Apologies for the radio silence

I've been getting spoiled by some folks in the southwest corner of Poland for the last 3 days, which accounts for my lack of posts and photos.  On top of the copious amounts of barbecue, exercise, World Cup, presidential elections and Polish history lessons, I've also been having a really wonderful time.

I'll write of bunch of in depth stuff in the coming days, but for now I'm enjoying getting pampered for a final night before heading off for a 3-day stretch of mild riding between Wroclaw and Krakow.

June 15, 2010 - Kleny to Teplice nad Metuji

Estimated Mileage: 30 miles
Trip Route Link
Photo Album Link

The day started with a hilarious game of charades with the lady who runs the Pension Wolf where I was staying.  I was packing up my bike, and she came out and started motioning to the key.  I tried to hand it to her, and she made a "sleeping" gesture.  I nodded, thinking that she was asking if I slept well.  I nodded, giving a thumbs-up and continued packing.  She then made a "pay-me-now" gesture.  I could have sworn that I paid her the night before, so I busted out the laptop and wrote "I am going to Teplice today and I am not returning".  She slapped her forehead, said goodbye, took my key and I didn't see her again.

After leaving the Pension, I rode through the large-ish town of Nachod.  At the other side of the city a bike trail begins right before crossing over into Poland.  I got to see my first glimpse of the Old Country before heading back into Czech territory.

My destination was a rock formation called "Teplice Skalny", or "Teplice Rocks" right near the town of Teplice nad Metuji.  The road up was beautiful and partly off the highway which made it a nice, slow ascent into the shallow hills.

I stayed at a cheapie pension right at the entrance to the park (about $15/night).  Busloads of students came and went the whole time I was there.  It was obviously a big destination for school field trips from both the Czech Republic and Poland.

The next day was a rest day, so I stayed up late listening to the latest Best Show podcast and tried, unsuccessfully to make phonecalls on Skype using the pension's 1993-speed Internet.

Gear Notes: The Surly Long Haul Trucker

I've been mulling over an initial review of my Surly Long Haul Trucker after a month of serious touring with it. I wanted to get down my current thoughts and then do a follow-up at the end of the trip.

My current feelings about the bike are that it is an extremely comfortable and well-built piece of machinery that has some components that I either should have replaced or were improperly added by myself.

Before I get to the details, I'll just say that when it comes to a bicycle, the most important items for me are:

• Is it dependable?
• Is it comfortable?

To both of these questions, the answer is a resounding "Yes".  The bike has performed really well in some fairly strenuous terrain.  Also, the steel-frame and the general feel of the bike fits my body nicely, and I can pull a 7-hour day (my current limit) with almost no creaks and pains around my body, like I used to get with my old bike.

However, there are a few things I would change right now if I could:

The Racks - I put a high-mounted Old Man Mountain rack on the front, and this was my biggest mistake.

This causes extreme floppiness of the front wheel and gives the bike a pretty bad shimmy if I don't pack it "just so".  In the rear, I've got a Jandd basic rack, which has been servicable, but for some reason feels flimsy to me.  Don't get me wrong, they do the trick, but I would just do something different if I had the time and parts right now.

The Seat - I would've broken in a nice leather riding saddle if I had to do it over again.  Around mile 40, I start needing to give my butt a rest and find myself riding for stretches standing up.  Not terrible, just enough of an annoyance that it would be nice to have something a little more comfortable.

The Tires - The tires that came with the bike are great, but for the route I chose (the Danube, the Czech Greenways then Poland) some slightly thicker tires with bigger treads would've been a plus.  There's been stretches of riding that have been hairier than they need to be because my tires were too skinny.  Again, they're servicable and have obviously done the job so far; it just would've been nice to have something a little different.

The gearing on it is perfect for the kind of riding that I'm doing, so that's a big plus.  The granny gear is great for some of the steeper ascents, but mostly I just keep it right on the second chainwheel, even on 3-4% inclines.  All in all, it's a relaxed enjoyable piece of machinery to ride, and it's been a joy to share the trip with it so far.

June 14, 2010 - Jaromer to Kleny

Estimated Mileage: 20 miles
Trip Route Link
Photo Album Link

This is a day that began very nicely, had a very dark middle and ended on an extremely high note.  I packed that morning, excited to get out of Prague.  The train station was a bit daunting, lugging around my bicycle and all, but it got done.  I even took a few escalators with it, no problem.  I had the whole bike storage thing figured out by then, so I got loaded up and was ready to head to the town of Jaromer, in the northwest corner of Bohemia.

This is a town I knew nothing about except that it was geographically close to the where I wanted to cross over into Poland.  It turns out it's one of the most charming and beautiful places I've seen on this trip.

I found out later that the whole region around Jaromer (and especially the bigger town of Hradec Kralove, nearby) was ground zero in the Austro-Prussian war in the 1860's.  This was a war between the two major empires of the region, Prussia and Austria (the Habsburgs, again), for control of the German confederacy.  At that time Germany was this loose grouping of independent states that were attempting to coalesce into a single country.  But some liked the Prussians and some liked the Habsburgs.  So they fought.  Prussia won and the major decisive battle was fought right near where I am, in Hradec Kralove, called the Battle of Koniggratz.  There's plaques and informational signs dotting the route with information about various skirmishes and side battles that happened in the various smaller towns.  The town where I'm staying tonight, Kleny, was demolished during the war due to Prussian artillery, apparently.

Anyway, I rode around Jaromer, looking for a place to stay.  First I went to the heart of the town, and that hotel was full.  Then I was sent to a neighborhood called Josefov, which turned out to be this insanely cool old fortress town.  It was built by Habsburg Emperor Joseph in the 1790's and never used.  If this place were anywhere near a population center, it would be swarmed with tourists, since it's such a cool piece of history.  Regardless, the hotel there was full too.

I began panicking, imagining myself sleeping in Czech ditch that night, clutching my nutella and jam.  As I was going through the various scenarios, a bolt on one of my rear panniers came off, from the constant cobblestone jarring.

This was the final straw of an extremely stressful 3 hours of going back and forth through Jaromer looking for accomodation.  There I was, a hobo in the parking lot, rooting around on the ground looking for a bolt between the cracks of the cobblestones.  I fixed the bag, re-mounted it, and looked directly ahead of me and what did I see?  A freaking tourist office directly in front of me...

The counter-lady spoke English and helped me immediately find a place to stay about 10 miles out of the city.  I nearly hugged her.  A short ride later and I'm in the Pension Wolf, staying in a nicely appointed room on the banks of the lake for the equivalent of $15.  Things turned out quite well, I must say...

June 13, 2010 - Slavonice to Jindnchuv Hradec

Estimated Mileage: 30 miles
Trip Route Link
Photo Album Link

When you bike simply to get to your destination, rather than enjoying the ride, the trip always seem to take much, much longer.  I had to go only about 25 miles to get to the train station, but I was in a dour mood.  The last 3 days of riding had taken quite a bit of out me.  Between the heat and the general exhaustion and the feeling of being completely out of the loop due to the language barrier, I had had enough.  Even my first stork sighting barely lifted my spirits.

The scene at the train station was appropriately hilarious, with the two ladies manning the counter laughing with me quite a bit at the exasperation of trying to explain how to get onto the train with my bicycle and also how to make a connection.  15 minutes later, various maps, diagrams, arithmatical manipulations and flow charts were written and I had a rough idea of how get to Prague with my bicycle.

Three cups of vending machine coffee later (which was surprisingly o.k.) the train arrived and I was chugging along.  When I transferred trains, I ran into two mountain bikers headed back to the city after a 3-day bike tour.  They spoke some English, and they helped me find the bike storage car.  We sat together for the rest of the trip, talking politics and history and about Prague and whatnot.

Arrival in Prague was predictably nerve-wracking.  However, I found a little pension near the station for a reasonable rate.  Since it was 5 in the afternoon, and I was in Prague, it seems mandatory to do a little sightseeing, even though I didn't really feel like it.  So I went to the old part of the city where all of the tourists are.  Ugh, what a mess.

Swarms of tourists dudes drinking on the streets.  Thai massage parlors above trinket shops.  Buses unloading phalanxes of Chinese tour groups.  And all of this smack dab in the middle of one of the most beautiful cities I've seen.  I just wasn't in the mood for any of it, so I did the compulsory trek around the bridges, the canal and the old town and went back to my room, thoroughly disheartened by humanity in general.

June 12, 2010 - Satov to Slavonice

Estimated Mileage: 50 miles
Photo Album Link
Trip Route Link


The maps had been consulted, the mileage checked and double checked and I had a definite Plan to get to the Polish border by the 18th, when I was slated to meet up with a friend I had met on a bike tourist mailing list.

It was a tought 6 day itinerary, with 40-70 mile days each day.  Nothing I haven't done before, just some hard riding.  Well, I forgot to account for the fact that the first 15 miles were straight through the heart of a FREAKING MOUNTAIN RANGE!!!!

Usually, on normal terrain, I go about 10-11 miles an hour when I have all my gear packed on the bike.  If the terrain is unusually hilly, I go about 8-9 miles and hours.  On the Danube, when it was completely flat, I went 12-14 miles an hour.

Well for the first three hours of this day (in 80-90 degree heat) I went 5 miles an hour.  Most of it was muddy, rocky and looked like this:

I had to walk a good portion of it, since my back tire couldn't get enough traction.  One thing that was very cool was that all of these bright green lizards were sunning themselves along the road, and it looked like the Tour de France with the roadside spectators.  But instead of French sports enthusiasts, they were 3 inch long lizards.

I was now in the midday heat, only having gone 15 miles and completely demoralized.  I got to the end of the hardcore biking and made an Executive Decision (that is, a decision that is made without consulting the Planning Commitee or the Refreshments Committee).  We weren't going to bike all the way to Poland.  A train was in order.

Once that decision had been made, my mood brightened noticeably.  I swung through the town of Vranov, and unexpectedly picturesque town with a dam for swimming and a stunning castle that overlooks it all.

That night, I stayed in a town named Slavonice, a beautiful little Renaissance town that has since been colonized by artists.  There was a powerful lightning storm that kept lighting up my room and making all of the Saturday night bar-goers say "oooooh!" about 30 feet from my pillow.  Consulting Czech Railways, I saw that the nearest train station was 25 miles away.  That was my goal.  I slept the sleep of the dead.

June 11, 2010 - Valtice to Satov

Estimated Mileage: 50 miles
Trip Route Link
Photo Album Link


I had done 70 miles through tough terrain the day before and I was feeling cocky.  "Oh, I can do another 70, not a problem.  Remember: I'm a tough guy".

I set out into a beautiful Moravian morning, admiring the endless vineyards.

The Czech Republic is primarily made up of two distinct regions.  Bohemia, the western, larger part, and Moravia, the eastern part.  I was traipsing along the southern edge of Moravia, making my way through a very rural and hilly part of the country.   From the looks of it, they too had some flooding and rain issues, and it wasn't too long before I found myself faced with a none-too-pleasant proposition.

There was no getting around it, I had to wade through this muck.  When I got to the end of it, my shoes were filled with garbage water and ants.  As I was walking through it, I spooked a number of frogs and they scattered before me.  I had heard stories of bike tourists getting leeches from bathing in streams, so I was on the look out for black things attached to my ankles.

Once the puddle was forded, I stopped at a lunch place and asked for some local wine.  The sweet waitress brought me a pitcher, just for me, at noon.  The church bells were ringing, and I decided that drinking a pitcher of wine on my own in the middle of the day was the right thing to do.

And it was, for about 2 hours.  Then I hit a wall at around mile 45, dragged my ass another 5 miles to the Hotel Satov, run by a Czech man who has an uncanny resemblance to Sean Bean from Lord of the Rings.  I passed out around 8 from the exhaustion and the heat.

When I paid my bill the next morning, he was already tippling the Pilsners at 9 AM with his hotel partner on a Saturday morning.  I think they have a different party schedule than I'm used to.