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The forecasted weather had threatened rain all week-end, so Verča and I were happy to see sunny skies and a clear forecast when we awoke on Saturday (26May). We drove about 35km out of town ESE to a little village called Žernovka and parked on the side of the road.
I found a nice mud hole in a dip on one of the first sections of singletrack. Verča wisely went around it.

We rode for 5 hours on singletrack and doubletrack north through dry pine forest and open blooming fields and back south along a couple of stream beds on slippery logging roads and damp rocky fir forested singletrack.

the field.

my smart-ass wife.

our token self portrait.

an old stone/brick/stuccoed building showed us the way.

some other old building, not really showing us the way.

Verča in the wetter fir forest.

We searched for while on top of this hill for a while to find ruins of an old castle until we decided that the mark on the map probably meant that it was where a castle had once been. The ground was definitely altered by man to build something there, but all that remained was a flat spot and some rock out croppings (and remnants of a recent campfire.) We took a break, a better picture and were on our way.

This was probably my favorite ride where we picked up the map and just picked an area and followed the dotted lines on the map, not knowing where we were really headed. It had only one section of searching through annoyingly tall and scratchy grass for the trail, one 2km section of open road. The rest was trail, with a couple of short sections where you hop on the road just to roll through a town or something. 90%+ off road is a big deal here.

It even ended with about 5km of fast swooping bluestone fire road covered with pine needles.

A nice day. Sunny and cool. 75 degrees. And about 70 km.

Off to the summer house tomorrow afternoon to mow the grass and trim the hedges.
Go ride your bike!
-Cory and Veronika