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

Circuit Rider CZ is up for an award!

Many thanks to those whose nominated this blog for a Crank award. The upshot is that it has made the shortlist of five nominees for best Commuter/Travel Biking blog (out of 44 contenders by my calculations). I must say I'm delighted and more than a little surprised by this. Please support me one more time by going to the Crank website and voting again for Circuit Rider CZ in the final round of voting (which closes on Saturday 6 June). You'll find my blog right at the end of the list of nominees.

I'd also encourage you to check out all the other blogs and vote in all the categories. People put a lot of effort into these things and deserve all the support they can get. As the Crank team say themselves, the awards are just a bit of fun. The main aim is to create the Crank Directory - a complete source of listings for our cycling blog community. I'm convinced it will be a very useful resource both for us bloggers and for anyone interested in reading our stuff.

Crank Rankings - last chance to nominate my blog

Today - 20 May - is the last chance to nominate my blog for the Crank World Cycling Blog Rankings. All you have to do is open the Crank nomination form, add the blog name (Circuit Rider CZ), the URL (http://www.circuitridercz.com/) and your e-mail address, and choose the blog category (Commuter/Travel).

If you've enjoyed reading this blog I'd be very grateful to receive a nomination from you.

Thanks,

Simon

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

This is my 50th post. It's also my most important one so far, as I'm using it to pay several debts of gratitude.

I'm coming home

Looks like my attempt at audio blogging on the go failed. Never mind, I'll try again when I get home - in about 3 hours! Yes, I'm on the train back to Prague after a hypothermia-inducing, white-knuckle ride down from the Eagle Mountains in the pouring rain. Stage 1 completed! Am feeling drained but ever so slightly elated. Pictured: possibly the wettest pair of boots in the Czech Republic.

Audio postcard from Eagle Mountains.

Hope this gets through to the blog ok. I've never tried audio blogging before, so apologies for any roughness at the edges.

The show goes on

I've decided to continue. The rain has stopped, the forecast is not too bad, and I feel refreshed after a good night's sleep and a hearty breakfast. The photo shows Kraliky, where Hitler gave a speech to the then majority German population in 1938. Today I head north to Nachod along the border with Poland. On the way I'll be visiting several WWII fortifications. In the evening I plan to get the train home to Prague, with stage 1 of my journey completed.