The week before that we met up with some of our nutty friends to drink to celebrate a peripheral wedding. We went to a ‘concept’ bar with 3 metered taps in the middle of the table where it was a competition to see which table could out drink the others in the bar and via the internet other bars across the country.

Needless to say both dangerous and entertaining.
By the end of the night our group of around 10 drank something like 30liters (more than a half keg) but one other table of 5 guys beat us with almost 50liters (a fullkeg!)

Luckily the have a huge ass tank of beer.
(I’ll take a picture of the delivery truck one day. It’s looks like a little fuel tanker.)

So we got drunk and stayed late.
With 2 other guys I agreed (late in the evening) in Czech to meet on Saturday morning under a bridge on the edge of town to go biking, assuming it was expected to get up near 0 °C.

Anyway, 9am on Saturday(Jan10) as planned I was waiting under the bridge.

It was -8°C, and I was alone.
I sent a couple derogatory SMS’s and then went for a ride by myself.
(one guy forgot who he was supposed to go riding with and called the wrong guy to cancel and the other just bailed due to the cold.)

It was a perfect ride.
Snowy (not icy) and lots of fresh track.

I saw several bikers, just none I knew. One even asked me if I knew if the next bar was open at 10am. I assumed yes (it still being in the Czech Republic and all), but didn’t know, but sure enough when we got there, it was so he split off for a beer and I kept riding.

The creeks were solid which made for some easier crossings, but a few of the little log bridges were too shady to even walk. All the little bridges were fine though.

All n’ all a great ride

22.5km & 2.5 hours on single, double track, dirt, gravel & paved bike path; all snow covered.
with overcast skies, avg. temp of -5 °C, & a high of almost -3°C

__________

The next day(Jan11) Verča was itching to ride after not having ridden since before new year’s so we drove 15 minutes outside of Prague to the part or Brdy closest to the city. (we did this in lieu of the out and back on the riverside bike path that would have been rather unbearable with the -7°C weather and a probable headwind on the way home.)

We parked on top of the ridge in a little town and ventured off across a snowy field and then down a creek valley to the river below.

Right of the bat Verča was a bit iffy on the steep technical descent on snow covered leaves and I had to wait a bit, since I am not so big on using brakes. After a little warm-up she was fine and we were on our way.
But there were still a few obstacles to our progress.

We passed a lady walking up and she made some comment like “are you lost?”
No we weren’t, but we did slide down a few step chutes and portage over MANY felled trees.

There were some good smooth riding sections too, see!

We even had to hike-a-bike a few steep ass hills.

It wasn’t too icy, but it was definitely slow going.

In the end we only rode 18.5km & ~3hours, but it was 99% single and double track completely covered in snow
again overcast skies, high temp of -6 °C, & low of -8°C