Circuit Rider CZ

Happy 2012!

2011-12-31T19:31:00.001+01:00

Just a quick post to wish all my readers - regular, occasional and one-off - a Happy New Year!

For various reasons (which I won’t bore you with here) I haven’t been blogging much over the past couple of months. Unfortunately the winter arrived before I found time to do the final leg of my trip (Stage 7), so that will have to wait until the spring. On top of that, I still have to write up the last couple of days of Stage 6, which I rode in late September, so I can’t even write a review of 2011 yet.

Not to worry. I promise to return - refreshed and re-energised - in the new year.

Cheers,

Simon

Václav Havel RIP

2011-12-23T11:12:00.000+01:00

The Czech Republic is in mourning for its former president Václav Havel, whose funeral takes place at midday today.

Václav Havel addressing hundreds of thousands of people on Wenceslas Square in 1989

Václav Havel led - and still symbolises - the Velvet Revolution of 1989, which overthrew communism and restored democracy to this part of the world. He was a fighter for and defender of freedom. For me he is a hero and inspiration.

On Wednesday I went into the centre of Prague to pay my respects. On Wenceslas Square, my eye was drawn to a handwritten note lying among the field of flickering candles: "Honza, 22 let, 22 let svobody" ("Honza, 22 years old, 22 years of freedom"). Czechs are feeling this loss personally. So am I.

When I embark on the final stage of my Circuit Ride in the spring, Havel and his legacy will be foremost in my mind. Before 1989, most of my route along the Czech border would have been out of bounds to the vast majority of the population, never mind to an English cyclist. Now I am free to cross in and out of the country as I like.

Thank you Václav Havel. RIP.

Tripoint number three

2011-10-15T20:33:00.001+02:00

Stage 6, day 2 (Sunday, 25 September 2011)
Nové Hrady to Slavonice (99 km)

The tripoint stone is tucked away behind some bushes behind a tourist information board. I tread carefully towards it, as the ground is littered with white tissues, a sure sign that it is used as an open-air toilet by people out walking in the forest. It is here that the historical border between Bohemia and Moravia meets the Austrian frontier. Each of the three sides of the base of the stone has a letter carved in it: Č for Čechy (Bohemia), M for Morava (Moravia) and Ö for Österreich (Austria). This is the third tripoint I’ve visited on my lap of the Czech Republic, the first two having been Poland-Germany-CZ and Saxony-Bavaria-CZ. Unfortunately, the German-Austrian-CZ one, high up in the Šumava mountains, is off-limits to cyclists, so I had to bypass it. As of today, I have two more to go: Slovakia-Austria-CZ and Slovakia-Poland-CZ, both of which lie on the final stage of my circuit ride.

The tripoint of Bohemia (Č), Moravia (M) and Austria (Ö)

It was cold in the shade down by the River Stropnice as I set off from the guesthouse in the morning, but surprisingly hot in the sunshine up on Nové Hrady town square just a few minutes later. I peeled off my outer layer of clothing and took a quick look round the town’s gleaming Gothic Old Castle before setting off on my day's ride.

The Old Castle in Nové Hrady

I followed the road east out of Nové Hrady for about a mile and turned left at the border post onto a damp and sticky forest trail running parallel to the frontier with Austria. On the approach to the tiny village of Vyšné I helpfully gave directions to a group of walkers and then immediately, and slightly embarrassingly, took a wrong turn myself. After a bit of messing around I did a detour along a road and rejoined the cycle trail further on. This section consisted of a long succession of oblong concrete slabs lying lopsided on the ground - a good enough surface, I imagine, for the armoured vehicles that used to patrol the frontier here, but a bumpy ride for a cyclist.

Former Iron Curtain patrol road made out of concrete panels

By late morning I reached České Velenice, a town which did not come into being until after World War I, when Gmünd in Lower Austria was divided into two and its northern part was ceded to the newly formed Czechoslovakia. Gmünd lost its main railway station but retained the town centre and cemetery. The Czechs, however, continued to bury their dead in Gmünd until a new cemetery was opened in České Velenice in 1922.

Cemetery in České Velenice

The Czechoslovak cemetery was built right on the border and became part of the Iron Curtain when the Communists came to power in 1948. After several people escaped through it to the West, the authorities increased the height of the rear wall and installed fences, barbed wire and watchtowers. Anyone wishing to visit the cemetery had to pass through a checkpoint. These measures stayed in place until the fall of communism in 1989.

Mass grave of 512 Hungarian Jews in České Velenice

Just after World War II the remains of 512 Hungarian Jews were found in a mass grave next to the cemetery in České Velenice. They had been part of a group of around 1,000 deported to Gmünd by the Nazis in autumn 1944 to work as slave labourers, and had fallen victim to cold, hunger and exhaustion. A small, sombre monument marks the spot.

The narrow-gauge railway in Gmünd

I crossed a footbridge into Austria and rode into Gmünd on a cycle path running alongside the town’s narrow-gauge railway. A man in his sixties approached me as I was taking photos on the central square and asked where I was heading. He said he’d cycled 300,000 km in his lifetime and as recently as three years ago had been cycling 100 km a day on tour in the Loire region of France. Now, he told me ruefully, he could no longer cycle as he had severe problems with his teeth. I made a mental note to visit the dentist when I got back to Prague.

Gmünd town square

I travelled north out of Gmünd and re-entered the Czech Republic at Neu-Nagelberg. For about an hour I rode along a practically deserted forest road. At the holiday resort of Chlum u Třeboně, I stopped for lunch at a busy restaurant overlooking the town’s 16th century fish lake. My trout with almonds took a long time to arrive, but was worth the wait.

The lake at Chlum u Třeboně

It was so warm outside after lunch that I stripped down to my summer cycling gear. I rode north along the shoreline of the lake and back into the forest. This section of trail ended at a T-junction with the Prague-Vienna Greenways cycle path. I’d cycled the entire length of this popular long-distance route with my friend Ryan back in 2004, but I had little recollection of this part of it.

Re-joining the Prague-Vienna Greenways route, seven years on

By a small lake at Peršlák I found a sign pointing towards the northernmost point of Austria. As I set off down the sandy path a couple flagged me down and the woman asked whether I had “pití” (something to drink). At least, that’s what I thought she said. When I offered her my water bottle, she corrected me: not pití, but pytlík (a bag). She showed me a handful of freshly picked wild mushrooms and explained that they had nothing to carry them in. I found her a spare carrier bag and she gratefully tipped her crop of fungi into it.

The northernmost point of Austria

After resting for a while on the bank of a babbling brook opposite Austria’s most northerly point, I rejoined the border trail down to Nová Bystřice. I would have stopped there for a coffee, but all the seats outside the town’s one open cafe were taken, so I kept going. This was possibly a mistake, as my legs stopped cooperating on the next uphill section and I had to take a break anyway.

Nová Bystřice

I crested the hill and descended past a (disappointingly empty) bison enclosure to Staré Město, another place which looked strangely unfamiliar from my 2004 Prague-Vienna Greenways trip. Due to roadworks, I had to take a diversion through the backstreets of the town before hitting the final climb of the day. My increasingly heavy legs forced me to stop for a rest a further two times, but a weird-tasting malty energy bar I’d picked up the previous week in a health food shop gave me enough extra calories to reach the tripoint at the top.

The Bohemia-Moravia-Austria tripoint stone

From the tripoint it was downhill practically all the way to Slavonice, where I’d booked accommodation for the night. Slavonice’s development was arrested in the mid-18th century, when the Vienna-Prague postal route was re-routed away from the town. This meant that its beautiful late Gothic and Renaissance square was spared the ravages of the industrial age. The place became even more of a backwater after World War II, when the German population was expelled and the Iron Curtain came down just to the south. Since 1989, however, its fortunes have revived. It has become a popular tourist destination and a home for artists and craftsmen.

Slavonice in the evening light

I stashed my bike in the hotel’s ancient cellar, cleaned myself up and went down to dinner. The goulash I had was okay, but the beer I washed it down with was distinctly musty. I took this as further proof - if any were needed - that I’d left Bohemia (beer country) and entered South Moravia (the Czech Republic’s main wine-making region). After dinner I stepped out onto the town square. It was chilly outside, and there was no one else about. The only other pub open was even emptier than the hotel restaurant. Evidently Sunday night is not party night in Slavonice. Feeling cold and just a little bit lonely, I decided to turn in for the night.

Uneventful, but sensational

2011-10-10T09:09:00.000+02:00

Stage 6, day 1 (Saturday, 24 September 2011)
Horní Dvořiště to Nové Hrady (61 km)

Some days not much happens when you’re bicycle touring. Take today, for example. I’m in the Nové Hrady Mountains, a lesser known region deep in the south of Bohemia. It consists mostly of unpopulated forest and there are few tourist attractions to lure people in. But while there might not be much going on here, there’s more than enough to satisfy the senses: the sickly sweet scent of pine resin oozing from log piles at the side of the trail, the ever-shifting dapple of the auburn autumn sunlight on the ground below me, the cool crisp air roaring across my ears as I coast downhill. Yes, today may be uneventful, but it is - literally - sensational.

Stage 6 official start: Horní Dvořiště railway station

Shortly after 1 pm I disembarked from the Linz train at Horní Dvořiště railway station - the last stop in the Czech Republic - and went through my usual start-of-stage routine (loading up the bike again, taking the official start photo, phoning home, sending a message to the blog). Under a cloudless September sky I took off into the forest and was soon changing down through the gears as the gradient kicked up. This was supposed to be a fairly short day in the saddle, but it was shaping up to be a tough one.

The former horse-driven railway entered Czechoslovakia near here

I cycled north close to the border with Austria and before long emerged from the trees into the Indian-summer sunshine. For a while I followed the route of the horse-drawn railway that used to run between Linz and České Budějovice. Built between 1825 and 1832, it was the first and longest such line in Continental Europe. Used primarily to transport salt and other commodities, it was 131 km long, with a journey time of 14 hours, and was in service for 40 years before being superseded by steam power. I scoured the fields for signs of it, but sadly there was little if anything left to see.

Czech-Austrian border crossing near Dolní Dvořiště

Behind a casino at the major border crossing south of Dolní Dvořiště I took a short cut down a little-used road running across the fields into a wood. After a mile or so, however, it came to an abrupt dead end at the top of a steep bank above a river. Unable to continue that way, I backtracked and turned down an overgrown path in search of the footbridge marked on my map. This path, too, soon petered out and I found myself in a small clearing not knowing how to proceed. As luck would have it (as it so often does on this trip), help was at hand in the form of two local women out foraging for wild mushrooms. They told me that there was indeed a bridge somewhere nearby, but that it had been wrecked by tractor traffic and was no longer safe to cross. My only option was to turn back.

Horses outside Dolní Dvořiště

So much for my short cut. I took the long way round through Dolní Dvořiště, passing across open farmland and through clumps of forest. The hunting season was in full swing. All around me I could hear the thud and crack of hunters’ shotguns, an unnerving sound that was to accompany me for the next few days. The hunters themselves, though, were always out of sight.

Church at Cetviny

I took a short break at a place called Cetviny, which - as I learned from a tourist information board there - had been quite a large village before the War. In 1945, however, the German population was thrown out of the country and Cetviny was resettled by, among others, Romanian Czechs and Slovaks, but they too were evicted just six years later when the Iron Curtain came down. In 1956, the town was completely demolished, with the exception of its church and one other building, which was converted into an army station. Only in 1990, after the Velvet Revolution, was the area opened to the public again.

Nové Hrady landscape

Time was getting on, so I abandoned my original plan to cycle around the back of the hills. Instead, I cut the corner and saved myself about ten miles of hard travelling along the remote trail closest to the border. This decision guaranteed that I would arrive at my destination - the town of Nové Hrady - before nightfall.

High point in the forest above Pohorská Ves

I crested the highest point of Stage 6 - a hill called Vyhlídka (which means “view” or “vantage point”) - and began my descent out of the Nové Hrady Mountains. At Žofín, where a surprisingly large number of walkers and cyclists were sunning themselves on the terrace of a woodland lodge, the trail turned into a road leading back into civilisation.

Huťský Rybník, site of a long-gone 18th century glassworks

In the picturesque village of Hojná Voda, in the shadow of an elegant peak called Kraví Hora, a fine view over the south Bohemian plain suddenly opened up below me. In the next village I took a detour through a ranch to visit a curious cairn marked on my map as a kamenná pyramida (“stone pyramid”). Opinions differ as to who put it there and why, but there's no arguing that it's a charming spot.

Cross-country trail leading to...

...the huge cairn above Horní Stropnice

About a kilometre out of Horní Stropnice I turned off the main road and followed a footpath to a late-15th castle called Cuknštejn. From there I crossed the dam of a reservoir and joined a nature trail running through Terčino Údolí, a park that lies in the valley carved out by the Stropnice stream. The park, created in 1756 by a local nobleman and named after his wife Teresa, contains various romantic buildings dating from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but it is probably best known for its 32-foot-high artificial waterfall.

Cuknštejn Castle...

...and the waterfall in nearby Terčino Údolí Park

I rode at a leisurely pace from one end of the park to the other, admiring its ancient trees and giving a wide berth to the many couples strolling there in the fading evening sunshine. I came out just a short distance from the guesthouse I’d booked into on the outskirts of Nové Hrady - the accurately named Penzion Pod Hradem (“Guesthouse Below the Castle”).

Penzion Pod Hradem in Nové Hrady

I spent an uneventful evening in the restaurant at the guesthouse. To say the food (chicken in a wild mushroom sauce) was sensational would be an overstatement, but it was certainly a cut above the average. By the time I’d finished eating, night had fallen and it was cold enough outside to dissuade me from going out to explore the town centre. I decided to leave that for the next morning.

Stage 6 on Bikemap.net

2011-10-05T17:30:00.000+02:00

The map below shows the the route I actually followed on Stage 6 of my Circuit Ride in September this year

Bike route 1287137 - powered by Bikemap

Stage 6 slideshow

2011-10-03T20:42:00.000+02:00

I've been busy over the last few days putting together a slideshow of Stage 6, which I completed last week. I hope you like the results - Southern Moravia looks particularly pretty in the autumn sunshine. Click on the panel above to see the full-sized version with commentary.

Stage 6 completed!

2011-09-28T14:38:00.001+02:00

I'm on the train, heading back to Prague via Brno after completing the latest stage of my Circuit Ride. Today I took a detour away from the border to ride the sandy trails of the Lednice-Valtice Park (Lednice Chateau pictured). Thanks to the wonderful weather, the relatively easy terrain and the easy-going Moravians, this has been the most relaxed stage of my trip so far. Only one more stage to go now, back to the start in Bohumin. But will I manage it this year?

Lovely Mikulov

2011-09-27T20:04:00.001+02:00

Extraordinarily, the owner of the B&B I stayed at in Znojmo, Derek, turns out to be from my home town of Stoke, so we had a nice chat over a cup of tea at breakfast this morning. I then cycled 90 km through the vast vineyards of Moravia and Austria in unseasonally hot weather. After doing battle with an uncyclable cycle trail, a scary main road and a forest full of dangling spiders (even more scary) I arrived in the charming historical town of Mikulov, my destination for today, late in the afternoon. Tomorrow I complete Stage 6 with a fairly short, flat ride to Breclav.

Heaven, I'm in...

2011-09-26T19:47:00.001+02:00

...well, I am, in fact, in Znojmo (pictured), but it's heavenly enough. After a superb day on the bike, weaving in and out of Austria through some spectacular scenery, I've shacked up for the night at an English B&B. Not only does it have the most space-age shower I've ever stepped into, but it also has tea-making facilities in the room (something you never see in Czech guesthouses). Circuit-riding doesn't get much better than this!

Hardegg Castle...

2011-09-26T14:36:00.001+02:00

...perched high above the River Thaya on the Austrian-Czech frontier.

Goodbye Bohemia, hello Moravia!

2011-09-25T22:11:00.000+02:00

Pictured is the point where Bohemia meets Moravia meets Austria. It lies not far from historical town of Slavonice, where I'm spending the night. Highlights today included Gmund, a town that was literally divided by the Iron Curtain, as well as a short diversion to the northernmost point of Austria. Tomorrow I'll be passing through two national parks en route to the wine-making town of Znojmo. Cheers!

Sensational September

2011-09-24T22:23:00.001+02:00

How I love September! After a fine autumn afternoon's cycling through the forested hills of deepest South Bohemia I've arrived safely in Nove Hrady as planned. Tomorrow I ride west into Moravia.

Stage 6 starts

2011-09-24T13:21:00.001+02:00

I've just got off the train into the warm autumn sunshine to start Stage 6 of my circuit ride. My destination today: Nove Hrady.

Countdown to Stage 6

2011-09-20T08:31:00.000+02:00

It’s raining here in the Czech Republic and has been almost continuously for the last two days. However, we’ve been enjoying some fine weather for most of this month, and according to the forecast the Indian summer is set to return today.

This is good news for Stage 6 of my circuit ride, which is due to start on Saturday. I’ll be travelling for five days from Horní Dvořiště in the south-west of the Czech Republic to Břeclav in southern Moravia (click here for more details). Preparations are in full swing. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been refining my route (using, among other things, the excellent Cykloatlas online cycling atlas of the Czech Republic and Slovakia) and learning as much as I can about the interesting places I’ll be passing through. I also have a full set of maps printed out and installed in my map holder.

Three useful trip-planning websites: Cykloatlas,...

The next step is to reserve accommodation at each of my overnight stops - in Nové Hrady, Slavonice, Znojmo and Mikulov. Booking in advance is probably not really necessary at this time of year, but it does mean I’ll have one less thing to worry about on the road. I’ve drawn up a shortlist of interesting-looking guesthouses (partly with the aid of the Cyclists Welcome website) and I’ll be contacting them over the next couple of days.

...Cyclists Welcome...

The other thing I need to do is book myself and my bike onto the relevant trains. Thanks to the Czech public transport timetable website I know which services carry bicycles and which of them have mandatory or optional bicycle reservation. Unfortunately I can’t buy bike tickets online, so I’ll have to go down to the main station in Prague later in the week to do that.

...and the public transport timetable
(all three available in English)

The day before I leave I’ll print out my packing list, gather all my stuff together and load up my bike ready for departure. On Saturday I’ll get up early, head down to the station and catch the 9.16 am express to České Budějovice. If all goes to plan, I’ll reach the official start point shortly after 1 pm and immediately set off into the Nové Hrady mountains.

Hopefully I’ll have both the autumn sun and the prevailing westerly wind on my back.

(Lack of) progress report

2011-09-06T16:48:00.001+02:00

Last November I wrote a post celebrating the first anniversary of this blog. In it, I commented that writing the posts, rather than cycling the miles, had - to my surprise - proved to be the toughest aspect of my circumnavigation of the Czech Republic on a bicycle.

On the basis of my experience this summer, I have to revise that view.

I still maintain that the cycling itself, while being certainly very hard work at times, has been the easy bit and that writing up my exploits is certainly the more laborious task of the two. But the most difficult part of all has been to find enough time for circuit riding at all.

Take this summer. Originally I’d planned to do Stage 6 of my circuit ride in July or August. I could make excuses about the bad weather (July, for example, was a washout), but the truth is I’ve been too busy with work, family commitments and (yes, I admit it) other holidays to get on with my journey. Now I find myself in September - with two stages and some 500 miles left to cover - and my diary is still almost full. Where this leaves my plan to complete the whole project this year, I’m not sure.

However, I can see a window of opportunity. At the end of September - on the 28th, to be precise - there’s a public holiday in the Czech Republic. It falls on a Wednesday. This means that by taking just two days off work (Monday and Tuesday), I can engineer a break of five days (Saturday to Wednesday), which is exactly how much time I need to ride Stage 6 (from Horní Dvořiště in southern Bohemia to Břeclav in the south of Moravia).

You can consider it pencilled in.

Horní Dvořiště: where I left off in June

Then all that will remain is Stage 7 - the final leg back to Bohumín (where I started in May 2010). Whether I still manage to do that this year depends most of all on the weather in October. At some point in the autumn, the Slavic weather gods will switch off the heat and we’ll be plunged into at least five months of winter. And that, in turn, means no more circuit riding till the spring.

Needless to say, I’m praying for an Indian summer.

Bohumín: when will I see you again?

Stage 5 on Bikemap.net

2011-08-27T20:45:00.000+02:00

Here's the map of the route I took on Stage 5 of my circuit ride in June this year.

Bike route 1218512 - powered by Bikemap

(Not) going to extremes

2011-08-10T09:39:00.000+02:00

Stage 5, day 4 (Sunday, 5 June 2011)
Vyšší Brod to Horní Dvořiště (26 km)

I am - you might say - extremely inefficient. Last year I failed to visit the northernmost extreme of the Czech Republic because I was in danger of missing my train back to Prague that evening. And in April this year I got within a few hundred yards of the westernmost point before the path disappeared into an uncyclable bog and I threw in the towel. Today I’m standing on the Czech-Austrian border looking up a sign that reads “Most southerly point of the Czech Republic 300 metres” and I already know this is as near as I’m going to get. The muddy path ahead is so overgrown with nettles it’s barely visible. I’m wearing shorts and I’m not carrying a machete, so it’s effectively impassable. And do you know what? I don’t really care. First, it’s a near miss, as the actual southernmost point is only a few yards south of where I am now. Second, there’s nothing to see there apart from more nettles. And third, whatever this circuit ride is about, it’s not about ticking off places on a list. Mind you, I'll be disappointed if I don't make the easternmost point while cycling Stage 7 later this year.

The Cistercian monastery in Vyšší Brod

I was woken up early by the sun shining through my small square attic window and by a chorus of coughing from the rooms on either side of mine. Clearly I wasn’t alone at Penzion U Candrů that night. After a breakfast of greasy sausages I packed and set off on the short final section of Stage 5.

Lipno II

I started by taking a quick tour of Vyšší Brod and its environs, stopping first at its impressive Gothic monastery (one of the largest in the Czech Republic) and then at Lipno II (a smaller body of water just below the main Lipno reservoir), before heading back into the town centre and out the other side along the main road south.

The monastery again, as seen from a bridge over the Vltava

A long, steady climb brought me to the border crossing with Austria. It was here, at 2.40 am on 22 September 1938, that the Czechoslovak checkpoint came under attack by German invaders. The border guards retreated to the nearby woods but managed to retake the building at daybreak. The next morning, however, they were forced back again, this time for good. The spot is marked by a memorial to all the border guards who fought in vain for a democratic Czechoslovakia in 1938.

Monument to Czechoslovak border guards

I entered Austria and continued uphill along the main road for a while before turning left onto a steep path running steeply downhill through a field back to the frontier at Radvanov. The border crossing here is reserved for cyclists and pedestrians, and the trail on the Czech side has recently been upgraded with the aid of EU money. This was where I wimped out of visiting the most southerly point of the Czech Republic.

The Czech-Austrian frontier at Radvanov...

...where the invisible path to the southernmost point begins

From here on in I was cycling mostly off road. In places the trail was so rough and steep I had to get off and push. I passed by the locations of at least two former ethnic German villages whose residents - like so many others - had been expelled from Czechoslovakia after World War II. After about 10 km I rounded a corner and the official endpoint of Stage 5 of my circuit ride - the small town of Horní Dvořiště - suddenly came into view. As I rested my camera on the top of a post to take a photo of the bucolic scene, I got an electric shock from a cow fence.

Horní Dvořiště as photographed from an electric fence

Me reflecting on an unforgettable journey through Šumava

I took a few more photos on the town square, then - seeing as I had half an hour to kill before catching my train home - I took a seat at a table outside the village pub. The waiter brought me probably the biggest bowl of ice cream I’ve ever seen. That, coupled with the beer I washed it down with, left me feeling like I’d swallowed a fully inflated football. The final mile of my journey - to the railway station - was not a comfortable experience.

Beer and ice cream: an explosive mix

Horní Dvořiště railway station: end of Stage 5

Channelling Šumava

2011-08-04T11:35:00.005+02:00

Stage 5, day 3 (Saturday, 4 June 2011)
Strážný to Vyšší Brod (94 km)

First, a quick history lesson. The Schwarzenberg Timber Floating Channel (Schwarzenberský plavební kanál) was designed by forestry engineer Joseph Rosenauer and was built in two phases between 1789 and 1823. It begins on the Czech-Bavarian border, crosses the watershed of the Danube and Vltava rivers, and runs for 32 miles through the Šumava forest before flowing into the River Mühl in Austria. It is around 2.5 m wide, 1 m deep and draws water from 27 springs. During its 100-year heyday between 1793 and 1892, almost 8 million cubic metres of firewood was floated out of Šumava to Vienna. The city’s grateful authorities made Rosenauer an honorary citizen for his efforts. The channel fell into disrepair after timber floating ended in the 20th century, and it is only now gradually being restored to its former glory. Why am I telling you all this? Because I cycled almost its entire length on this day of my trip along the Czech border.

Setting off from Strážný

I was chatting with the boss of Hotel Strážný while loading up the bike in the morning. “The weather could go either way,” he said, pointing up at the clouds lurking over the hills to the west. “But it’s usually better here than on the German side.” He wished me a pleasant ride and I set off along the “Golden Trail”, an old salt trading route between Bavaria and Bohemia.

Crossing into Germany for the last time on my circuit ride

After a couple of miles I turned right down a steep, wet path to the border with Germany. A large group of Czech cyclists all in the same red jerseys passed me as I took photographs. I overtook them on the hill on the other side then followed the frontier into the sleepy town of Haidmühle. From there, cycling against a tide of Germans carrying bags stuffed with cheap Czech cigarettes, I crossed back into the Czech Republic at Nové Údolí. It was here that I came across the “shortest international railway line in the world”.

The Šumava Railway: "105 metres long! Journey time 24 seconds!"

All aboard the train to Germany!

The adjacent Wagon Pub

The top of the Schwarzenberg Channel was just two miles down the road from Nové Údolí. The first section - a singletrack with muddy holes and slippery tree roots - had me nervous, but it soon opened out into a wide, smooth forest trail. The channel was well maintained in places, but completely blocked and barely visible in others. However, it was never less than enchanting, and I felt in fine form as I scooted along.

Start of the Schwarzenberg Channel

Near the village of Jelení the channel disappears into a 429 m long tunnel, so I had to take a short detour along the “Bear Trail”, so called because it leads to the spot where, on 14 November 1856, the last surviving wild bear in the Czech lands was hunted down and killed. The hunt involved 122 people, 46 of them armed, and took place in bad weather and deep snow. The encircled beast turned on its pursuers and chased them before one of the party took aim and fired the final, fatal shot.

The "Upper Portal", where the channel disappears into a tunnel

I stopped in Jelení and lunched on chicken schnitzel and delicious blueberry tart at an outdoor pub. Never before on my circuit ride of the Czech Republic had I seen so many other cyclists in one place. Šumava is a well-known cycling destination and the Schwarzenberg channel has the added attraction of being almost flat, unlike many other cycling trails in the area. Indeed, it has such a minimal incline the water sometimes looks like it is flowing uphill.

The section of channel by the museum at Jelení

Just down the road from the pub I found a one-room museum featuring a large and quite impressive 3D map of the whole area. The other tourists around me let out a collective gasp of wonderment as I pressed a button on the control panel and lit up the entire length of the model waterway with little flashing lights.

First taste of Austria

I continued along the channel in the afternoon, and in doing so entered Austria for the first time on my circumnavigation of the Czech Republic. This section of the “Schwarzenbergische Schwemmkanal” was the most overgrown, but the parallel trail stayed perfectly cyclable all the way to U Korandy back in the Czech Republic, where I parted company with this amazing feat of late 18th century engineering.

Me in a mirror in on the other side of the channel

Back into the Czech Republic for the final 2 km of the Schwarzenberg Channel

I headed uphill – on asphalt that was melting in the afternoon sun and snapped, crackled and popped as my tyres rolled over it – all the way to Vítkův Hrádek, which, at 1,053 metres above sea level, is the highest castle ruin in the Czech Republic. Two rock climbers were scaling the side of the 13th century tower with the aid of ropes, but I took the easier option of climbing the steps on the inside. From the top there were magnificent panoramic views of Lipno reservoir, aka the “South Bohemian Sea” and the whole of southern Šumava. Worryingly, I could also see sinister storm clouds gathering from the north.

Vítkův Hrádek castle

View from the top...

...and view of the inside

I freewheeled down the hill from the castle and joined a road running parallel to the border to the foot of the last big climb of Stage 5 of my trip, at a place called Spáleniště. Now, generally I have a very positive relationship with hills, but this was a 1,000 foot sting in the tail I could have done without. I wasn’t in the mood any more, but I had no choice other than to labour up the uncomfortably steep and potholed forest road to the top. Fortunately the ominous clouds I’d spotted from the castle stayed at bay.

Top of the final major climb of Stage 5

A bone-rattling descent on the other side took me into the town of Vyšší Brod, where I’d booked accommodation for the night. My room turned out to be in a converted barn in the courtyard behind the guesthouse. For the second time that day I ate al fresco, this time on the terrace of the guesthouse restaurant, my peace disturbed only by the roar of a posse of enormous German motor trikes passing through town.

Local Jakub beer

After dinner I wandered aimlessly around the town for a while before a wall poster reminded me to check out the local microbrewery. It wasn’t quite what I’d imagined. Instead of a gleaming copper temple to the art of brewing, I found a spartanly furnished, windowless cellar called Pajzl u Jakuba (pajzl being the Czech for a dive or sleazy pub). Practically the only food on offer was pork scratchings in lard. However, the beer was undeniably good, so I enjoyed a couple of pints while writing up the day’s events. A drunk slumped over the table next to mine snored loudly as I did so.

The forest is crying

2011-07-06T22:26:00.003+02:00

Stage 5, day 2 (Friday, 3 June 2011)
Železná Ruda to Strážný (78 km)

The mournful title track of “The Forest is Crying” (an LP of Bulgarian vocal music I bought back in the 1980s) starts to play in my head as I emerge on the plateau of the Šumava National Park and take in the sheer scale of the devastation up here. Much of the former dense forest has been reduced to stumps. Logs litter the ground, ghostly pale after having been stripped of their bark. The silence is broken by the rasp of chainsaws as foresters fight to control a barely visible enemy: the bark beetle. It is a pest that is turning these “Green Lungs of Europe” brown. The forest is indeed crying.

I was woken at two in the morning by the sound of a couple copulating con brio in the room next to mine. They followed this up with a full-blown post-coital row and a further round of rumbustious rutting. This went on till 6 a.m., whereupon they packed their bags and left, not bothering to lower their voices as they did so. It was the worst night’s sleep of my trip, a bad case of somnus interruptus.

Church of Panna Maria Pomocná z Hvězdy in Železná Ruda

Later that morning I headed south out of Železná Ruda and then swung to the east up a mountain road leading into the forest. I was now entering Šumava proper. About halfway up the climb the contact lens popped out of my right eye and dropped to the ground before I could catch it. It hadn’t gone in properly that morning, probably on account of my sleep deprived eyes. I stopped and put in a new one, but it didn’t settle well either. I persevered up the hill, blurry eyed and blinking but still able to admire the views opening up to my right across the border into Germany.

Welcome to Šumava National Park

On either side of the trail forestry workers were busy felling trees. It’s a deeply controversial strategy for dealing with the beetle infestation. The park authorities say it’s the only way to save the forest from being wiped out. Some environmental groups, however, believe the authorities are exaggerating the problem and that nature should be left to its own devices.

Scenes of deforestation

According to my map, the trail I wanted to follow through one of the remotest parts of the park was closed until July, but I stuck to my original route in the blind hope that the map was wrong. At the beautiful black waters of Lake Laka I stopped to rest and take some pictures. From there, however, my path was blocked by two park rangers, who looked in no mood to let anyone through. So, I retraced my tracks back to Hůrka (German name: Hurkenthal), a former mirror-making village whose ethnic German populace was expelled from the country after the Second World War.

Lake Laka

Remains of the church at Hůrka

During the Cold War this area was strictly off-limits to the general public and was used for military exercises. Further down the road I came across signs warning of unexploded munitions in the meadows on either side of the road.

Danger UXB!

In the village of Prášily I stopped for lunch at a pub full of cyclists and forestry workers. I successfully replaced my troublesome contact lens in the pub toilet, but my eye problems continued after I set off again. I’d unwittingly left my sunglasses sitting on the rear rack of my bike, and of course they fell off as soon as I round the first corner. Fortunately I heard them hit the road behind me, and even more fortunately I found them unscathed when I returned to pick them up.

Prášilské jezero (Lake Prášily)

I’d covered a depressingly small distance that morning, and ahead of me this afternoon was one of the biggest climbs of my entire circuit ride. A group of German road cyclists whizzed past me as I turned off the highway and onto the wide dirt trail leading to the summit of Poledník. At Liščí díry (“Foxholes”) I ventured off the main route to visit Prášily Lake, which fills the base of a glacial cirque on the side of the mountain. I had to abandon the bike and walk the last 200 yards up the rocky path. By the lake is a small monument to Ottakar Kareis, a student who drowned here in 1927.

Looking down the steepest part of the climb to Poledník...

I’d have liked to tarry at this beautiful spot longer, but time was getting on so I clambered back down to my bike and rejoined the main trail. On the steepest part of the climb it took all my strength to keep pedalling rather than get off and walk. Fortunately the last section was less brutal, and before long I arrived - tired but elated - at the highest point of my entire journey along the Czech border: Poledník, 1,315 metres above sea level.

...the highest point of my circuit ride

At the summit is an odd-looking viewing tower which served as an air defence station during the Cold War. In the now well-established tradition of Circuit Rider CZ, I climbed up the steep steps to the top to take in the view. The damage wreaked by the beetle (and also by Hurricane Kyrill in 2007) was even more plain to see from this lofty location.

Scene from the top of the tower

From Poledník I descended on surfaces of steadily improving quality to the Roklanský potok, a mountain stream that meanders across the marshy plateau. I followed the flow down to the village of Modrava, where I stopped to stock up on snack food and water. From there I headed up another gorgeous stream - the Modravský potok - along a newly laid road reserved exclusively for cyclists and walkers. Šumava truly is a cycling paradise - if you don’t mind hills, that is.

The Roklanský stream...

...and the Modravský stream

Late in the afternoon, with not a soul in sight, I reached the top of another big hill - Černá hora (Black Mountain) - and dropped rapidly to the next point of interest on my map: the source of the Vltava (the river that flows through Prague). A strange stillness descended as I rounded the bend and re-entered the forest at the top of the valley. The true source of the river lies in inaccessible terrain higher up the mountainside; the pool pictured below is really just a tourist attraction. I sat there for while speculating how long it would take the water to reach Prague from here.

The source of the Vltava

From the source of the Vltava I backtracked a couple of hundred yards and commenced the last climb of the day to Pod Stráží. It was very rough and very steep, but fortunately not all that long. I took my mind off the pain in my legs by slaloming around the fat-bottomed ants crossing the path below me. A sign at the top told me I still had 18 kilometres to go to Strážný, my destination for the day, but it was all downhill from here.

View back down the last climb of the day

Before long a gentle rain began to fall, but on the long, straight descent I managed to keep just ahead of the ominous cloud gathering from the north. The first sign of civilization was a grubby brothel right on the edge of town. Strážný itself had the usual cluster of Vietnamese market stalls selling tat to cross-border shoppers, but the hotel was respectable enough and the welcome warm by Czech standards. I was the only guest staying there that night. I dined on bean soup and schnitzel and reflected on one of the most thought-provoking day’s cycling of my trip. The waitress quizzed me about where I was from, saying she was unfamiliar with my “dialect”. As an Englishman who has spent many years trying to get to grips with Czech, I took this as a compliment.

Riding down memory lane

2011-06-15T15:13:00.002+02:00

Stage 5, day 1 (Thursday, 2 June 2011)
Nýrsko to Železná Ruda (36 km)

Just a half day’s cycling in store for me today, on the back of a four-hour train ride from Prague to the start point of Stage 5 - Nýrsko on the northern edge of Šumava National Park. I begin by retracing a small section of the Prague-Munich ride I did with a couple of friends three years ago. Back then, the weather was cold and wet. The steam rose from our backs as we laboured up the climb to Špičák pass, and the subsequent descent chilled us to the bone. In Železná Ruda we took refuge in a pub to warm up, but the manager switched the heating off as soon as we arrived. It’s none too warm today, either, and for reasons not even known to myself I’ve booked a room at the same place tonight. It doesn’t bode well.

Špičák pass, wet and cold, May 2008

Nýrsko was quite chilly and overcast when I alighted from the train on Thursday afternoon. The town was as unattractive as I’d remembered it, so I wasted little time there. Before long I was heading along a quiet road up to the nearby reservoir, where I stopped to take some photos and reminisce about my 2008 trip to Munich.

Nýrsko reservoir

I skirted the reservoir along its western shore, following a sporadically muddy off-road trail for a while. The climbing - of which there would be much over the coming couple of days - started in earnest in the village of Hamry, but I was aided by a slight tailwind and especially by a newly surfaced road winding uphill through thick forest.

Smooth riding up to...

I shared the last, flatter, part of the climb to Černé Jezero (Black Lake) with a large party of German mountain bikers. I began to see tourists, and quite a lot of them. On previous stages of my circuit ride they’d been few and far between, but Šumava is a national park - a frequently visited one - and Černé Jezero is one of its best-known beauty spots.

...Černé Jezero, the biggest and deepest lake in Šumava

I freewheeled to the busy main road at Špičák pass and sent text messages to Ryan and Ciaran, who had been there with me en route to Munich. Unlike last time, I decided to take a detour to a viewing tower called Pancíř more than 700 feet higher up. As I climbed, vividly coloured bullfinches fluttered and twittered through the trees to one side. My efforts were rewarded by fine views across northern Šumava on all sides. However, the tower itself - which sits squatly on top of a mountain lodge built in 1923 - turned out to be shut.

Pancíř mountain lodge and viewing tower

View across Šumava

The long descent to the frontier town of Železná Ruda was chilly, but not downright cold and wet as it had been that day in 2008. I touched 60 km/h on the wide road down without even trying. On arriving I had a quick cycle around the town to confirm that it was indeed as sleazy as I’d remembered it and I then checked into the guesthouse. Fortunately it seemed to be under new management. In contrast to my previous visit, the welcome and the premises themselves were warm.

Stage 5 slideshow

2011-06-10T10:12:00.002+02:00

Here's the Stage 5 slideshow, folks!

Stage 5 completed

2011-06-05T12:36:00.002+02:00

The church clock on Horni Dvoriste square is striking noon as I enjoy a celebratory pint and an ice cream outside the village pub. It seems as good a way as any to celebrate the end of Stage 5 before catching the train home.

Castles in the Sumava sky

2011-06-04T22:55:00.003+02:00

This afternoon I climbed to the highest castle in the Czech Republic - Vitkuv Hradek. Look closely at the photo and you might see a rock climber hanging off the keep. From the top of the castle there are fine views through 360 across Sumava, and especially of Lipno reservoir, aka the South Bohemian sea. Tomorrow I plan to visit the southernmost point of the Czech Republic, but given my previous failures to find the most northerly and westerly points I'm not feeling too optimistic.

Easy rider

2011-06-04T12:51:00.002+02:00

Saturday lunchtime and I'm eating blueberry tart in a sunny pub garden. After yesterday's hard work I'm easy riding today down the Schwarzenberg channel, which in past centuries was used to float timber out of the Sumava forest towards Vienna.

Hard climbin' man

2011-06-03T20:27:00.002+02:00

What a wonderful day on the bike today, despite some 4,500 ft of vertical ascent in all (including to the summit of Polednik, pictured). Sumava is wondrously beautiful at every turn. Even the weather, despite some ominous clouds here and there, held fair for me. Shame that Strazny, where I'm spending the night, is such a hole, but one can't have it all. Tomorrow will be much flatter, but there'll be a lot of miles to cover.

Bottomless, unfathomable

2011-06-02T19:50:00.002+02:00

An afternoon of heavy duty climbing today brought me out at Cerny Jezero (Black Lake), which is said to be not only bottomless, but unmeasurable. From there it was more climbing then a long descent into the frontier town of Zelezna Ruda, where I'm spending the night. Tomorrow I'm aiming for the highest point of my entire lap of the Czech Republic - the summit of Polednik.

Stage 5 starts Thursday

2011-05-31T19:56:00.000+02:00

Stage 5 of my trek around the Czech border will start on Thursday this week. I'll be cycling through the "green lungs of Europe", better known as Šumava National Park. My route (described in more detail here) starts in the town of Nýrsko with a daunting 650 metre ascent through the forest to the pass at Špičák. After overnight stops in Železná Ruda, Strážný and Vyšší Brod, I hope to reach the stage finish in Horní Dvořiště on Sunday and catch the train back home to Prague.

View Stage 5 in a larger map

Highlights along the way will include highest point of my entire journey around the Czech border (Poledník, at 1,315 metres above sea level), the 45-kilometer-long Schwarzenberg Canal, formerly used to transport timber out of the forest to Vienna, and, if time allows, the most southerly point in the Czech Republic.

There is a cloud on the horizon. Literally. Until a few minutes ago the weather forecast was looking very good. Now they're saying that clouds will build up during the day and that there is a chance of storms in the evening. So, it looks like I'll have to get up early and finish early. As usual, I'll be blogging on the go, so keep checking in to the blog to track my progress.

Stage 4 on Bikemap.net

2011-05-30T15:16:00.000+02:00

Here's the map of the route I took on Stage 4 of my circuit ride in April this year.

Bike route 1002648 - powered by Bikemap

Return of the Curse of Circuit Rider

2011-05-27T19:52:00.000+02:00

Stage 4, day 4 (Tuesday, 12 April 2011)
Babylon to Nýrsko (34 km)

Today is an in-between day - a transition stage, you might say. I’m leaving the Bohemian Forest, but I won’t quite reach Šumava National Park further to the south. I’m not travelling far either, only as far as Nýrsko railway station a couple of hours away. A good thing, too, as the weather has broken. The cursed rain that blighted the first stage of my circuit ride last year has returned in earnest.

I was woken up in the early hours of Tuesday by a chill wind gusting through the open window of my hotel room. A cold front had arrived. By the time I got up a couple of hours later, the clouds were lying low over Čerchov mountain, where I’d been the day before. It was a stark contrast to the glorious sunshine of the previous three days. After breakfast I cycled out of Babylon along a tranquil woodland trail then joined the road heading west. The weather held steady to begin with, but before long a drizzle turned into a downpour and I had to pull up and put on my raingear.

Čerchov from my hotel bedroom on Tuesday morning

Before setting off, I’d had an uneasy feeling about Stage 4 of my trek along the Czech border. Now, as the gloom descended, the wind whipped up and the rain came teeming down, I realised why. Cycling along those long lonely stretches of the former Iron Curtain would have been a miserable experience had the weather been like this the whole weekend. It didn’t matter too much now though, as I’d soon be heading home in a warm dry train.

Nearly there

I took shelter from the storm on a pub veranda in Velruby. I consulted my damp maps and decided to make straight for Nýrsko along the main road rather than take the more scenic route closer to the border. After a while the rain eased off a bit, so I set off again. A stiff north-westerly wind carried me at startling speed towards my destination, sometimes even threatening to sweep me off the road entirely.

Stage 4 completed

On the outskirts of Nýrsko I checked the time and discovered I might just make an earlier train home. After a mad dash through the town, and at least one wrong turn, I arrived in a bedraggled state at the station with less than five minutes to spare. My journey home was complicated, involving four different trains, one bus, one van and one missed connection, but I arrived back in Prague in time for tea.

Crank Honors 2011

2011-05-17T18:57:00.000+02:00

Voting has just opened for the 2011 Crank Honors. This is your chance to vote for your favorite cycling blog and help determine the top dog in various categories. I'd like to encourage you all to go and cast your votes, not only because Circuit Rider CZ is up for the Best Travel Biking Blog award, but mainly because Crank is a great gateway into the world of bike blogging. You're sure to find something of interest among the sites listed there.

Riding down the Curtain

2011-05-17T18:41:00.001+02:00

Stage 4, day 3 (Monday, 11 April 2011)
Přimda to Babylon (68 km)

God I love the mountains. This hill is steep - granny-gear steep, lung-burstingly steep, as steep as anything I’ve encountered since Poland last year. But I don’t care. However much it hurts, it's still more fun than staring at a computer screen at work. The day I’m no longer physically capable of doing this will be a sad day indeed. I feel lucky - so lucky - to be here. I round a corner and the twin towers of Čerchov suddenly come into view through a gap in the trees. I descend briefly, then hit the final ramp to the summit.

Čerchov comes into view

I left Přimda on Monday morning and was soon coasting along a deserted road winding down through the forest for a couple of miles. This is the way to start a cycling day! I rode through the tiny village of Diana, where loggers were busy logging, and stopped at a clearing to photograph an enchanting avenue of silver birch trees.

The trail just outside Diana

After passing close by the border crossing at Železná I hit the first big climb of the day - up to Pleš (“Bald Spot”). In 1930 this village had been home to more than 700 people crammed into 106 houses. After the War, its ethnic German residents were expelled from the country and their homes were demolished to make way for the Iron Curtain. Today, only vague traces of this and other nearby settlements remain. The only building I saw was a closed pub. There was not a soul in sight.

The pub at Pleš

Monument to two lost villages

I continued through more vanished communities - Rabov and Václav - then descended at speed into the next populated village of Rybník, where I knew there was a restaurant selling food from a nearby organic farm. I quickly located it and parked my bike in the rack outside, but it wasn’t until I tried to enter that I noticed the sign “Closed till 3 pm for technical reasons”. A “Cyclists Welcome” sign over the door smiled down at me mockingly. There was nowhere else open nearby, so I had to open my emergency rations again.

Top of the descent to Rybník

I pressed on through the forest to Nemanice, a run-down village whose only pub looked so awful from the outside I didn’t even bother to check it out. Fortunately, I found a respectable-looking restaurant at the border crossing near Lísková on Highway 189 and took a table on its sunny terrace. Across the road, at the usual scruffy frontier market, two police officers arrived and started taking protection money from the Vietnamese stallholders (at least, that’s what the man at the next table reckoned they were doing). An impossibly cute cat gazed up at me as I tucked into penne with tuna and tomato sauce. I was going to need all the energy I could get, as the biggest climb of Stage 4 - to the summit of Čerchov - lay just ahead.

Pub cat

The ascent started with a couple of switchbacks so typical of the Iron Curtain Trail. I was soon working up a sweat, so I stopped to strip off a layer of clothing. For the first time this year I was riding in shorts. On I went, through dense forest, past a German man logging illegally with his son, around the grubby remains of a winter snowdrift, all the way to the top of the highest mountain in the Bohemian Forest.

On the trail to Čerchov

Throughout the Cold War, Čerchov was off limits to the public and the military buildings there were top secret. Even today it was quite a forbidding sight. The gates into the deserted summit area were still locked after the winter, so I was forced to abandon the bike and enter through a hole in the fence. The mountain is crowned by two towers - a viewing tower dating from 1905 and a more recent (and less handsome) army construction. Both were closed.

Welcome to Čerchov...

...at 1,042 metres above sea level

The first part of the descent from Čerchov was on a road of concrete panels with wide gaps between them. I was forced to take the bumps frustratingly slowly, pulling hard on the brakes. Then I was on to a long, fast, straight trail called the Horizontála, which ended abruptly at a busy highway. The final - mercifully short - stretch into the curiously named Babylon (my destination for the day) was unpleasant. The downhill through the forest had been hairy but exhilarating. Being overtaken by fast-moving cars and lorries at close range, by contrast, was downright scary.

For night club, read brothel

Babylon had all the charm one would expect of an out-of-season holiday resort bordering a major road route out of the country. I checked into the big and empty Hotel Praha and took a long soak in a dirty bathtub. Afterwards I strolled around the drained bathing lake and walked back on a path running parallel to the main road, listening to the birds twittering on my right and cowering from the juggernauts thundering past on my left.

Lakeside view at Babylon holiday resort

I ate at a roadside pizzeria, which was doing pretty good business for a Monday night catering mainly to middle-aged German couples. In the kitchen the chef was quaffing beer at an alarming rate and getting increasingly belligerent with the other staff, but he did me a decent enough pizza. I washed it down with a couple of Weissbiers and a whisky, wrote up my notes for the day and then ambled back past the crater to the hotel.

Half way round

2011-05-03T16:57:00.003+02:00

Stage 4, day 2 (Sunday, 10 April 2011)
Cheb to Přimda (92 km)

I’m standing at the base of Milíře, a steel telecom tower built in 2001. I’m feeling pretty exhausted after a long day in the saddle, so it takes me quite a while to persuade myself to tackle the 126 steps up to the viewing platform. As I ascend, my cycling shoes beat a slow percussive rhythm on the metal grill steps. The sound contrasts eerily with the plaintive moaning of the wind rushing through the girders around me. My cycling muscles complain painfully about this unfamiliar form of exercise, but I keep going to the top, where I can feel the whole structure swaying in the breeze. Some 80 feet below me, the long shadow of the tower on the field points east towards my destination for the day - the town of Přimda.

Přimda Castle from Milíře

On another sunny but cool morning I left Cheb’s almost deserted George of Podebrady square and headed south out of the town before veering east across open fields to take a look at Jesenice reservoir. On the far side were the remains of a partially sunken bridge that used to connect the two parts of the village of Všeboř across the River Odrava.

"Sunken bridge" in Jesenice reservoir

A few miles down the road I stopped in the picturesque village of Doubrava, whose timbered houses date from the second half of the 18th century. The village also has some fine old trees, most notably a 330-year-old beech.

Traditional local architecture in the village of Doubrava

Before setting off on Friday, I’d worked out on the back of an envelope that I would reach the halfway point of my ride around the Czech border roughly 97 km into Stage 4. This coincided with the border crossing near the tiny village of Mýtina, so I duly stopped there to make an (an admittedly rather banal) audio and visual record of this milestone of my journey.

Listen!

Just over the border, the relative affluence of Bavaria was immediately visible in the spick-and-span town of Neualbenreuth. I headed uphill out of the town to the Grenzelandturm viewing tower and paid one euro to climb to the top. To the east I could see the ridge of Dyleň (Tillenberg). Local tradition has it that in 1813 Napoleon declared this mountain the geographical centre of Europe. Further up the road I came across a sign pointing towards this landmark up a steep and rough forest trail. In cowardly fashion I elected to ignore it and continued along the main road to Mähring.

Grenzelandturm viewing tower

Dyleň on the skyline

Just outside Mähring I found another viewing tower, this time adjoining an unattractive chapel built in 1953 (and later extended) as a gathering place for Sudeten German pilgrims. Both the tower and the chapel were closed, so I rode back into the town in an attempt to find somewhere to eat.

St Anna's Memorial Church in Mähring

Having found no restaurants (or anything else) open in Mähring, I crossed back into the Czech Republic and back onto the switchback trail heading south through the Bohemian Forest. An alarmingly steep drop past a dilapidated old military control tower (one of the few remaining visible relics of the Iron Curtain I passed) was followed by an equally brutal climb to a small nature reserve called Bučina. I took a break at a picnic table there and wolfed down some of my emergency rations to keeping me going.

Military control tower on the Iron Curtain Trail

Eventually, at 3 pm, near the border crossing at Bärnau I found a filling station and filled up on food while observing a steady stream of German cars arriving to buy fuel and beer. Thank God for petrol stations, I thought to myself as I munched on a tuna and egg sandwich. I wonder where we hungry touring cyclists will go to refuel when the oil runs out.

Another long straight section of the Iron Curtain Trail

I continued through rolling scenery on a quiet road on the German side of the frontier. The next border crossing was not a busy road, but an unassuming short track connecting two fields. From there I was soon back in the forest and careering down a long hill to Zlatý Potok (“Golden Stream”), where people used to pan for gold in the Middle Ages. For a while I cycled along the “History of Glassmaking Nature Trail” past the sites of yet more German settlements cleared after World War II. According to one sign, this area used to be teeming with life. I found it almost entirely abandoned.

Site of a former village on the History of Glassmaking nature trail

Leaving the quiet of the forest I rode into Rozvadov, a succession of casinos, brothels and tatty roadside market stalls that is a serious contender for the hotly contested prize of “Least Salubrious Czech Frontier Town”. I left hurriedly, but not before bruising my ankle by dropping my bike on it while trying surreptitiously to photograph one of the aforesaid stalls.

Rozvadov :-(

I rode over the busy D5 motorway and on up through the village of Svatá Kateřina to Milíře viewing tower. As I described in the introduction above, I really wasn’t in the mood to climb it, but the views were worth the effort. From this vantage point, Přimda Castle - the oldest known stone castle in the Czech Republic (dating from the year 1121) - was clearly visible on the skyline, glowing in the evening sunshine.

Milíře tower

The climb to Přimda was not nearly as bad as I’d feared, but the final ramp up to Hotel Kolowraty finished me off for the day. I stood gasping and sweating inelegantly at reception while three members of staff debated at length whether I should be signed in as a Czech resident or a foreigner.

Přimda

I was the sole guest at the hotel until two guys checked in while I was eating in the restaurant. After chatting up the waitress over dinner, they headed off to a casino in Rozvadov to play poker. I, meanwhile, took the boring (and probably cheaper) option of an early night.

Warming up

2011-04-21T14:54:00.004+02:00

Stage 4, day 1 (Saturday, 9 April 2011)
Aš to Cheb (79 km)

I’m on the shuttle train from Cheb to Aš, the same train that I took in the opposite direction more than six months earlier at the end of Stage 3. I should be raring to go after such a long winter break, but I’m not. I might be physically prepared, but I’m not feeling mentally ready to resume my circuit ride of the Czech Republic. On top of that, my unease about spending three days alone on the Iron Curtain Trail is resurging. Still, at least the sun is shining.

Aš on a warm sunny afternoon in autumn 2010, and on a cold sunny morning in spring 2011

I’d arrived in Cheb the previous evening and checked into a hotel there. After catching the morning train to nearby Aš (pronounced "ash"), I intended to cycle around the narrow projection of Czech territory lying to the north of that town and follow the border south back to Cheb for a second overnight stay there. This ingenious plan meant I could leave most of my luggage in the hotel and travel light for the first time on my trip.

Burnt-out restaurant in Hranice

My mood on arriving in Aš was not enhanced by a chilly northerly headwind that slowed my progress along the main road towards Germany. I immediately regretted leaving my extra layer of clothing at Hotel Monika. I stopped in the grim frontier town of Hranice (appropriately named, since hranice is the Czech word for border) to photograph the burnt-out shell of a pub bearing the town’s former German name - Rossbach. Two old drunks sitting on a bench opposite glowered at me as I did so.

Off-road trail in Saxony

I hastened out of Hranice and crossed gratefully into Saxony, where I turned left onto a picturesque off-road trail. After meandering for a while I found a sign pointing across a field towards the Dreilandereck - the point where the borders of the Czech Republic, Bavaria and Saxony (and formerly East Germany and West Germany) coincide. At the bottom of the field I followed a German hiker across a ditch and along a barely discernible path into the fringes of the forest. There, in the shadows, a white border stone standing by a small wooden footbridge marked the far north-western tip of the Czech Republic.

The sketchy final section of trail to the tripoint...

It was a tranquil place, in spite of - or maybe thanks to - its historical significance as the point where the Iron Curtain entered Czechoslovakia from the north. Below the bridge I could see tiny brown trout swimming in the Rokytnice stream, whose quiet limpid waters also host brook lamprey, burbot, bullhead and the critically endangered freshwater pearl mussel, which has an average lifespan here of 50 years.

...where Saxony meets Bavaria meets the Czech Republic

I was now on the Iron Curtail Trail, and for the next couple of days, fittingly, I was to have this old no-man’s land almost entirely to myself. Heading south in the sunshine with the wind on my tail, I no longer felt cold and I began to warm to the task at hand. After a couple of miles the trail emerged at a characteristically straight military road, the first of many tough sections of this roller-coaster route through the “forbidden frontier zone”.

Military planners like their roads straight

I passed by a wind farm, the shadows of its blades rushing towards me along the ground, before arriving at an isolated war memorial marking the site of Újezd (Mähring), formerly the westernmost community in Czechoslovakia. Its ethnic German residents were expelled from the country after World War II and the entire village - including its cemetery - was ransacked and subsequently demolished.

Clasped hands above the Bridge of Europe...

At Újezd I took a short detour through a meadow down to the Bridge of Europe, built across the border stream in 2008 as a symbol of Czech-German reconciliation. As I approached I was shaken out of my reverie by a scruffy green figure - a one-eyed vodník (water sprite) - slouching on a bench on the Czech side. He was my only company in this isolated spot.

... where a water sprite keeps guard

I had been intending to visit the most westerly point of the Czech Republic, which lies a few hundred yards further along the stream from the bridge. However, the lack of a path through the marshy ground convinced me that this was not a viable option. Instead, I descended back into Aš and lunched at the same pub I’d visited after completing Stage 3 of my trip last September.

Libá Castle

After lunch I rejoined the Iron Curtain Trail and continued south, up and down, through mile after mile of dense forest. At one point I turned off the main trail along a path strewn with fallen trees in a failed attempt to locate a boundary stone dating from 1754. Later, I took another diversion to the village of Libá to see its chateau. Further on, I found a memorial to a soldier who died “defending the national borders of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in exceptionally difficult circumstances” (I've since discovered that he drowned trying to save his dog during a military operation).

Memorial to a fallen Czechoslovak border guard

Skalka reservoir

I reached the shores of Skalka reservoir, which was drained of water, and began my final ascent of the day - up to the stubby Bismarck viewing tower at the summit of Zelená hora (Green Mountain). At a noisy dog pound I turned off the road onto a narrow track running through the forest. About a mile further on, the tower suddenly loomed into view. A family with young children was picnicking by an open fire at its base. The tower was still open, so I climbed to the top to take in the views of Cheb and surrounds glowing in the late-afternoon sun.

Bismarck viewing tower near Cheb

Following a chilly descent I crossed the dam at the head of Skalka reservoir and cycled along the River Ohře into the centre of Cheb, stopping periodically to photograph the town’s medieval fortifications. Cheb castle, dating from around 1180, is one of the most important Romanesque buildings in the Czech Republic and is said to be haunted by various ghosts. The town's other major attraction is Špalíček, a group of medieval merchants' houses on the town square. Before World War II, Cheb (German name Eger) was a bastion of Sudeten German nationalism. Adolf Hitler was welcomed rapturously by the town's German residents during a visit on 3 October 1938. After the War ended, however, most of the German population was expelled from the country.

The ramparts of Cheb

I stashed my bike at the hotel, showered and headed straight out again to explore the town on Saturday evening. The place wasn’t exactly bustling with life, but there were plenty of bars and restaurants to choose from. After dining on tortellini and splendid Rychtář beer, I watched night fall from the window of a pub on the main square then ambled back to the hotel.

Špalíček on Cheb's main square

The news on the TV in my room was full of reports about the latest crisis in the Czech coalition government. By contrast, I was feeling at peace with the world. So far at least, my trepidation about this stage of my circuit ride had proven entirely unfounded. In fact, it had been one of the least difficult days of my trip.

Stage 4 slideshow

2011-04-14T13:43:00.000+02:00

Here's the slideshow for Stage 4 of my trip. Click on the photos to enlarge them and view the accompanying captions. I'll be posting full write-ups of the stage just as soon as time allows.

Stage 4 completed

2011-04-12T13:45:00.004+02:00

Made it to my destination Nýrsko in double quick time this morning thanks to a strong tailwind. A couple of heavy showers dampened my mood along the way, but I'm dry again now and waiting in Plzeň for my train back to Prague.

Summit of Čerchov

2011-04-11T16:30:00.004+02:00

Highest point on Stage 4 (1042 m)

Babylon beckons

2011-04-11T14:44:00.004+02:00

Left Přimda (above) this morning and headed straight down into the depths of the deserted frontier forest. This area is littered with sparse remains of old villages, their ethnic German inhabitants having been thrown out of the country after WWII. Ahead of me now is a 1600 ft climb to the top of Mt Cherchov and an equally long descent to Babylon.

Halfway home

2011-04-10T21:44:00.004+02:00

Today was tougher than I'd expected. I left Cheb (above) at 10 am and didn't arrive in Přimda until 6.30 this evening. 90 km along the switchback Iron Curtain Trail was more than enough for one day. However, I've now passed the halfway point of my circuit ride of the Czech Republic, so I'm feeling suitably pleased with myself.

On the road again!

2011-04-09T14:36:00.004+02:00

Left the official start in the town of Aš today and made for the northwest tip of the country - the tripoint where the Czech Rep meets Saxony and Bavaria (pictured). Now heading south towards Cheb with the wind at my back.

Stage 4 this weekend!

2011-04-06T10:01:00.001+02:00

After a six-month hiatus, Circuit Rider CZ is hitting the road again. On Friday evening I’ll take the train to Cheb, and on Saturday morning I’ll make for the town of Aš to start Stage 4 of my trip around the Czech border. From there I’ll head for the north-westerly tip of the country and turn south along the Iron Curtain Trail through the Bohemian Forest. If all goes to plan, I’ll reach the stage finish in Nýrsko by Tuesday lunchtime.

Aš here I come!

I’m back on my own for this stage, but my feelings of unease about it have ebbed and I’m itching to get going again. The weather forecast is good and the trails should be pretty dry. I’m now busy refreshing my memory as regards what to take, how to blog from my mobile phone and generally how to be a touring cyclist again.

View Stage 4 in a larger map

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll sign off now and get on with booking accommodation, sorting out trains, packing my bags, finalising my route plan...

Renting a bicycle in the Czech Republic

2011-04-05T11:37:00.001+02:00

Quite a few people have contacted me asking for advice on where to hire bicycles in the Czech Republic.

I’ve never rented a bike here, so I can’t vouch for any particular bike rental company. However, the following firms have information in English on their websites:

Prague
Okolo
Bajkazyl
City Bike
Praha Bike

Mikulov
Topbicycle
(Topbicycle specialises in bicycle touring and claims to deliver rental bikes all over Central Europe)

Týnec nad Sázavou
Bisport

You can also hire bicycles from numerous railway stations in the Czech Republic. There’s more information in English on the Czech Railways website.

Many hotels, guesthouses and campsites also provide bike rentals for their guests.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. If you know of any other Czech bike rental companies, or have any experience with the ones listed above, feel free to leave a comment below.

Circuit Rider is back

2011-03-22T08:55:00.000+01:00

It’s been all quiet on the blog in March, but I haven’t been idle.

First of all, I’ve been training pretty hard - both on and off the bike - to get back into shape for the remaining four stages of my cycling circumnavigation of the Czech Republic, all of which I intend to complete this year. For the first time in my life, I have something approaching a physique.

Out training in Prague

I’ve also been giving my mountain bike (my machine of choice for the remainder of the trip) a bit of TLC after the battering it suffered last year. All that mud and rain put paid to the bottom bracket, so I got my local bike shop to replace that and to service the front forks, a process which, for reasons unknown, took them a week and a half. All the rest I’ve done myself: I’ve given it a deep clean and lube, installed shiny new wheels (a Christmas present) and replaced the brake pads. All that remains is to change the brake and gear cables and I’m ready for the off.

I’ve also been busy planning my annual summer cycling tour with my friends Ryan and Ciaran. Last year we cycled from Munich through the Alps into Italy on the Via Claudia Augusta. This year we’ll be taking up where we left off in Trento and continuing south towards Florence, mostly on the alluringly named Cycle Route of the Sun (Ciclopista del Sole) - but more of that in a later post.

On the run-in to Trento last year

Speaking of the sun, I’m currently in the market for some new summer cycle clothing. (In a triumph of hope over experience, I’m planning for sizzling weather this year.) I’ve given up on Czech bike retailers owing to a dearth of choice, especially in sizes that fit my lanky frame. Instead I intend to buy from Wiggle in the UK. I’m always reluctant to purchase clothes online, but the detailed sizing charts and flexible returns policy at Wiggle take most of the uncertainty out of the process. On top of that they deliver free to the Czech Republic on orders over £100.

So what’s next? Stage 4, that’s what. And it might come sooner than you think. Spring has definitely arrived here in Prague and I’m keeping a close eye on the weather forecast. As soon as a suitably warm and sunny weekend comes up I’ll be on the road again. And then, rest assured, the blog posts will start coming thick and fast.

The end (of the winter) is nigh

2011-02-28T11:41:00.002+01:00

The Central European winter drags on for months, and to a cyclist on a mission to cycle around the Czech border it can seem never-ending. But now, on the last day of February, I can finally see the end in sight. The sun was out in Prague this weekend, and for the first time this year I could feel some heat from it. Soon, I hope, the daffodils - and the hemlines - will be rising.

Like the ice at the Czech Yacht Club, the winter is receding

As an Englishman I’m accustomed to long autumns and long springs. Here in the Czech Republic, though, the transitions are abrupt. The heat is switched off usually sometime in November and back on again in April. I call it binary weather.

The winter does have some advantages, I suppose. It has given me time to plan my route and to clean up and service my bikes for the season ahead. But it’s not easy being a bike blogger in these parts at this time of year. I simply don’t have much to write about, as I’m not doing much cycling.

It’s not the cold that’s the problem - I have the clothing to keep me warm(ish) on the bike even when the temperature is below freezing. It’s the slippery surfaces that thwart me. This winter has been particularly bad in that regard. The snow has been lying on the ground so long it has gradually metamorphosed into sheet ice. As my fellow Prague bike blogger Grant found to his cost last month, it’s not a good surface to cycle on. Now, I’m glad to say, it’s thawing fast.

One thing I do try to do in the winter is stay fit. I’ve learned the hard way that doing no exercise only leads to agony when I get back on the bike in the spring. My love-hate relationship with spinning continues. And, for the first time ever, I’ve been doing strength training, inspired by some helpful advice posted on the Loving the Bike blog. It’s all good exercise, but it’s no substitute - physically or psychologically - for cycling.

The next stage of my circumnavigation of the Czech Republic runs from Aš down to Nýrsko in the west of the country. It’s mostly fairly low-lying, so I’m hoping to be able to cycle it in April. That should give me plenty of time to complete the three remaining stages before next winter sets in.

I just hope the summer is not such a wash-out as it was last year.

Circuit Rider’s packing list

2011-02-20T16:12:00.002+01:00

It’s a much-discussed topic among touring cyclists - what (and perhaps more importantly, what not) to take with you. There’s a trade-off between comfort on the bike and comfort off it. On the one hand, low weight makes the bike easier to propel and easier to handle. On the other hand, every traveller has things they can’t bear to be without, even if they don’t absolutely need them.

Me, my bike and my luggage in the Izera Mountains, Poland

There are three specific aspects of my tour of the Czech border that allow me to travel lighter than many touring cyclists.

First, I stay exclusively at hotels and guesthouses, so I don’t need camping equipment. There are other, less obvious, benefits as well. For example, hotels provide towels and toiletries. Likewise, I usually have access to a radio and/or TV, and sometimes even a computer. And I can wash clothes in my room on arrival and have them clean, dry and ready to wear the next day. All this means less luggage. On the other hand, I do like to have a change of clothes for the evening, as wet and dirty cycling gear is not a good look for a hotel dining room or a night out on the town.

Second, I’m usually away for just four days at a time. This has two weight-saving advantages: (1) I can get a reasonably accurate weather forecast for the entire period, so I can pack the right clothes and only the right clothes, and (2) I only need one change of clothes for the evening.

Third, I’m not travelling through extremely remote, exotic or unfamiliar territory. A little local knowledge goes a long way towards saving weight. I know where to find bike shops, restaurants, petrol stations, supermarkets and so on, and I know when they are likely to be open and what they are likely to stock. This, in turn, means I can reduce the amount of stuff I need to have in reserve.

Honey, I shrunk the wash bag

I’m a bit obsessive about downsizing every item I carry. A good example is my wash bag - I decant things into smaller bottles, I buy travel-sized packages (e.g. miniature tubes of toothpaste), I collect samples from magazines, and (confession time) I steal stuff from hotel bathrooms. I even buy lightweight clothes and shoes.

My off-the-bike Camper shoes - smart, comfy and, yes, lightweight

So here, for the record, is my checklist for my circuit ride of the Czech Republic. The asterisked items go in my handlebar bag for easy access and/or security. Almost everything else is packed in my rear panniers (wrapped in plastic bags to keep the rain out).

Clothes
1 set of summer cycling clothes (top, shorts, socks, shoes, mitts)
1 change of clothes (including shoes) for the evening
Helmet
plus (depending on the weather forecast)
1 thermal layer (long/short-sleeved base layer, long-sleeved top, arm warmers, leg warmers, long-finger gloves)
1 rainproof layer (waterproof jacket, rainlegs, overshoes)

Tools, spares and accessories
Small bottle of oil
Spare inner tubes, cable, chain link
Puncture repair kit
Hand pump
Multi tool
Short length of duct tape
Small cleaning rag
2 water bottles plus cages
Bike lock
1 pair disposable plastic gloves

Other gear
Mini travel towel
Toiletries
Pack of tissues*
Travel wash for clothes
Travel first-aid kit*
Eyewear*
Sun cream*
Cash and cards*
Mobile phone* + charger
Compact camera*
Pen and notepad*
Maps*
Passport*

Online cycling map of the Czech Republic and Slovakia

2011-02-09T18:38:00.003+01:00

About a year ago I wrote a post about Czech cycling maps. In it, I concentrated on the various series of printed cycling maps available, and I only mentioned the online Cykloserver cycling map of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in passing. However, the link I gave to this map has since become the number one exit link from my site. In other words, people click on it and never come back here.

There’s a good reason for this. The Cykloserver “Cykloatlas” contains pretty much all the information you need to plan a cycling route in either country. On top of that, it costs nothing to use and you don’t even have to register. I’m a huge fan. And no, I’m not in any way connected with the site or with the company that set it up - SHOCart.

For international visitors, one of the best things about the Cykloserver map is that it’s available in English. To toggle between the Czech and English versions, you first have to switch the header on. This you do by clicking on “Hlavička ON/OFF” (or “Header ON/OFF”) located on the far-right hand side of the blue menu bar. Then click on the British flag in the top left-hand corner of the screen to get the English language version.

To see the cycling routes, you have to zoom in to at least 50% of the maximum magnification (as indicated by the scale on the left). Marked bike paths are shown as purple lines and unmarked ones as pink lines. The lines are unbroken, dashed or dotted depending on the surface quality of the trail. The official route numbers are also indicated. A full key will appear on the right if you click on “Map key” in the menu bar. If you need any more help, try clicking on the question mark in the menu bar.

You can draw a route directly on the map by clicking on “Draw a map”. You can also add points of interest and view the length and elevation profile of your route. Other useful functions are available in the dropdown “Map layers” menu. For example, click on “Cyclists welcome” to reveal officially certified bike-friendly places to stay, eat and visit, and on “Places of interest” to display, well, places of interest. When you’ve finished plotting your route, you can export it as a GPX file. You can also import routes from other applications using the “Import” command.

To sum up, the online Cykloserver Cykloatlas is an indispensable aid to planning a cycling trip in the Czech Republic or Slovakia. Just don’t forget to come back here when you’re done there!

Stage 7 route plan

2011-01-24T18:20:00.003+01:00

Stage 7 will be the last leg of my jaunt around the Czech Republic, the one that takes me back to Bohumín, where I started my journey in May 2010. It’s another long stage across some arduous terrain. Day 1, however, should be relatively easy, taking me over the low-lying flatlands of southern Moravia, past the tripoint with Slovakia and Austria, and into the foothills of the Western Carpathians. Then things get seriously hilly as I negotiate the series of mountain ranges running along the Czech-Slovak border (the White Carpathians, the Javorníky and the Beskids). The highest point on the stage will be Čartak viewing tower at 950 m above sea level. From there I’ll enter Slovakia and head further east until I reach the Czech-Slovak-Polish tripoint near Hrčava. Then I’ll turn north and descend into the historical Polish town of Cieszyn, the final overnight stop of my trip. The last section is a short, flat run around the back of the city of Ostrava to Bohumín railway station.

View Stage 7 in a larger map

Date: Autumn 2011
Starting in: Břeclav
Ending in: Bohumín
Distance: 400 km approx.
No. of days: 5 (4 nights)
Overnight stops in: Vápenky (@ 110 km), Valašské Klobouky (@ 185 km), Bumbálka (@ 265 km), Cieszyn (@ 355 km)
Bike type: MTB

Stage 7 elevation profile

Stage 6 route plan

2011-01-18T21:34:00.002+01:00

It’s a long stage, this one, but it’s the flattest one of them all - especially once I’ve completed the first day’s ride between Horní Dvořiště and Nové Hrady. With a bit of luck I’ll have the prevailing wind aiding my progress as well. I’ve cycled through this region before, on my way to Vienna on the Prague-Vienna Greenways route. This time, though, I’ll be criss-crossing the border with Austria to vary things up a bit. Points of interest along the way include the northernmost point of Austria, the tripoint where the historical borders of Bohemia, Moravia and Austria meet, two national parks (Podyjí in southern Moravia and Thayatal in Austria) and several historical towns (Slavonice, Hardegg, Znojmo and Mikulov). And just before I end the stage in Břeclav there are two real treats in store in the form of the Pálava Landscape Protected Area (a UNESCO biosphere reserve) and the immediately adjacent Lednice-Valtice Area (a UNESCO world heritage site). I just hope I’ll find time to sample some of the region’s best-known products - its excellent wines.

View Stage 6 in a larger map

Date: Summer 2011
Starting in: Horní Dvořiště
Ending in: Břeclav
Distance: 380 km approx.
No. of days: 5 (4 nights)
Overnight stops in: Nové Hrady (@ 60 km), Slavonice (@ 155 km), Znojmo (@ 250 km), Mikulov (@ 335 km)
Bike type: MTB

Stage 6 elevation profile

Stage 5 route plan

2011-01-11T18:13:00.002+01:00

Šumava - the largest continuous area of forest in Central Europe and the biggest national park in the Czech Republic - is the setting for Stage 5 of my trip. It’s a stage of two halves, this one: a brutally hilly first 100 km and a flatter latter section. Instead of following the relatively easy Šumava Cycle Trail (Šumavská magistrála), I’ve elected to use lesser known and - I hope - more interesting paths that pass through some of the remotest areas of the park. The climbing begins as soon as I leave the official start in Nýrsko and culminates the next day at the viewing tower on top of Poledník. At 1,315 metres above sea level, this will be the highest point of my entire journey around the Czech border. Later, I’ll be passing by the source of the Vltava, the river on which Prague stands. Things should get a lot easier on day 3, when I hit the 45-kilometer-long Schwarzenberg Canal, formerly used to transport timber out of the forest towards Vienna. As well as the Czech Republic, I’ll be riding through parts of Germany and (for the first time on my circuit ride) Austria. And if time allows I’ll take a detour in search of the most southerly point in the Czech Republic, before catching the train home from Horní Dvořiště.

View Stage 5 in a larger map

Date: Summer 2011
Starting in: Nýrsko
Ending in: Horní Dvořiště
Distance: 210 km approx.
No. of days: 4 (3 nights)
Overnight stops in: Železná Ruda (@ 30 km), Strážný (@ 100 km), Vyšší Brod (@ 195 km)
Bike type: MTB

Stage 5 elevation profile

Stage 4 route plan

2011-01-08T16:51:00.002+01:00

I’m not sure why, but I’ve had a sense of foreboding about Stage 4 right from the start. It’s certainly not the longest leg of my trip - in fact, at an estimated 270 km it’s going to be one of the shortest. Nor it is the most mountainous, although you could not describe it as flat (as the profile below graphically shows). It does, however, pass through one of the most sparsely populated and least-frequented parts of the Czech Republic - the Bohemian Forest (Český les). During the Cold War, this area was out of bounds to all except border guards, as it formed part of the Iron Curtain that descended across Europe after World War II. Indeed, for much of Stage 4 I’ll be travelling along the official Iron Curtain Greenway cycle trail. My base for the first two nights will be Cheb (one of the few towns on this stage). This will allow me to leave most of my stuff in the hotel and cycle super light around the Aš salient on day 1. Then I’ll pack my bags and head south, crossing in and out of Germany until I reach Nýrsko, gateway to Šumava National Park. Along the way I intend visit the westernmost point of the Czech Republic and (according to one definition at least) the geographical midpoint of Europe. However, that gut feeling of mine tells me things might not go entirely to plan...

View Stage 4 in a larger map

Date: Spring 2011
Starting in: Aš
Ending in: Nýrsko
Distance: 270 km approx.
No. of days: 4 (3 nights)
Overnight stops in: Cheb (@ 75 km), Přimda (@ 165 km), Babylon (@ 230 km)
Bike type: MTB

Stage 4 elevation profile

Surprise, surprise

2011-01-06T17:00:00.000+01:00

As you can see from the photo, I’m busy planning the remaining four stages of my circuit ride. In doing so, I have discovered - to my surprise - that I am almost halfway around the route already. Last year I rode the northern border of the Czech Republic in three stages, from Bohumín in the east to Aš in the west, covering 1,067 km in the process. All that remains for me now is to cycle back to Bohumín along the southern frontier. And my back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate this is only about 200 km further than I travelled last year.

Which brings me to the surprise announcement I mentioned at the end of my previous post - Circuit Rider’s review of the year: I have decided to try to complete all four remaining stages of my trip this year. My original plan had been to leave Stage 7 until 2012, but I admit it never made much sense to leave things hanging over another long winter. So, if all goes well I’ll have completed my cycling circumnavigation of the Czech Republic by the end of 2011.

I’ll be rolling out my route plans for the remaining stages in the course of this month. However, I can already reveal that along the way I’ll be dropping in on all four countries neighbouring the Czech Republic (Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Poland) as well as visiting the westernmost, southernmost and easternmost points of the Czech Republic. Bring it on!

Circuit Rider’s review of the year

2010-12-30T17:16:00.010+01:00

In line with this blog’s long tradition of breaking the mould, I’ve decided to end 2010 by doing exactly what every other blogger is doing at the moment, i.e. writing a review of the year.

I had intended this to be my 100th post ever, and so it would have been if I’d had more spare time and anything very substantial to write about in the icy run-up to Christmas. Not to worry - 97 may not be a very round number of posts, but it’s not a bad total for a blog that only came into life just over a year ago.

You might say that launching a cycling blog in November, i.e. right at the start of the winter, was a rather silly thing to do. And you’d be right, of course. However, it did at least give me time to develop my initially non-existent blogging skills in relative private.

For the first few months I focused on planning my circumnavigation of the Czech Republic. Slowly but surely, I built up some content on the site. By March, though, I’d realised that hardly anyone was reading it. I discovered that to find an audience, you need to network with other blogs and relevant websites and register with the major search engines. This I duly did, and before long I was starting to get a few returning visitors - and even some followers - in addition to the one-hit wanderers who make up most of my pageload stats. To my delight, I began to hear from complete strangers. With one notable exception (“Your writing is stereotypically stereotypical”), their comments were all kind and complimentary.

Official start, Bohumín railway station, 14 May 2010

The trip itself finally began on 14 May this year. It was drizzling with rain as I arrived at the official start point - Bohumín in the northeast of the Czech Republic - and the conditions got steadily worse from there. Such was the downpour, in fact, that several towns and villages were flooded soon after I passed through. More than once I considered packing it in and going home. The high/lowlights of Stage 1 included a recurring puncture, a moment of the soul, being offered (and declining) a lift from a passing motorist in the pouring rain, chancing upon a haunting (and possibly haunted) old Sudeten German church, and riding the road to Hell.

Abandoned Sudeten German church

Also in May, my blog made the shortlist of five nominees for best Commuter/Travel Biking blog at Crank. In the end, Going Slowly deservingly rode away with the prize, but I was surprised and flattered even to get nominated.

Reschensee in the Italian Alps

In June I took a break from cycling around the Czech border by... cycling from Munich to Venice (with a couple of friends). Again, bad weather took its toll, especially in the Alps, but we got to Venice safely and had a great holiday. You can read about it in my post Cycling the Via Augusta - with bronchitis.

The Izera River, separating Poland from the Czech Republic

Stage 2 of my jaunt around the Czech border started in Náchod in July. Along the way I successfully hunted down Krakonoš, legendary lord of the Giant Mountains, did battle with washed-away Polish cycle trails, traversed the stunningly beautiful Izera plateau, visited the “tripoint” where the borders of the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany all meet, reached my furthest point north, and even found time to visit Switzerland (Saxon Switzerland, that is).

The Czech-German-Polish tripoint

Just two weeks later, almost unbelievably, more catastrophic flash floods swept through the areas I'd been cycling through, killing several people.

Ryan and I on Děčín town square

By contrast, not a drop of rain fell on Stage 3 of my tour, which started on the banks of the River Elbe in Děčín in September. I spent the first two days riding through the Ore Mountains in the company of my great friend and frequent cycling companion Ryan. He’s such an extrovert, it was almost inevitable we’d end up singing songs late into the night with a party of Germans in the pub. After parting company with Ryan I rode to the summit of Klínovec, the highest point of my trip so far. The next day I reached my final destination for 2010 - the town of Aš in the far north-western corner of the Czech Republic.

Haj viewing tower above Aš

That, pretty much, was my circuit-riding year. I’ve enjoyed re-reading my old posts and reminiscing about my travels, but now it’s time to look to the future and start planning the remainder of my trip - from Aš back to Bohumín. And that’s exactly what I intend to do in my first few posts of 2011.

Oh, and you can expect a surprise announcement in January as well.

Happy New Year, folks!

Simon

Happy Christmas

2010-12-23T14:24:00.000+01:00

Just a quick post at this hectic time of year to wish you all a Happy Christmas, whether you celebrate it with fried carp on Dec 24 (like the Czechs) or with roast turkey on Dec 25 (like the Brits) or both ways (like me!).

All the best,

Simon

Stage 3 on Bikemap.net

2010-12-17T14:44:00.000+01:00

This, folks, is the route I followed this September on Stage 3 of my ride around the Czech Republic.

Bike route 776103 - powered by Bikemap

Win city walk iPhone applications

2010-12-09T16:33:00.001+01:00

Circuit Rider CZ has joined forces with GPSmyCity.com, an iPhone software developer focusing on self-guided city walking tour apps, to bring you a special quiz about the Czech Republic. Everyone who sends the correct answers to the ten questions below to quiz@gpsmycity.com will be awarded three city walk iPhone applications to cities of their choice. With over 2,000 walking tours available - spanning over 180 cities worldwide - GPSmyCity.com is the largest travel portal of its kind.

Good luck!

1. Prague's oldest, most well known and famous bridge was named in the honour of a king. Can you guess who?
A. Charles IV
B. Louis IV
C. Rudolf IV

2. The capital of the Czech Republic, Prague, is also the capital of a province and former kingdom. Which of these is it?
A. Moravia
B. Silesia
C. Bohemia

3. Holding a lot of the world's records, the Czechs are considered to:
A. Eat most sausage per capita than anywhere else
B. Drink more beer per capita than anywhere else
C. Have most castles per capita than anywhere else

4. Can you guess how many of the Czechs have completed at least secondary education?
A. 85%
B. 90%
C. 95%

5. The Czech language belongs to the Slavonic family of languages. Which language is of another origin?
A. Polish
B. Bulgarian
C. Albanian

6. On which river is Prague situated?
A. Danube
B. Elbe
C. Vltava

7. Which word, with an apparent English origin, traces its beginnings in the Czech language?
A. Sword
B. Robot
C. Sugar

8. What personality from the following list is not a famous Czech?
A. Gregor Johann Mendel
B. Franz Kafka
C. Gottfried Leibniz

9. Prague is famous for having presented to the world one of these incredible dances. Which one?
A. The Polka
B. The Waltz
C. The Foxtrot

10. Tourists visiting Prague are definitely going to be impressed by this wall constantly covered with graffiti and lyrics in honour of a world famous artist. Can you take a guess who that might be?
A. John Lennon
B. Jim Morrison
C. Elvis Presley

Stage 2 on Bikemap.net

2010-12-08T17:32:00.003+01:00

I've now added my Stage 2 route to Bikemap.net. Stage 3 will follow soon.

I particularly dig the way the bicycle icon travels along the route when you run the mouse cursor over the elevation profile. Nice!

Bike route 771190 - powered by Bikemap

Christmas present ideas for cyclists

2010-12-04T13:53:00.004+01:00

Yes, the festive season is upon us. Snow is blanketing the country and I’m suffering from my first post-Christmas-party hangover. It’s time to squeeze this blog into its Santa suit and bring you a sackful of Christmas gift ideas for cyclists. Ho ho ho!

Idea No. 1: Rainlegs

Rainlegs - absurd, but effective

Rainlegs were, without doubt, my best - not to mention kinkiest - cycling purchase of the last year or so. They saved my bacon (or at least my hams) during the cold and wet Stage 1 of my Czech border ride in May. Indeed, I was so impressed, I persuaded my two cycling pals Ryan and Ciaran to invest in them at the start of our Munich-Venice trip in June. They'd have been turkeys not to, as we spent the next few days in a downpour up in the Alps. Click here for a description of what they are and what they do.

Idea No. 2: A Cycling Chic T-shirt

Copenhagen Cycling Chic is far and away the sexiest cycling website of them all. That’s partly because it is, in fact, a fashion blog disguised as a cycling blog (motto: “Style Over Speed”). And as you would expect, it has a very cool range of T-shirts. I’ve just taken delivery of two of them and I’ll be sporting them next year.

Idea No. 3: A recycled inner tube laptop bag

It always grieves me to throw away old inner tubes, but what else can you do with them? Well, one idea is to recycle them into laptop bags. It might sound implausible, but that’s exactly what British charity Oxfam is doing. If you’re after an environmentally friendly, ethical and useful gift, you need look no further.

Idea No. 4: An iPhone app

The Cyclemeter app

I’ve no doubt that many millions of readers of this blog will wake up on Christmas morning to find that Santa has brought them an iPhone. But an iPhone without a cycling app is like a Christmas tree without baubles. So, courtesy of the guys at Loving the Bike, here’s a whole list of them.

Idea No. 5: A bike

If you truly love someone, you should buy them a bike for Christmas. No, really, you should. There are, of course, thousands to choose from, but I’ve quite fallen in love with this Czech beauty from Citybikes. The video below is in Czech, but you can still watch and drool. Now all I have to figure out is how to break the news to Mrs Circuit Rider.

Migration to Bikemap.net

2010-11-30T20:21:00.004+01:00

I'm in the process of transferring the routes of the first three stages of my circumnavigation of the Czech Republic to Bikemap.net, where they will be on display to the world and his bicycle.

Stage 1 is there already (see below), complete with photos of points of interest along the way. Stages 2 and 3 will follow soon. Ultimately, all seven stages will be posted there, provided of course I successfully complete the rest of my ride.

Note that these maps show the route I actually followed and therefore differ partially from the route plans I published previously.

Bike route 767423 - powered by Bikemap

Five fave photos

2010-11-26T16:45:00.002+01:00

Winter is upon us in Prague. This morning there was frost glistening on the rooftop outside my flat. A smattering of snow is forecast for the weekend. I’m planning to keep cycling as much as I can in and around Prague throughout the winter. However, I won’t be able to resume my ride around the Czech border until next spring, and that seems an awfully long way off at the moment. To console myself, I’ve been looking back at the photos of my travels earlier in the year. It occurred to me to put together some of my favourite snaps that hadn’t made into any previous posts. So here they are.

Trees cowering from the wind

The first three, as it happens, were all taken on Děčínský Sněžník mountain. This photo was taken at the Dresden Viewpoint. Here, the cruel north wind blows straight up a vertical rock wall and into the vanguard of trees at its top, bending them back and stripping them bare. Life on the front line.

Spiral staircase inside Děčínský Sněžník tower

I’ve taken numerous pictures of viewing towers and views from viewing towers this year. But this is the first view of the innards of a tower I’ve posted so far. My friend Ryan, who joined me for the first two days of my ride through the Ore Mountains, managed to quell his fear of heights and steady his hands long enough to get this shot of me.

Trance-inducing trees

I love the texture of these trees photographed from the top of the tower. I have this set as the desktop background on my computer. It sends me into a trance if I stare at it too long.

Border sign (17 May 2010)

An unexceptional photo this one, but emblematic of my borderland wanderings. I’ve seen lots of signs like this, and I’ll no doubt see many more. Usually they just say “CAUTION! National frontier”, but this one adds “running along stream”. The river in question is the Divoká (“Wild”) Orlice in the Eagle Mountains.

Ještěd from Poland (26 July 2010)

Ještěd is my favourite Czech mountain and I like to climb it every spring to mark the official start of my cycling year. I’ve tackled it from all sorts of angles, but this was the first time I’d seen it from the Polish side of the border.

Little Otik is one year old today

2010-11-18T14:35:00.002+01:00

It’s exactly one year since this blog - an ongoing account of my cycling circumnavigation of the Czech Republic - stuttered into life. To celebrate its birthday I’ve baked a lovely virtual cake.

I must confess that I had no idea what I was getting into when I started blogging. If you’d asked me back then, I’d have guessed that creating the blog itself would be the hardest bit and that writing up my adventures would be the easiest. After all, I am a writer of sorts (a professional translator), so how difficult could it be to create some content?

Well I can tell you now that I had it completely the wrong way round. Despite the fact I’m no computer geek, Circuit Rider CZ had a remarkably easy birth. Thanks to Blogger, it was up and running in no time at all. Sure, I’ve had a very steep ride up the learning curve since then, but it’s not hard to get hold of simple advice about RSS, HTML, URL, FTP and the like when you need it.

Writing blog posts, by contrast, has proved to be a whole lot tougher than I expected. I wasn’t encouraged when some kind soul commented under one of my first entries that my writing was “stereotypically stereotypical”. Still, I guess if you stick your head over the parapet, someone is going to take pot-shots at you. Thankfully I’ve had only positive feedback since then.

When I’m translating, I always have a source text to work with. When blogging, however, I start with a blank screen, and that can be very daunting. It’s also a very time-consuming process - not just writing, but also formatting the text, inserting photos and other graphics, checking facts and so on. It takes me just as long to write up each stage of my trip as it does to cycle it.

Above all, however, a blog needs feeding constantly. Otherwise, it withers and dies. After all, who is going to follow a blog that has no new content from one week to the next? I have nicknamed my blog “Little Otik” (or Otesánek in Czech), after the central character in a macabre Czech folk tale of the same name. Otik is a tree stump which comes to life after being adopted by a childless couple and which subsequently develops an insatiable appetite. In 2000 the story was made into a stop-motion animated film by Jan Švankmajer. You can get a taste for just how surreal and black it is by watching the trailer below. I don’t want to spoil the plot, but suffice it to say I’m heading for a sticky end if can’t keep this blog under control.

Little Otik - NOT for the squeamish!

Don’t get me wrong, I have really enjoyed my first 12 months as a blogger. It’s been well worth the effort. I’ve learned a heck of a lot, I’ve met some interesting people and I’ve created a great record of my cycling exploits over the past year. And I have - I hope - provided some entertainment and useful information to my readers along the way.

Happy birthday, my voracious Little Otik!

Prague Airport by bicycle

2010-11-16T09:54:00.006+01:00

If you’re planning to start and/or end a cycling tour in the Czech Republic, you may be wondering how to get from and to Prague Airport with your bicycle. It’s not easy on the face of it; bikes are banned from the vast majority of the city’s buses, and the metro and tram lines don’t even run to the airport. Yet there are few options available. Read on for a guide.

Prague Airport

The first (and easiest) option is to use the AE Airport Express bus service operated by Czech Railways. The buses run every 30 minutes between the airport and the main railway station (Hlavní Nádraží) in the city centre. (Those going towards the airport also stop at Dejvická, while those running from the airport stop at both Dejvická and Masarykovo Nádraží railway station.) The journey takes around 35 minutes. Bikes go free but must be packed ready for air travel. Tickets can be bought from the driver. The basic fare is CZK 50 for adults (CZK 30 to/from Dejvická) and the child’s fare (6-15 years) is CZK 25 (CZK 15 to/from Dejvická).

AE Airport Express

You’ll find timetables for the AE service in the pdf files at the bottom of this page. The bus stop at the railway station is on Wilsonova Street outside the station building. The Dejvicka stop is at the bus terminus by the metro station. There are two stops at the airport, one outside Terminal 1 and the other outside Terminal 2.

Another way to get to Prague Airport is to cycle there. You’ll find a cycle map of Prague here (cycle routes are indicated on this map by purple lines and yellow numbers). My advice is to start by taking the metro to Dejvická at the end of line A. That way you’ll avoid the crowded city centre. Bikes can be carried free in the rearmost space of each carriage (maximum two bikes per carriage). Access can be a problem in the rush hour, especially at the busy central stations, but at other times you should be okay.

Bikes go free in the Prague Metro

At Dejvická, follow the signs for the airport bus. After emerging from the station, cycle west (i.e. away from the big roundabout) up Evropská Street. The first section is a bit hairy, but after about 1 km you’ll pick up a cycle path running alongside the road. This path ends at Divoká Šarka (at a McDonalds drive-in). Continue along the main road (or, if you prefer, cross over to the other side and cycle along the parallel side streets). Just before you reach the Prague ring road (beltway), join the track next to the road and cross the highway using the pedestrian tunnel. Then join the A168 cycle path (marked with yellow signs), which will take you all the way to the airport.

View Prague Airport Run in a larger map

If you’re coming from the airport, simply do the reverse trip. Turn left out of the Terminal 1 building and walk along the pavement (sidewalk). About 50 yards beyond the end of the building take the left-hand branch of the path as shown in the following image. This is where the A168 cycle route starts - you'll soon see the signposts.

View Larger Map

The final way to get to the airport is to take a taxi. Prague taxi drivers are notorious for ripping off foreign tourists. Worse still, you may find they’ll refuse to carry your bicycle even if it's packed (this happened to a couple of friends of mine a while back). However, AAA Radiotaxi are very reliable and should oblige if you phone them in advance and explain what you’re trying to do.

Feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions. Šťastnou cestu (bon voyage), as the Czechs say!

Cycling in Prague - My Top Ten Tips

2010-11-06T17:25:00.006+01:00

Prague isn’t known for being cycle friendly. Quite the opposite - it’s a hilly city with lots of tramlines and narrow, cobbled streets. Worse still, the drivers are notoriously aggressive. But things are getting better. The city authority has invested heavily in cycling infrastructure in the past few years, and biking is booming. Here are my top ten tips for cycling in Prague. Feel free to add your own in the comments section below.

Prague - gorgeous, yes, but cycle friendly?

1. Get a free map
Prague City Hall publishes a very useful cycling map of the city. A new, updated edition comes out in September each year. Copies are available free of charge from the Prague Information Centre at Prague City Hall (Mariánské náměstí 2, Prague 1), from the information desks at city municipal offices (listed here), or from Bajkazyl. Alternatively, check out the online interactive version or pdf version.

Cycling map of Prague

2. Choose the right ride
Forgo your fixie and relinquish your road bike. Most locals ride hybrids or MTBs, and with good reason. You need a machine with sturdy wheels, soft suspension and a gamut of gears to overcome the city’s many bumps and humps in comfort.

3. Take a tour
Perhaps the easiest way to see the best of Prague by bike - especially if you are here on holiday - is to go on a cycling tour of the city. City Bike, Praha Bike and Prague Experience offer various guided tours. Or if you just want to rent a bike and do your own thing, you could also try Bajkazyl or Okolo.

4. Ride the river
There’s two ways of dealing with hills as a cyclist: either learn to love them, or never go near them. If you prefer the latter option, my tip is to cycle along the river. The A2 trail runs all the way through the city from north to south along the right bank of the Vltava. Apart from a tricky section in the city centre (near Charles Bridge) it’s almost entirely away from motor traffic. And it is, most definitely, flat.

The A2 cycle trail at Modřany

5. Use public transport
Prague’s excellent public transport system is getting more cycle friendly by the year. It’s a great way to get you and your bike to the city’s cycling hotspots. Bicycles can be transported free of charge on the Metro system, on certain tram lines in certain directions, on the funicular up Petřín Hill, and even on the little ferries that cross the Vltava. Be aware, however, that there are various rules and restrictions in place. You can find basic information in English here. I plan to cover this issue in more detail in a later post

“Transporting Bicycles in the Prague Public Transport System”

6. Tear up the trails
Right, that’s the hills dealt with. But what about those pesky drivers? Again, the best way is to avoid them altogether. Prague has plenty of parks and beauty spots with off-road trails designed specifically for cyclists. Check out Stromovka, Letná, Divoká Šárka, Prokopské údolí or Kunratický les, for example. You’ll hardly know you’re in the city.

Divoká Šárka in Prague

7. Be a weekend wheeler
Another way to dodge the traffic is to ride at the weekend rather than on workdays. In the summer, Prague’s residents leave the city in droves on Friday evening and don’t return until late on Sunday. As a result, you’ll find that the roads are quieter and the drivers more relaxed at the weekend.

8. Use the facilities
The pub and cafe owners of Prague know a business opportunity when they see one and are catering more and more to the thirsty and hungry cyclist. There are now loads of bike-friendly watering holes on the main cycle routes through the town. Exploring these places is one of the fun things about cycling around the city.

One of the many restaurants on the riverside A2 trail

9. Clear off somewhere else
If, despite all my assurances, you really can’t face city cycling, then it’s easy enough to hop on a train and head out into the lovely countryside outside Prague (check out this post for advice on trains and this one for cycling trip tips).

10. Just get out there!
I hope I’ve convinced you that Prague and bikes do mix. With a little bit of knowledge, there’s a lot of fun to be had.

Job done for 2010

2010-10-31T16:17:00.003+01:00

Stage 3, day 4 (Tuesday, 21 September 2010)
Kraslice to Aš (68 km)

It’s decision time. Do I keep going straight down the main road to the finish at Aš? Or do I have time for one last scenic detour through the forest? Stages 1 and 2 of my journey around the Czech border (ridden in May and July of this year respectively) both culminated in a mad dash to catch the train home to Prague. I don’t want to repeat that mistake this time. On the other hand, I don’t want this ride to end yet; I want to squeeze every last bit of goodness out of it before bottling it for the blog. I check the map and check my watch and I do the mental arithmetic. And then, with a big smile on my face, I turn right and disappear into the trees.

The road out of Kraslice

Another day, another morning climb. As I left Kraslice the sun was still burning away the remnants of the dawn mist. I was cold at first but soon warmed up as the road got steeper and my work rate increased. Half way up the hill I stopped to catch my breath and take in the ravishing views of the Ore Mountains behind me. Then I continued over the crest and hit the long descent to Luby.

The Ore Mountains in retrospect

Musical instruments - especially violins - have been made in this part of the world since the early 17th century. The mouth-organ is said to have been invented in Kraslice, and I own a clarinet produced at the Amati factory there. In 1921, over 4,000 people were working in the music industry in nearby Luby and surrounds. However, the industry had to be rebuilt almost from scratch after the area’s majority ethnic German population was expelled from Czechoslovakia after World War II. In Luby I saw signs for two master violin makers and one guitar maker, and on the steep climb out of town I passed the locked gates of a long-closed violin factory.

Vildštejn Castle

By late morning I arrived in Skalná, a small town dominated by Vildštejn Castle, one of the few surviving Romanesque castles in the Czech Republic. Dating back to the late 12th century, it has recently been reconstructed and is now open to the public. Just down the road, in Starý Rybník (“Old Pond”), was another ancient castle, this one a mysterious ruin standing at one end of the stretch of water that gives the village its name.

Castle ruins in Starý Rybník

At Vojtanov I parted company with the Ore Mountains Cycle Trail, which I’d been following - on and off - all the way from Děčín three days earlier. Although I stayed on the Czech side of the border, I was now entering the Aš salient, a narrow protrusion of Czech territory surrounded on three sides by Germany. Around here it felt a bit like being actually in Germany: the roads were freshly paved, pensioners were out enjoying themselves on electric-powered bicycles, and for a while there was even a dedicated cycle path running alongside the highway.

A farewell to the Ore Mountains Cycle Trail

Near Hazlov I found myself riding alongside a golf course clearly aimed mainly at a well-heeled German clientele. Having spent the last few days cycling across wild mountain moorland it was very odd to be suddenly confronted by such a well-manicured, saturated-green landscape. I stopped to watch one chap teeing off at the 11th hole as his female companion looked on from behind the wheel of an electric buggy. “Nein!” he yelled in disgust as the ball flew low and hard in the wrong direction.

“Nein!”

I continued through lovely rolling countryside, my mood only mildly marred by a road cyclist who overtook me without returning my greeting. It was just down the road that I made my decision to take the diversion described at the top of this post. I didn't regret it, even though I lost a fair bit of altitude in the forest and had to make it up again on the road into Aš. The end was almost in sight, so I didn’t mind this one last climb. It took me up to Háj, a hilltop observation tower on the edge of the town. A sign at the entrance said, “Whoever climbs Háj every day will live to be 90”.

Háj viewing tower (built in 1902-03)

Háj was a suitable place to formally end this stage of my cycling circumnavigation of the Czech Republic. From the top of the bullet-shaped tower I could see not only where I’d come from (the Ore Mountains to the east), but also where I’d be heading next spring (Chebsko and the Upper Palatinate Forest to the south). My goal to cycle the entire northern border of the Czech Republic in 2010 had been achieved. I spent quite a while up there on my own, savouring the moment.

Views east...

...and south

I freewheeled down into Aš, arriving there a comfortable hour before my train was due to leave. The man at the tourist information centre recommended a pub nearby, where I treated myself to a late lunch of cauliflower soup and chicken schnitzels washed down with a well-earned half-litre of Kozel beer. From there it was 6-minute bike ride up to the railway station and a 6-hour train ride back to Prague.

Still life in an Aš pub

Bogland

2010-10-22T18:51:00.006+02:00

Stage 3, day 3 (Monday, 20 September 2010)
Vejprty to Kraslice (72 km)

Almost every day of my ride around the Czech border so far has started with some sort of climb. It’s the last thing any cyclist wants first thing in the morning. And today’s is a real beast - ten miles almost continuously uphill to the summit of Klínovec, the highest peak in the Ore Mountains. It’s a long way above my starting point, Base Camp Vejprty - a full 1,670 feet in fact, making it one of the biggest ascents of the entire trip. Worse still, it’s a decidedly chilly out here and I’m cycling into a pretty hefty headwind.

My hotel in Vejprty - The Harlekin

After checking out of Hotel Harlekin in Vejprty I cycled upstream along the Polava (Pöhlbach), which forms the border between the Czech Republic and Germany. A steam train came puffing towards me on the other side, but by the time I’d fished out my camera it was disappearing smokily into the trees behind me. Further down the road Fichtelberg Mountain came into view, with Oberwiesenthal - the highest town in Germany - nestling below it. But it was not until I’d passed through Loučná and hit the first steep part of the climb that I first glimpsed Klínovec towering above me.

View up to the top of Klínovec (4,081 feet above sea level)

I made slow but steady progress up the flank of the mountain, battling into a strong breeze on its more exposed sections and gladly accepting the shelter of trees when it was offered. About a mile from the top I turned off the main road and onto the final approach. A group of runners were jogging down in the opposite direction. A final burst of effort took me around the last bend and into the summit car park. I arrived at ten past eleven, some 90 minutes after setting off from Vejprty.

Crumbling summit buildings on Klínovec

In its present state Klínovec would make a good location for a horror movie. The place was suitably chilly and desolate even in this relatively clement weather. The summit buildings, including the observation tower (built in 1884), were in a dilapidated state and strictly off limits to visitors. Even the views up here were marred by the tatty, out-of-season clutter of the skiing industry.

View from the top of the Ore Mountains

I spent quite a while atop Klínovec, sending messages and taking photos to record this landmark of my trip. On the way down, the cold west wind gave me such a blasting I had to seek refuge in a guesthouse in Boží Dar in order to defrost. A mug of mulled wine and an excellent plum tart soon put me to rights.

Boží Dar, the highest town in the Czech Republic

I struck out across the Boží Dar peatbog, the largest nature reserve in the Ore Mountains and without doubt the most beautiful section of my lap of the country so far. On my left-hand side, Božídarský Špičák, an extinct volcano, swelled above the surrounding moorland. Further on I came across a small herd of longhorn cattle grazing lazily on scattered hay.

Božídarský Špičák, the highest basalt volcano in Eastern Europe (fortunately extinct)

I cycled along the Blatenský Příkop, a 7½-mile-long water channel dug way back in 1540-1544 to serve the tin and silver mines that used to dot the landscape hereabouts. I turned off the main road past a large group of German cyclists and rode up to the viewing tower at the top of Blatenský vrch. A man in a takeaway van at the base of the tower sold me an entrance ticket and I climbed the 85 steps to the top.

Start of the Blatenský Příkop

By now I’d worked up quite an appetite, so I freewheeled down to Horní Blatná, where a group of Dutch school kids were being taught how to use their hired mountain bikes. In a pub on the town square I tucked into the classic Czech dish of svíčková (slices of beef in a sweetish creamy sauce, served with dumplings and cranberry preserve) and watched the lads outside pulling wheelies to impress the girls. At an adjacent table another group of cyclists - this time Czech MAMILs (Middle-Aged Men in Lycra) - were also taking a late lunch.

Blatenský vrch viewing tower (built 1912-13)

Just out of Horní Blatná I turned off the highway onto a narrow road running through dense forest. I was on my own now. Every mile or so I passed a shelter intended for cross-country skiers in the winter. I re-emerged on the main road at Jelení, site of a Nazi labour camp and tin mine during WWII.

Přebuz Moor (with no sejpy in sight)

North of Přebuz I stopped to look for “sejpy” (hummocks left over from ancient mining activity). They were marked clearly enough on my map, but, try as I might, I couldn’t see them on the ground. After a while I gave up the search and continued across Přebuz Moor. Much of the 10-foot-thick layer of peat that used to cover this land was dug up for fuel long ago and the area is only now slowly returning to its natural state. I recently went to a recital given by the Nobel-prize-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney. He read a poem called Bogland, which instantly transported me back to my sojourn in the Ore Mountains.

Every layer they strip
Seems camped on before.
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.
The wet centre is bottomless.

A long, bumpy, winding descent down Rájec Valley brought me out at a village named Nancy. I was now close to my destination for the day - Kraslice. However, time and the weather were on my side, so I decided to take the long way round, up to the viewing tower at Olověný Vrch (or Bleiberg in German). A group of pensioners out walking gave me some welcome encouragement up the climb. A sign at the roadside informed me that the tower was closed on Mondays, but I kept going to the top regardless. It was indeed shut, but the view was worth the effort.

Olověný Vrch (built in 1933)

I arrived at my guesthouse in Kraslice, Pension Krista, at about 5 p.m. The guy at reception seemed confused by my arrival and even showed me to the wrong room. I had a coffee in the restaurant downstairs while he got himself organised. The reason for his muddled state became clear as he showed me the way to the bicycle shed: he’d got married just two days earlier. Obviously he was still recovering.

Church in Kraslice

The restaurant shut early that evening. After dinner I tried and failed to summon up the energy to brave the cold night air in Kraslice. Instead I had a quiet night in writing up the events of the previous few days for the blog.

2 become 1

2010-10-13T10:13:00.006+02:00

Stage 3, day 2 (Sunday, 19 September 2010)
Mikulov to Vejprty (85 km)

Our arrival in the breakfast room at Hotel Ice-Axe causes some merriment, especially when Ryan announces - in clear Donegal Czech - that his head hurts. I phone Mrs Circuit Rider to wish her a happy birthday. She knows immediately that we were partying the night before, as my voice is down by about an octave, probably from singing Ring of Fire too loud. With just five hours sleep behind us and residual alcohol still tainting our veins, we’re not in great shape for the strenuous day’s cycling ahead. We breakfast on bread, cheese and a couple of ibuprofen.

Ryan on the inevitable morning climb

In the cool bright morning we climbed quietly back up to the plateau and continued to the top of Mount Bouřňák (“The Stormy One”). Near the summit is a 180-year-old coppice of beech trees contorted by the wind and icy cold into bizarre shapes. The average temperature up here is less than 5 degrees above freezing and snow lies on the ground for up to 140 days of the year. Overwhelmed by the early morning ascent, Ryan lay down at the top of the ski run while I took photos.

This circuit riding is hard work

After rejoining the Ore Mountains Cycle Trail we headed west on quiet mountain roads, bothered only by the occasional rasping German motorcycle. We came across an odd building that we mistakenly assumed to be an abandoned military watchtower. Take a look at the picture below and see if you can guess what it really is. I'll put the answer in the comments below this post.

Can you tell what it is yet?

We skirted the shores of Fláje Reservoir, where saffron milk caps and other wild mushrooms were growing profusely at the roadside, and rode on through the wilderness to the border crossing at Mníšek, where we entered Germany in search of lunch. Neighbouring Deutscheinsiedel was mysteriously deserted and its sole restaurant (also empty) didn’t take credit cards, so we backtracked to the Czech side. There we found the entire lost population of the German town buying garden gnomes from a Vietnamese market and eating Czech food in a huge Vietnamese-run restaurant. We found a vacant table next to a life-sized model tiger and ordered noodles.

Černy Rybník ("Black Pool") near Mníšek

From Mníšek we pedalled along the frontier to Hora Svaté Kateřiny (St Catherine's Mount). I’d read somewhere that this was the prettiest village in the Ore Mountains. True, it doesn’t a have a great deal of competition for this title, but neither of us was much impressed with it. Even the viewing tower there was a bit of a letdown after the grandeur of Děčínský Sněžník the day before.

Viewing tower at Hora Svaté Kateřiny

A mid-afternoon snack of pancakes and coffee gave us a much needed boost for the long climb that followed. Ryan - who hadn’t had time to train for this trip - began to suffer, but in typical fashion he soldiered on without a word of complaint. We couldn’t afford to hang about, as he needed to catch the Sunday evening train back to Prague. At the top of the hill we took a right turn and pushed on through one of the prettiest sections of the route so far that weekend.

Ryan leaves me to catch his train (with three other cyclists in hot pursuit)

Ryan and I parted company in Kalek. Ahead of him was a ten-mile descent to Chomutov; ahead of me were another two days cycling solo across the Ore Mountains. I’d grown used to Ryan’s amiable company and I felt a pang of loneliness as I watched him disappear into the trees. The fact that I didn’t see a soul in the forested peatland that lies between Kalek and Highway 7 at the Pohraniční border crossing only compounded this feeling.

Typical peatland scenery in the Ore Mountains

At Pohraniční I admired the little memorial to Saxon folk hero Karl Stülpner, the “Robin Hood of the Ore Mountains”, who roamed this land some 200 years ago. In the nearby petrol station I treated myself to a bottle of coke and drank it as I rode along the busy main road, cheering myself up further by waving at oncoming cyclists. After about a mile I turned right onto a deserted woodland trail running along the border. At the bottom of a steep hill I emerged at Přísečnice Reservoir, its surface shimmering in the evening light. The ill-fated town of Přísečnice, where Stülpner once lived, used to stand here. Its ethnic German populace was expelled from the country after World War II and the remains of the town were demolished in the early 1970s to make way for the reservoir. Today I had the place all to myself.

Přísečnice Reservoir, early evening

Feeling enervated, I rode into the setting sun along the main road to Vejprty, my destination for the day. Just off the town square I asked a local whether there was a cash machine nearby. Without breaking step or uttering a word he first shook his head and then nodded. Fortunately his second answer turned out to be the right one. A few minutes later I was feeling flush with cash for the first time that weekend.

Vejprty square

My home for the night - Hotel Harlekin - was about a kilometre south of Vejprty town centre. I was given a friendly welcome and - compared to the previous night’s accommodation - quite a luxurious room on the top floor. That evening I dined on pork chop while my hosts watched Czecho-Slovakia’s Got Talent at the other end of the room. Just as I was finishing up, my mobile phone beeped. It was Ryan texting me to say he’d made his train and was already back home in Prague.

Be nice to yourself

2010-10-06T10:52:00.009+02:00

Stage 3, day 1 (Saturday, 18 September 2010)
Děčín to Mikulov (63 km)

The two of us are taking a breather at a roadside picnic table half way up the 90-minute climb to Děčínský Sněžník on the Ore Mountains Cycle Trail. Ryan - who is accompanying me on the first two days of this stage - is texting our friend and partner-in-cycling Ciaran to let him know we’re on the road again together, this time in the northwest of the Czech Republic. Turns out Ciaran is in Greece and has just broken his arm - after falling off his bike! One of Ciaran’s mottos is “Be nice to yourself”. Where breaking a limb - or, indeed, riding over the Alps with bronchitis (as Ciaran did with us in June this year) - fits in with that I’m not entirely sure. Anyway, we send him a message recommending he take plenty of ouzo to aid his recovery, then we get back on our bikes and continue grinding up the hill.

Official start, Děčín town square

Ryan and I met at Prague’s main railway station at half eight on Saturday morning and loaded our bikes onto the Děčín train. Taking Ciaran’s “be nice” maxim to heart, Ryan very kindly upgraded us both to first class and we had an old-fashioned compartment all to ourselves for the entire ride north. From Děčín railway station we cycled across the River Elbe for the obligatory official start photos in the town centre. Then it was back over the bridge and straight onto one of the biggest climbs of the entire four-day trip - up Děčínský Sněžník mountain. This was not being very nice to ourselves.

Bridge over the Elbe at Děčín

Quite a few locals were out hunting for wild mushrooms in the forest. Each time we passed one of them, Ryan would ask “Rostou?” (“Are they growing?”). The response, almost without exception, was a cheerful “Yes!” and a friendly wave. Czechs are quite a dour and reserved bunch; it’s funny how fungi can lift the national mood.

Rock climbers on the cliffs below Děčinský Sněžník

Near the summit the road winds steeply through a wall of rocks. I stopped to take a photo of a climber silhouetted against the sky at the top of the cliff face above us. Just as I was about to press the shutter, however, he sat down and went partly out of view. Ryan saw this as he pulled up behind me and helpfully bellowed “Stůj!” at the guy. He was trying, of course, to say “Stand up!”, but what he was actually shouting was “Freeze!”. The climber looked startled, but fortunately didn’t slip from his lofty perch.

Me doing the Romantic Poet thing at the Dresden Viewpoint

We tarried at the “Dresden Viewpoint”, which, as the name more than suggests, affords views as far as Dresden (although we needed the help of a passing party of German ramblers to spot it), then we rode the final, flatter, half-mile to the 99-foot-high viewing tower at the summit. It was here in 1936 that the first television signal was picked up in Czechoslovakia (broadcast from the Berlin Olympics).

Děčínský Sněžník viewing tower (built in 1864)

I learn something new every day on this tour; today I learned that Ryan has a fear of heights. However, even he - while clinging to the crenellations - had to admit that the vistas from the top were worth the effort.

Ryan trying not to look terrified

We decided to give the overpriced summit restaurant a miss and descended to Sněžník village for lunch at a pub there. The waiter kept speaking German to us, even though we were talking Czech to him. (This was to happen repeatedly over the next few days - the region gets a lot of German tourists, so when the locals hear someone speaking Czech with a foreign accent they tend to assume they are dealing with Germans.) As we were setting off again the waiter came outside for a cigarette break. He told me he was a cyclist himself and had recently done a tour of Scotland and northern England with a group of friends. We compared notes on cycling on Skye.

During lunch we’d discovered that despite all our careful planning we only had about 2,000 crowns (about $100) between us. By the time we reached the border village of Petrovice it was clear we had no chance of finding a cash machine in such a remote area. Instead, Ryan tried his luck in a petrol station. (I should point out here that he has such a gargantuan gift of the gab that one wonders just what he got up to with that Blarney Stone.) I waited outside, admiring the garden gnomes that Germans like to buy at border crossings.

Why do Germans buy this tat?

Ryan emerged some time later after buying 1,380 crowns worth of cigarettes on his credit card and immediately selling them back to the girl behind the counter for cash. Job done, as he would say.

In the final months of World War II, several “death marches” passed south through the Ore Mountains from evacuated concentration camps in Germany. On one of these marches 59 prisoners were killed near the village of Fojtovice. A sombre roadside memorial marks the site.

Death march memorial and grave of an unknown Red Army soldier

We were now in the Eastern Ore Mountains Natural Park, over 2,500 feet above sea level. Farmland had given way to upland wilderness. We took a break at a tiny stream meandering along the borderline and larked around for a while jumping from one country to the other.

Ryan strikes a pose on the German side of the brook

In the late afternoon we arrived in the frontier town of Cínovec. The name comes from the Czech word for tin (cín), and tin mining here dates back to at least the 14th century and possibly even to Celtic times. Over the centuries, silver, tungsten, molybdenum and quartzite have also been extracted here. At one time there were 140 mines in the locality. All that is gone now. As we cycled through, we saw lots of disused buildings. The town now lives mainly off tourism and passing border traffic.

Old German church in Cínovec

We picked up the Ore Mountains trail again by a golf course, where a group of lads were furtively picking magic mushrooms (Ryan: “Are they growing?”). From there we crossed the Cínovec moor and entered a beautiful mountain forest. On the other side we were treated to magnificent views of the Bohemian plain to the south. The final section of our day’s ride was a cold, winding descent halfway down the side of the plateau to the accommodation I’d booked in Mikulov.

Evening view from the Ore Mountains plateau

Hotel Cepín (“Ice-Axe”) looked nice enough from the outside. In fact, it even looked okay on the inside - downstairs at least. True, the staff seemed a bit surprised to see us, but they were friendly enough. Upstairs it was a rather different story: tiny rooms, communal showers and toilets, no towels - the classic (very basic) Czech ski lodge. “Didn’t you check the internet?” said Ryan, unimpressed. “What happened to being nice to ourselves?”

The Ice-Axe Hotel in Mikulov

In the end we were glad we decided to stay, as Saturday night at the Ice-Axe turned out to be quite a party. After chatting to the staff at the bar for a bit we went to the guesthouse next door, where we joined a party of Germans singing songs in the corner. Ryan did a rendition of his favourite Scottish folk song, and in return one of them sang the Czech song Modlitba pro Martu (“A Prayer for Marta”), which he’d learned on Wenceslas Square during the 1989 revolution. At closing time we returned to our hotel, where a school reunion (25 years on) was in full swing. It was 3 a.m. before we turned in.

Stage 3 slideshow

2010-09-27T22:00:00.000+02:00

I'm afraid I've been far too busy recently with work, home improvements and imbibing wine in a Moravian wine cellar to write up stage 3 of my spin around the Czech border yet. However, I have found time to put together a slideshow of this latest leg of my journey. You'll find it in the left-hand column of the blog, or you can access the photos directly here. I've included some captions to explain what's going on.

Stage 3

Stage 3 completed!

2010-09-21T15:49:00.004+02:00

Pictured is the viewing tower (yes, another one) on Haj (pronounced "high"), which stands - ahem - high above the town of As in the northwestern corner of the Czech Republic. It marks the end of stage 3 of my jaunt around the Czech border. I'm now on the long slow train back to Prague for a well-earned rest. Stage 4 starts in spring 2011.

Oh no, not another tower!

2010-09-20T22:23:00.002+02:00

Yes, this time it's the one on Blatensky vrch Mountain. I've visited five observation towers so far this weekend, although sadly two were shut. I expect to clock up a couple more before I reach the end of stage 3 in the town of As tomorrow.

Greetings from crumbling Klinovec...

2010-09-20T11:35:00.001+02:00

...highest peak in the Ore Mountains and highest point on stage 3 (1,244 m above sea level).

Goodbye Guest Rider CZ!

2010-09-19T21:09:00.002+02:00

Thanks, Ryan, for keeping me entertained, amused and on the beers over the past two days. Your enthusiasm, good humour and tenacity on even the toughest climbs were, as ever, an inspiration. I felt a genuine pang of sadness as you disappeared into the trees. Can't wait for your return as Guest Rider on stage 4 in the spring.

In awe at the Ore Mountains

2010-09-19T20:53:00.001+02:00

Today we passed through some of the wildest areas of the plateau. Wild mushrooms were growing in profusion all along the way. Ryan and I parted company in the late afternoon. He headed downhill to Chomutov to catch his train back to Prague while I continued to Vejprty, arriving at my hotel just as the sun was touching the horizon ahead of me.

Mikulov sing-song

2010-09-19T08:56:00.001+02:00

I've woken up with a slightly sore head. Yesterday Ryan and I cycled up the long climb to Decinsky Sneznik (pictured). We spent the afternoon riding through the Ore Mountains before descending to our (very basic) hotel in Mikulov. In the evening we sang Irish songs with a party of Germans, gate-crashed a Czech school reunion and crashed out very late. Today is going to be a struggle.

Stage 3 coming right up!

2010-09-15T14:34:00.002+02:00

Stage 3 of my cycling circumnavigation of the Czech Republic starts this coming Saturday. For the first two days I’ll be riding in the company of a very special guest - my great friend and partner-in-cycling Ryan. The two of us are veterans of several long-distance trips (Prague-Vienna-Bratislava, Prague-Munich, Prague-Berlin, Munich-Venice), and Ryan is now keen to get a taste of the Circuit Rider experience. Having cycled the first two stages alone I’ll be glad of his company.

Ryan (on the right) and I in Italy earlier this year

I was originally planning to do stage 3 on my road bike. However, Ryan only has a mountain bike and it doesn’t make sense for us to ride two completely different types of machine. Besides, I’ve since discovered some tempting off-road sections on the map, so it’s the MTB I’ll be loading up on Friday.

I've also changed the schedule. The original plan was to do this leg of the journey in three days. However, after ending both previous stages exhausted after a mad dash to catch the train back to Prague, I’ve decided to take it easier this time and spread the distance over four days. This should also allow more time to investigate places of interest along the way.

As on previous stages I’ll be blogging on the go from my mobile phone. This means you can track our progress by tuning into the blog periodically. For the most part we’ll be following the Ore Mountains Cycle Trail. The route is described in more detail here.

View Stage 3 in a larger map

The plan is to take the Saturday morning train up to Děčín (where I ended stage 2 in July). After exploring the town and grabbing some lunch we’ll head up into the Ore Mountains (Krušné hory). The first overnight stop will be in a small mountain resort called Mikulov. We’ll do a full day’s riding on Sunday then part company late in the afternoon; Ryan will coast down into Chomutov to get the evening train home while I will continue to Vejprty on the border with Germany. Over the following two days I’ll make my way southwest, stopping in Kraslice on Monday night and reaching the endpoint - Aš - on Tuesday afternoon. From there I’ll catch a slow train back to Prague.

And do you know what? The weather is set fair! Could this be the first rain-free stage of my trip?

New Czech road signs and road markings for cyclists

2010-09-12T09:12:00.002+02:00

A few new road signs and road markings for cyclists come into force in the Czech Republic on 14 September this year. Read on for a quick guide to the changes.

New road signs

Potentially the most confusing new sign, I think, is “IS l0e”, which gives cyclists the option of turning left “indirectly”. It’s designed for use at busy junctions where the usual method of turning left - i.e. taking up a position just right of the middle of the road and waiting for a safe gap in the oncoming traffic - might be dangerous for cyclists. This sign recommends instead that you pull over on the right-hand side and then either ride or push your bike across the road when it is safe to do so. But surely cyclists do this already? Is the sign really necessary?

IS l0e “Recommended manner of turning left for cyclists”

Next up is sign E 12b, which allows cyclists to travel the “wrong” way down a one-way street. It complements the existing sign E 12, which informs road users that cyclists may be travelling in the opposite direction down a one-way street. There's one of these near where I live and I must say it feels strangely liberating to ride straight on when all the cars are required to turn right.

E 12 “Cyclists travelling in opposite direction”

E 12b “Cyclists permitted to enter in opposite direction”

Sign E 12b in action

Sign E 12c below indicates which directions cyclists are permitted to go at a junction where the road has two or more lanes. It seems to be designed mainly for situations where motor traffic in the right-hand lane is allowed to turn right only; the sign below would indicate that cyclists may go straight on without having to move into the left-hand lane.

E 12c “Permitted direction of travel for cyclists”

The final new sign indicates the end-point of a numbered cycle trail. For more information on cycle route signposting in the Czech Republic, click here.

IS 21d “End of cycle trail number 16”

New road markings

The following markings are painted directly on the road. Many cyclists in Prague will be familiar with number one: the “pictogram corridor”. Such corridors are used in places where there isn’t enough room to put a cycle lane of the legally prescribed minimum width. They don’t give us cyclists any rights, but at least they draw motorists’ attention to our existence and direction of travel. I certainly feel safer in them, but that doesn't mean I really am safer of course.

V 20 “Pictogram corridor for cyclists”

Would you feel safer cycling in a "pictocorridor"?

And finally, the method for marking cycle crossings directly adjacent to pedestrian crossings has been standardised. The lane for cyclists can be black or painted red (or some other colour) as shown below.

V 8b “Cycle crossing attached to pedestrian crossing”

But will the existing crossings be repainted accordingly?

If you want more information (and you understand Czech), I suggest you consult the relevant regulation here or read this related article (and the long subsequent discussion) at NaKole.cz.

What do you think of the new signs and markings? Do they make sense? Will they make the Czech Republic’s notoriously dangerous roads any safer for cyclists? Feel free to add your comments below.

Germany-Switzerland-Czech Republic - in an afternoon!

2010-09-06T15:41:00.006+02:00

Stage 2, day 5 (Tuesday, 27 July 2010)
Zittau to Děčín (120 km) - Part 2
(read Part 1 here)

Down, down, deeper and down. I’m on the long, winding descent through Saxon Switzerland National Park and I’m in a rush. I’m travelling over loose gravel and I'm having to concentrate hard to find a safe line through the tricky bends. The deeper I go, the darker it gets, as the low sun fails to penetrate the forested gorge. I’m entirely alone in this eerie, twilight world. Everyone else has escaped to the safety of civilisation before night falls. Now and then I pass a small sign indicating the direction of the cycle trail, but it doesn’t tell me which trail I’m on, or where it’s leading. If I get lost now in this rocky labyrinth, I can forget about catching the last train back to Prague this evening; I’ll be here all night.

The cycle trail running through Saxon Switzerland

Just after reaching the most northerly point of my cycling circuit of the Czech Republic I emerged on the highway near the aptly named village of Severní (“Northern”). From there I headed south to the border at Dolní Poustevna and crossed back into Germany. I rode straight into the centre of Sebnitz and straight out the other side. That’s another thing I like about Germany: its clear urban road signs. Towns in the Czech Republic can be difficult to navigate through; Sebnitz, by contrast, was a piece of cake. Mind you, all this fine signposting didn’t stop a car crammed with teenagers sailing past me through a no entry sign and almost colliding with an oncoming vehicle.

Sebnitz town square

By now I’d already covered over 90 km, yet I still had a long way to go to the finish in Děčín. I suddenly felt very heavy-legged and couldn’t force myself to go any faster along the switchback road to make up time. A young racing cyclist came flying past me on a particularly steep hill, dealing a blow to my morale. After making a questionable decision to turn right at Saupsdorf, I lost a lot of altitude very quickly and had to make it up again very slowly and painfully on the road to Hinterhermsdorf, gateway to Saxon Switzerland National Park.

Fischer-Art-Haus in Sebnitz

On the way into the park I passed a tide of human foot traffic coming in the opposite direction. After a while the road ended and turned into a gravel trail that snaked downwards for a couple of miles between the park’s sheer rock formations. I was already apprehensive about missing my train, and the slippery surface, lack of useful signs and increasing gloom only added to my anxiety.

The valley floor in Saxon Switzerland

Eventually I hit the valley floor and, to my relief, spotted a sign telling me that the Czech border was just 1 km away. I was where I thought I was. The surface of the trail improved considerably after I crossed back into the Czech Republic at Zadní Jetřichovice. I was making good, if not swift, progress steadily uphill through Bohemian Switzerland National Park until I suddenly hit a short but brutally steep section of trail. In moments I was in bottom gear and wishing I could change down further. With my energy reserves dwindling I opened up my emergency rations and started knocking back glucose tablets.

Border crossing between Saxon Switzerland and Bohemian Switzerland (neither of which, confusingly, is in Switzerland)

From the top of the climb it was downhill all the way to Hřensko - at 115 metres above sea level the lowest point in the Czech Republic. To begin with the descent was steep and rough, but I soon hit the main road and enjoyed a more gentle downhill spin for about 10 km. I flashed past a stream of sweaty road cyclists coming the opposite way, testing themselves on the incline.

Hřensko (another town hit by catastrophic flooding not long after I passed through)

I reached Hřensko just before 6 pm. I had originally intended to catch the ferry across the Elbe there and ride down to Děčín along the dedicated cycle path on the other side of the river. However, time was still tight so I elected to take the main road. This allowed me to ease off the pace for the final section of stage 2 of my trip. Even so, I was utterly exhausted when I reached Děčín railway station. In the end I got there with about half an hour to spare.

The Elbe River disappearing into Germany

On the platform I realised I didn’t have any small change to pay for transport of my bike. I explained this to the very friendly guard and he told me not to worry about it. Evidently a cyclist himself, he was more interested in admiring my traditional Brookes leather saddle than collecting money from me. Before long the bike was safely stashed in his van and I was heading back home to Prague with stage 2 of my trip completed.

Goulash guzzler reaches furthest point north

2010-08-31T14:26:00.007+02:00

Stage 2, day 5 (Tuesday, 27 July 2010)
Zittau to Děčín (120 km) - Part 1

I love German hotel breakfasts! Stuffing oneself with as much food as possible first thing in the morning can be a laborious process. But it has to be done, otherwise you can "bonk" (run out of energy) before lunchtime. Food equals fuel when you’re cycling long distances. Calories become your friend, not your enemy. And when the breakfast table is groaning under the weight of such an opulent selection as it is at Hotel Dresdner Hof this morning, tanking up is not a chore, it’s a pleasure.

Zittau on a Tuesday morning

After breakfast I pedalled into the quiet historical centre of Zittau to check out its Italianate town hall and Church of St John, then I headed south along the Nisa back to the tripoint I’d visited the day before. After taking some more photos - this time on the German side of the river - I started the steady climb (why does my day always start with a climb?) through the forest to Oybin. The sun was shining and I soon had to stop to strip down to my summer gear and slap on the sun lotion.

Back at the tripoint - I'm standing in Germany; behind me is Poland on the left and the Czech Republic on the right

Sign pointing towards other Central European tripoints

Oybin is a pretty spa town nestling below an enormous sandstone dome. A narrow-gauge steam railway takes visitors there from Zittau.

The rock dome that towers above Oybin

The road out of Oybin was steep, very steep. I ascended slowly, stopping about halfway up to admire a rickety old ski jump engulfed by the trees. At Hain my efforts were repaid with a long smooth descent. I coasted through a couple of tidy German towns then crossed the border at Varnsdorf. I knew I was back in the Czech Republic when a female driver started mouthing off at me for riding too slowly and impeding her progress for a full second or two. I regret to say that I lost my rag and hurled some abuse back before regaining my usual Zen-like composure.

The derelict ski jump above Oybin

I decided to visit Hrádek, a hilltop viewing tower that stands at the northern edge of Varnsdorf on the border with Germany. I’m glad I did, as I was rewarded not only with fine views, but also with a personal guided tour by one of the charming women who work there. Built in 1904, Hrádek was used as a watchtower during the communist era and later fell into severe disrepair. It was renovated in 2001–2003 with the aid of private donations and EU money, and was voted Czech Facade of the Year 2005. As well as recounting the history of the building, the guide told me all about the factories in the local area. It was good to see someone taking a pride in their town. I was reminded that these are living, working communities I'm passing through, not just tourist destinations to be ticked off on my ride around the country.

Hrádek: view from below...

...and view from the top

From Varnsdorf I cut across Germany (through Seifhennersdorf) and re-entered the Czech Republic near Rumburk. On the run into the town I stopped at a pub for an alfresco lunch of goulash (for the second day running). Feeling fortified, I made rapid progress along a lovely forest trail to Šluknov, the northernmost town in the Czech Republic. I’d stopped here a year earlier en route to Berlin with my two great partners in cycling, Ciarán and Ryan. We’d been unimpressed with it then; today it looked more appealing in the afternoon sunshine, but it's a town that has evidently seen better days.

Šluknov town square

Coming out of Šluknov I had to stand for quite some time at a crossing waiting for a train to pass through. Standing beside me was a couple of senior citizens out on their bicycles. I hope I’m still enjoying my cycling at that age.

Close to the border I turned into a dense forest and hit a switchback section of trail. At the bottom of a rough descent into the tiny village of Liščí I ran - almost literally - into a pair of German women cyclists. One of them presented me with a woefully inaccurate map and asked me where they were. (When she saw how out of breath I was she also gave me a hug, which was rather nice of her.) I pointed them in the direction of the nearest town, but I’m not sure they trusted my map-reading skills. I hope they found their way home okay.

Menhir No. 2 - Modern art takes to the forests of Šluknov

Shortly after this encounter I reached the northernmost point of my entire circumnavigation of the Czech Republic. To be honest I passed it without noticing, as I was becoming increasingly distracted by a more pressing issue. Somehow, despite all my planning, I’d vastly underestimated the distance I had to cover that day. I had been intending to catch the last train home to Prague from Děčín that evening. Yet I still had the whole of Switzerland to ride through...

To be continued - here

Heaven and bagpipes

2010-08-22T16:40:00.005+02:00

Stage 2, day 4 (Monday, 26 July 2010)
Szklarska Poręba to Zittau (119 km)

When Czechs want to compare and contrast two very different things, they describe them as being like “nebe a dudy” - heaven and bagpipes. Well, if yesterday, with its agonising ascents and tooth-rattling descents, was bagpipes, then today is pure heaven. I’m on the lofty Jizera plateau and there’s not a soul in sight. There are rainclouds all around, but the sky directly above me is clear. The landscape up here is gorgeous, so gorgeous it makes the hair on my arms stand up. Moments like this remind me why I’m doing this trip.

The Jizera, separating Poland (where I'm standing) from the Czech Republic

The day started with a really steep climb out of Szklarska Poręba, but I was soon onto a flatter deserted road into the Jizera Mountains. Here, the ER-2 cycle trail, which had given me so much trouble the day before, was a joy to ride and I made quick progress up to the wide open spaces of the plateau. I tarried for a while at the point where the trail meets the Jizera River. The ecosystem of the surrounding Jizera Peatland Nature Reserve is only now recovering from the ravages of 20th century air pollution. Despite that, it’s a stunningly beautiful spot.

The trail over the Jizera plateau

I continued to the highest point of the ride today: Polana Izerska (965 m above sea level). After admiring the fabulous views down over the flatlands of Poland I began the steep descent out of the wilderness and into the charming town of Świeradów-Zdrój. There I turned west and before long was back in the Czech Republic.

Świeradów-Zdrój viewed from Polana Izerska

I stopped for a lunch at a pub just over the border in Nové Město pod Smrkem. After filling my belly with cheap goulash I emerged into a warm and sunny afternoon, the first of my entire trip so far. I was so preoccupied by this climatic change for the better that I set off without my handlebar bag. Fortunately it was still sitting on the window ledge outside the pub when I returned a few minutes later.

The ancient remains of St James Church in Jindřichovice

I was now in the Frýdlant region, which is bordered on its eastern, northern and western sides by Poland. I passed the ruin of St James Church and for a while followed the curiously named “Nature Trail through the Environs of Jindřichovice over the Heights of Ideals and into the Valley of the Soul”. This was a lovely section of the route, running gently downhill through a tranquil forest and across open farmland.

Horses grazing somewhere near Pertoltice

Just north of Pertoltice the trail took an unmarked turn across a meadow and through a spinney. Feeling lost, I asked directions from a young woman walking towards me through a waterlogged wheat field. “It’s not much of a bike path,” she told me as she struggled to push a child in a pushchair across the slippery muddy surface.

The cycle path takes another turn for the worse

At Habartice I nipped over the border into the noticeably less wealthy Polish town of Zawidów to see the ruined church there. As I photographed it the bell in the tower tolled the half-hour.

The church tower in Zawidów

Time was getting on so I hurried south along the meanders of the Smědá River through Višňová towards Frýdlant. Less than two weeks later this area would be cut off by catastrophic flash flooding. Today, however, the river - where visible through the trees - looked placid and benign.

Traditional timber-framed houses in Višňová

I freewheeled into Frýdlant in search of coffee and cake, completely forgetting to visit the viewing tower that stands on a hill just north of the town. After getting lost in the backstreets I emerged on the main square and parked myself in a café on the corner. I asked the waitress if they had apple strudel - not an unusual item to find in such places. She shook her head and looked at me as if I’d requested caviar and chips. Instead I settled for honey cake washed down with cyclists’ magic energy potion (or cappuccino, as it was quaintly termed on the menu).

In 1801 Frýdlant became the first castle in Central Europe to be opened to the public

A few miles down the road, in the unusually well-maintained village of Heřmanice, I had similar trouble buying water at a koloniál (general store) - so called because in days gone by they sold goods imported from the colonies. For this particular establishment, however, bottled non-sparkling water proved to be too exotic a request, so I had to make do with the fizzy stuff.

Two weeks after I took this shot on the Czech-Polish border, the babbling brook on the left turned into a raging torrent that took the lives of three people downstream in Bogatynia

I crossed yet again into Poland and rode through Bogatynia, which, according to Wikipedia, is one of the richest towns per capita in Poland thanks to its huge open-cast coal mine and nearby power station. It certainly looked more affluent than the other Polish towns I’d visited.

Turów mine and power station near Bogatynia

On the road out of Bogatynia I saw two baby birds lying on the other side of the carriageway, one tweeting plaintively and the other squashed bloodily into the asphalt. It occurred to me to go and rescue the former when I was almost sent the same way as the latter by an idiot driver flying past about one inch away from my elbow. I’d enjoyed my time in Poland, but I wouldn’t be sad to see the back of Polish drivers in their noisy jalopies. I found them to be even more aggressive than the Czechs, and that is saying something.

As evening fell I reached a major landmark on my circuit ride: the “tripoint” where the borders of Czech Republic, Poland and Germany all meet. I first stood on the Czech side then crossed over a small footbridge into Poland. Just downstream another, larger, bridge over the Nisa (Neisse) River was closed at both ends, so I resolved to visit the German side the next morning.

The tripoint - Poland on the right, the Czech Republic on the left and Germany in the background

At about half past six I left Poland for the last time on this tour probably until 2012 and entered Germany for the first time. I like Germany. It’s had an image problem in Britain since the first half of the last century, but it’s nice to be in a place where everything works, the people are friendly and the service is good. The Germans may seem to be the butt of the joke in that famous Fawlty Towers episode, but John Cleese was really sending up entrenched British attitudes.

A ghost bike points the way to the bicycle store at my hotel in Zittau

I’d covered almost 120 km when I arrived in Zittau, but I felt surprisingly fresh. After checking in to my hotel I dined at a quiet restaurant across the road. With my (very) limited German I managed to order pork topped with more pork topped with melted cheese, which was a bit overwhelming even for this hungry cyclist. By the time I’d finished eating it was getting quite late, so, after a long debate with myself, I decided to postpone my exploration of the town centre to the next morning.

Flash floods in Frýdlant

2010-08-11T21:05:00.002+02:00

Today I was intending to post a write-up of day four of the latest leg of my cycling trip around the entire Czech border. I have been overtaken by events - tragic events.

Last weekend, catastrophic flash floods swept through the German-Polish-Czech border area - the exact same area I had cycled through in late July. At least eight people were killed. Many, many others saw their homes damaged or destroyed. In the Czech region of Liberec alone, 57 towns and villages were affected. Among the worst hit communities were Višňová, Frýdlant, Heřmanice, Bogatynia and Hřensko, to list them in the order I passed through.

The scale of the flooding is clear from the following two videos, both shot in Frýdlant on 7 August 2010. The first needs no commentary. The second shows the town’s main square. The blue corner building visible near the beginning is a coffee shop where I stopped for cappuccino and cake exactly two weeks earlier.

I have a sense of déjà vu about this, as the area I passed through on stage 1 of my trip in May this year was also badly flooded shortly afterwards.

There are so many tragedies around the world. For me, this one is closer to home than most. My next two blog posts - describing the two wonderful days I spent cycling in this charming region - will be dedicated to the victims.

Testing spells and spelling tests

2010-08-09T20:46:00.004+02:00

Stage 2, day 3 (Sunday, 25 July 2010)
Trutnov to Szklarska Poręba (84 km)

Funny things, borders. As I cross into Poland, where I’ll be spending the next day and a half, I feel like I’m somewhere new, somewhere alien and exotic. But the birds and the bees above my head don’t see it that way; they just see more of the same. And the beetle scuttling across the path in front of me just sees more colossal pebbles and towering blades of grass to negotiate - although maybe he should be paying more attention to the bicycle tyres bearing down on him at speed. Oops, sorry Ringo!

I was downstairs at the B&B on Sunday morning before the breakfast room was even open. As the girl brought in the food, Nina Simone was seductively singing “I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl” on the stereo. I suspect the lyrics have a hidden meaning, but I took them at face value and loaded some extra honey in my tea. I was heading into the mountains today; I’d be needing all the energy I could get.

I rolled north out of Trutnov, initially along the Úpa River then up to Stachelberg Fort, built in 1937-38 as part of the Czechoslovak border fortifications against Nazi Germany (the building work was halted by the annexation of the Sudetenland in October 1938; the Germans advanced so quickly the construction firm was forced to leave behind a lot of its equipment).

Stachelberg Fort

From Stachelberg I hurtled down a steep forest trail then regained altitude on the road up to Žacléř. I took a short break in the village of Bobr (“Beaver”) just short of the border with Poland, near where the great Czech educator John Amos Comenius went into permanent exile in 1628.

Tourist information board in Bobr

The hard work started just over the frontier. The road ramped up sharply through the village of Niedamirów and suddenly turned into a very rough track. An amused local started chatting to me as I ground to a halt. Unfortunately I speak barely a word of Polish, but I’m pretty certain I heard him say “crazy”.

The trail leading up into the Giant Mountains

I struggled over that climb, rattled down the other side and joined the ER-2 cycle route, which I was to follow for much of the next two days. Things went from bad to worse. To begin with I missed a turn-off and had to backtrack down the hill. Then I found that a recent flash flood had turned the steepest section of the trail (which, with a grade of up to 33%, would not have been cyclable anyway) into a gully strewn with rocks, logs and other debris. Sucking on energy tablets, I variously pushed, pulled and carried my loaded bike up a 250 m ascent.

This is supposed to be a bike path?! Morale hits a low point.

At one badly marked fork in the path I temporarily abandoned my bike and scouted ahead. To my relief I soon emerged on a wider trail with a decent surface and better signposting. From there I was able to ride up to the highest point of my journey so far, just below a peak called Łysocina. The following rough-and-ready video captures the moment.

The highest point on stage 2: 1051 metres (3448 feet) above sea level

There followed a 500 m descent to the outskirts of Kowary. Normally this would be a reason for great rejoicing, but my anger at Polish cycle-route planners soon turned to vexation at Czech cartographers, who were clearly having a laugh at my expense. Sections marked on my map as roads were in fact insanely bumpy trails. My bike was bucking like a bronco. At last I popped out - shaken and not a little stirred - on a blissfully smooth road leading up to the mountain resort of Karpacz.

View from just below the top of the descent

Karpacz is said to be the home of Liczyrzepa (aka Rübezahl in German and Krakonoš in Czech), the legendary guardian of the Giant Mountains, who also lends his name to the ER-2 cycle route. I can’t imagine he lives there any more. In fact, I bet he lives somewhere deep in the forest and grumbles about how Karpacz has gone to the dogs since he was a lad. It is a truly tacky holiday resort.

I rode at snail’s pace into Karpacz in search of lunch. The place was full of fast food joints offering pizza and kebab. I chose one of the more salubrious-looking establishments and sat down at a table outside. The charmless waitress showed no interest in trying to communicate with a non-Polish speaker, so I pointed at random at a pizza on the menu. While waiting for it to arrive I checked my cycle computer and was disturbed to find that I’d only covered 51 km since breakfast. It was now almost four in the afternoon.

I wolfed down the pizza (topped with ketchup and rancid cheese), had a quick coffee and left Karpacz as fast as I could - which was not very fast at all, because the road out of town kept rising and rising. At the top of the hill was a huge hotel, still under construction and grossly out of proportion with its surroundings.

Sign for the ER-2, aka the Liczyrzepa Trail

I don’t know what they put in that pizza, but it gave me a fair burst of energy. I clocked over 40 mph descending into Przesieka, then overshot my turning and had to ride back uphill. For the last hour or so I whizzed along a beautiful forest trail with a much better surface than I’d experienced earlier. I began to pass joggers and people walking their dogs, a sure sign that I was nearing civilisation again.

Hotel Agat, my home for the night in Szklarska Poręba

I reached Szklarska Poręba at 6.15 pm - not too bad, all things considered. The hotel I’d booked - Hotel Agat - was bang in the middle of town. There was no store for my bike, but they had no problems with me taking it up to my room. After a quick look around the town (again pretty tacky, but less so than Karpacz) I dined in the hotel’s medieval banqueting room. On the waiter’s advice I ordered pierogi ruskie - fried dumplings stuffed with a spicy cheese and potato mix. They were tasty enough, but stodgy and a bit boring.

Pierogi and Żywiec - I must be in Poland

While writing a blog post on my mobile phone I realised I didn’t know how to spell “Szklarska”. I noted down my two best guesses on a piece of paper and asked the waiter which was the right one. Neither, as it turned out. He took my pen and wrote down the correct version for me.

I took another stroll outside. Distorted music was blaring from a bar overlooking the river. It was all too much after such a hard day. Time for bed, I thought to myself as I walked past a life-sized model dinosaur, or I’ll be extinct myself by tomorrow morning.