forest road. One of the trails had greener, more lush grass then I have seen on a golf course.

So we wound back and followed the contours as much as possible, just trying to head in the correct general direction. We ended up on the race course again going backwards for a bit which was a nice change. As it is pretty dry and we were on our way to a 5 hour ride we were running low on water in the old camel back, so the next town we rolled into we decided to ask some lady who was watering her plants for a fill up our. Her husband peeked out from behind a shrubbery and was kind enough to take my camelback inside and return it with 3 liters of cool water. We thanked them and were on our way, only then to realize that literally directly across the street (no more than 5m away) was a town water pump. Oh well. We were amused.

So maybe 10km left and we were back in Jíloviště, where we had started. I’m not sure how far we went, maybe between 55 and 65km? (I should get a computer.) But more importantly we were back at the resto/bar where we parked. So inside for some beer, aged/pickled(?) cheese and some fruit dumplings. After the nice snack we got in Verča’s little Renault Clio to go home, but it wouldn’t start. Hmm…

Well it turns out that 5 hours before we we had set out I had left the headlights on, you know for safety’s sake. (You are required to have your headlights on while driving here, and the Clio is old enough to not have daytime running lights.) So we were at the top of a big hill so I pushed the car back out of its parking spot and rolled down the hill to jump it. No dice. It was really dead. So we walked back up to the bar to seek out some help. There was a pension/hostel next to the bar and they had the company car out front.

So in the bar we asked (read: Verča asked) if anyone had jumper cables. So as you may have guessed, who could help? The drunkest guy in the bar (remember?), who happened to own the pension. He didn’t have the cables in the car, but in the garage of his house next door. So he stumbled out to the car, and we promised to pay his fine if he got stopped by the police. (Which was of course a formality, because he was pretty drunk. The fine would be huge and would be accompanied by him spending some time in jail. But we were just down the street 200m and I think Verča could have talked the police out of arresting this helpful guy.)

So as Verča walked out of the bar, the drunk guy’s wife asked Verča if we were married. She was curious as to the point of the question, but said “yes,” at which point the woman said, “Well look, because that is what your husband is going to look like in 30 years.” Verča was amused, and to the guy’s defense he was a happy drunk and a very helpful one at that, and it was Sunday evening two doors from his own house, so I was OK with it.

So our friendly roadside assistance guy drives (pretty straight) down to our car and lines up successfully for the jump start. He gets out of the car chuckling, saying that he could only find one of the jumper cables, and proudly displays a 2m long piece of some heavy copper insulated wire he found somewhere, as the second cable. I connected the regular one then he held the 2 bare ends of his piece of wire to the grounds and Verča started her car with no problem.

We thanked him a bunch and promised to buy him a couple beers next time we came by, which we will (We all agreed he didn’t need any more then.) . And we drove on home. Another successful adventure. Then we called our Mom’s to wish them a happy day!

Happy Mothers day Moms!