The forest is crying

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.

Riding down the Curtain

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

Warming up

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

Job done for 2010

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

2 become 1

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

The forty-nine steps and other thrilling tales

Stage 1, day 4 (Monday, 17 May 2010)  
Králíky to Náchod (98 km)

I peek nervously out of the window first thing on Monday morning. The rain has stopped. My clothes and boots have (almost) dried out overnight. So far, so good. The weather forecast on breakfast TV is not too bad, although they’re showing footage of catastrophic flooding in areas I’ve been cycling through over the past couple of days. I’m feeling much refreshed after a good night’s sleep. At breakfast a fine cup of tea with fresh milk cements my decision. The owner of the hotel is just going into a monologue on the bleak future of “the whites” in Europe when my wife rings from Prague. I tell her I’ve decided to keep going. She doesn’t sound overly impressed.

From Golden Mountains, through the Golden Mountains to the Golden Swan

Stage 1, day 3 (Sunday, 16 May 2010)
Zlaté hory to Králíky (111 km)

I'm up and over another climb. This should be the easy bit: the descent into the Polish town of Lądek-Zdrój. But it's not. The driving rain obscures my vision. There's a hairpin ahead. I squeeze the brake levers, but nothing happens; I'm still hurtling into the turn. I squeeze harder, and harder still. When the rain-sodden brakes do finally bite I'm already into the bend and my rear wheel skates outwards across the wet and potholed surface. I control the skid and keep going. A driver overtakes me. Couldn't he wait for a wider section? Can't he see how the wind is blowing me all over the road? My wind-chilled hands begin to sting. My boots slowly fill up with water. Wasn't this trip supposed to be fun?

Ups and downs

Stage 1, day 2 (Saturday, 15 May 2010):
Opava to Zlaté hory (104 km)

I'm wrecked. I'm still only half way up this climb, but there's steam rising off my back, snot streaming out of my nose and I'm gasping for air. It's been gloomy all day, but it's even darker now as I enter the misty forest and dusk starts to fall. I round the last of three hairpins and grind to a halt. Serves me right for blogging on about loving the hills. Idiot. And then a thought occurs to me. That camera of mine has a video function. Maybe if I film myself it will take my mind off the pain. Perhaps some of the visitors to my blog will even enjoy watching me suffering like this. It's time for Circuit Rider CZ to go multimedia.

Days like this

Stage 1, day 1 (Friday, 14 May 2010): 
Bohumín to Opava (50 km)

Bohumín railway station, 3.25 pm, Friday. Here at last, after months of planning and blogging about planning. The rain is pelting down - not quite what I'd envisaged. A guy in a white vest is leaning out of a window in the building opposite and staring down at me. I feel self-conscious dressed in my wet-weather cycling gear and taking an arm's length photo of myself with the station sign behind me. Still, I've got to have a record of the official start. Line it up, smile, click.

Official start, Bohumín railway station

On the hooks

Recently I wrote about the history of the Czech border region. Now it's time for a geography lesson. Specifically, I want to draw attention to the hook-shaped areas of land that thrust out into Poland and Germany along the Czech Republic's northern frontier. They're called výbežky (projections) in Czech, and there are five of them. I find them fascinating.

Two wrongs

If I wanted to raise the hackles of my Czech friends and family, I could rename my lap of the Czech perimeter the "Tour of the Sudetenland". Certainly if I was doing this trip before 1945, stages 1-6 of my route would pass almost entirely through German-speaking regions. Only stage 7 would be on ethnic Czech territory.

Map of German-speaking territories in today's Czech Republic before 1945

Today, however, all these border areas are inhabited almost solely by Czechs. So why this historical discontinuity?