Day 4: A long day!

For those of you who read yesterday's post about possibly riding where I wasn't allowed to, I finally found a picture of the road sign:



But the one I went past had a blank space for the bike. So I guess I was good? I'm out of the country now!

While yesterday was the most climbing, today was going to be the longest. I know from previous experience that Polish roads are not very good, so I was expecting a rough ride, but at least downhill at the start.

To my surprise, the first 40km or so were wonderful! I found lots of smooth pavement, very little traffic, and sunshine. And downhills!

In the town of Sobota, I rode by this and had to stop to take a picture. I think this is really cool.

That is a stork in the nest. I saw a few of those today.

There was also this random tourist trap with giant carved wood statues.

There were some cobbles today, both on the flats and one particularly brutal uphill section. A driver had cut me off, so I started with absolutely no momentum. However, I was able to make pithy comments to a few random onlookers. One old guy was like, "You can do it!"

I stopped for a short break after about 3 hours, right before riding through the city of Legnica. I had a Coke, a Magnum ice cream bar, and an apple, and bought a Mars bar and a water for the road.

Later, I was very pleased with my decision to stop before navigating the city. Coke is like a magical elixir that greatly improves your ability to think and react correctly. With all the trucks on my route, that was exactly what I needed.

The next section was kind of boring. I was on a state route, with a moderate number of cars passing me. Occasionally, we'd go through a village. There was also a slight head/crosswind, so that was just kind of wearing me down. But my intermediate goal was to get to Rawicz, and then I could stop for another Coke and more water.

As I pulled into a gas station before Rawicz, I then heard the thunder and noticed the dark clouds. I gulped down my Coke so I could get out and try to beat the rain. No dice. I got rained on hard for about 15 minutes while making my way through town. To their credit, the drivers seemed more polite than usual.

Finally the rain stopped and I had bright-ish skies. But I was not out of it yet - the rain started coming down for about the last 90 min of my ride.

Throughout the day, the road quality was mixed. Some of the roads that have been excessively patched are awful. Others were not too bad.

I was very happy to finally see a sign for Krotoszyn, my destination, in 12km. But immediately following this was a warning sign that the road was very rutted for the next 10.5km. So I forged ahead, gritting my teeth.

Finally, I made it to the hotel. The good news is that they let me take my bike to my room, and there was even an elevator. Plus, dinner is about 10 feet from my room, so I can be extra lazy. I did have to do some extra bike maintenance, since my bar tape did a little re-positioning. Good thing I brought electrical tape.

Today's ride was 202km and took me 8:45. I was very proud of my ability to 1) make smart decisions, and 2) persevere through not so good weather conditions. Making it through today gives me a lot of confidence.

Totals so far: 546km/327mi and 25.5 hours. Whew!

Incredulous German Tourists

(I am writing this, all packed up, and waiting for breakfast to open. I was up pretty early in anticipation of a long day today.)

When I pulled into my hotel parking lot around 3:30pm last night, I got checked in and set about task number 1: bike maintenance. This is usually just wiping down and re-lubing the chain, plus checking the bolts to see if all of them are still there. 

As I am wiping down my chain, being very careful to keep any grease away from my mostly white cycling kit, a car with a German license plate pulls up and two couples get out. One of the women is looking at my bike with all its packs and she first asked me if I was Czech. She pointed at the Bollé logo, since Czech does have lots of extra diacritics in their letters. I explained in my bad German that it was a French company, then told her that I was from America, lived in Germany, and I had ridden 120km today to get here. She was in shock. Her first question? "Where is your pump?" 

I have the pump packed in one of the front bags for easy access. Plus I have a canister of pressurized sealant. And I have a few C02 cartridges. And a valve adapter so I can fill up at a gas station. Instead of saying all that, I just pointed to the bag.

Shameless sponsor plug: I brought a big bottle of Squirt Lube with me to keep my chain happy, and it has been super easy to wipe off and reapply at the end of the day. Big thanks to Lisa Roberts, who was my shipping broker and got it to me just in time!

Day 3 - Onwards and upwards

I started my ride at eight am, enjoying the delicious smells of the nearby bakery.

I noticed the day before that there seemed to be a lot of rattling from the front end of the bike, but I chalked it up to the terrible road conditions. When I looked this morning, I noticed that one of my fender bolts had vibrated out. That was an easy fix with a zip tie!

I had much better road conditions today. Except the detour...that road was a little sketchy. It is not very motivating to see road detours when you are riding your bike so far. But I had some nice views of the Czech countryside.

At one point I was back on the more trafficked roads, when I sped past one of those circular "prohibited" signs. I have seen these before as divided into thirds, with a picture of a tractor, a horse-drawn carraige, and a bike. Except this one didn't have a bike picture. I thought to myself "well, I guess it is OK..." but in reality I was going that way regardless. Within a few miles, I saw the police setting up at a speed trap pointing the other direction. I figured they must have seen me, so I spent the next half hour just waiting to get pulled over. 

By lunch time I was running a bit low on water, and it was starting to get a little warmer and sunnier. I stopped at a "motor rest," only to realize it was closed on Mondays. So I then was looking for the closest place that would actually sell water...which turned out to be a butcher shop. I was not in the mood for sausages, so I bought some water, two wafer bars, and a liter of peach nectar and sat down on the carved tree bench out front.

Lunch of champions. That peach nectar was delicious!

The building complex also had some kind of environmental bureu, which I think is why they had all these carved tree sculptures next to the parking lot. Some of them were a bit strange.

Then it was more up and down and up until I hit the Polish border.

My hotel is a wellness spa, so I made sure to go swimming in the healing waters of the pool. It is seriously pretty here. They had a buffet dinner, so I had my fill of lots of meat and veggies.

I was a little nervous about how much climbing there was today, but I made it through OK. I felt better today than after yesterday, and I think that just speaks to how much going downhill on rough roads will beat you up.

Speaking of going downhill on (I'm guessing) rough roads, that is the plan for tomorrow! Wish me luck!

Current total after 3 days: 344km/206mi, 16:45 of riding

Day 2: Take your pick

It appears that at least in the Czech Republic (but I have a sneaking suspicion this will be the case for the rest of the journey) you can either a) ride on rough roads without much traffic or b) ride on decent quality roads that have a lot more traffic. On the few occasions I had smooth pavement and solitude, it was magnificent.

I started later than I wanted to this morning, due to a hold up with breakfast. I am pretty sure I was only person actually staying at this place. The receptionist/bartender/waitress asked me the previous night and I told her I wanted breakfast at eight, when it opened. So I come down at eight and find no breakfast, but instead the cleaning lady who didn't understand English. I made the international eating pantomime and she just shrugged.

I waited for a few minutes, then went back to my room to check what the information card said about breakfast. (It does start at eight.) I then thought that I could speed things along by getting my bike out of the garage. Using Google Translate, I was able to tell the cleaning lady I need the garage remote and set about geting the bike all loaded up while I waited for the mystery breakfast.

The lady offered me some coffee, so I sat in this completely empty dining room enjoying my coffee, when the cook, whom I recognized from the previous night, comes in at 9:15 huffing and puffing. He must have overslept and possibly ran to get there since his jacket was inside out. I thought he might pass out right there. But he made me some scrambled eggs and bread and then I was on my way.

Part of my initial route took me through this forest area that was closed to cars. It was a little foggy and very peaceful. At one point, a deer ran across the road only 50 feet in front of me.

In some places, the roads were OK. But in others, not so much. This is one example of when I actually got off and pushed my bike.

(This was flat, but the sand/giant rock combo was an accident waiting to happen.)

At other times, I was on the secondary roads, which were usually very well paved, had a lot more traffic. Frequently, they also had decent shoulders, so I felt pretty safe riding there.

The landscape as I got further east was much more rolling fields with the occasional random hilltop off the in distance. There are also castle ruins on a lot of the taller ones. I rode by this building with a sign saying it was being renovated.

The combination of the canola fields, which are yellow, intermixed with the red poppies was beautiful.

I'm also pretty sure I rode past a prison. 

Finally, I made it to Lovosice after getting lost twice within a half mile of my hotel. 

I was too tired for any other sightseeing.

My hotel has a jacuzzi, so I definitely hit that up after such a long day.

Tomorrow will be lots of climbing, but my last day in the Czech Republic!

Day 1 - almost beat the rain

I was pretty excited to finally start riding...so after some photos, it was time for me to be on my way. It was a little odd after all of the races I have done; there was no published start time and no starter's gun. But I have ridden the beginning of the route a few times, so it was kind of like just another workout.

Getting out of Germany was uneventful. I did see lots of other cyclists with full pannier bags, especially on the bike path out of Neustadt. And I had to take the obligatory border selfie.

It was now about 1pm, so I figured I'd stop for lunch. There was a duty-free store complex only a few minutes down the road and they had a restaurant. My lunch of pizza, water, and coke was pretty good. And cheap.

After lunch I continued heading eastward and noted that while the landscape looked very similar to Germany, the road quality was definitely lacking. This was not surprising, so I'm glad I bought new gloves and my handlebars have the "squishy zones."

Once I got to the next set of climbs, I was just pushing along while trying to keep things easy. This goes near the spa town of Mariánské Lázně, but I wasn't close enough to see anything. Plus, I was not stopping until I got to the top.

At some point, I started hearing thunder, so that definitely motivated me to pick up the pace a little bit. I only had 10km left to go when I turned onto a beautifully paved road with a slight downhill. For a few minutes, it was absolute bliss.

But then the road got bad again and it started raining a bit. I stopped briefly to put on my rain jacket and within a few minutes it started raining really, really hard. It was getting difficult to see out of my rain covered sunglasses, plus the bike computer's screen was also completely wet. I then realized that my hotel was at the top of this ridiculously steep hill that now looked like a waterslide.

Somehow, I made it. Once at my hotel, there were more challenges. The staircase up to the rooms was crazy. This is the view going down:

You may notice that the steps are notched like filing folders. The pitch was so steep, that was the only way to have enough of a step. Needless to say, I did not bring my bike up. After detaching my bags, the receptionist/bartender gave me the remote to the garage so I did not have to leave my bike in the hallway. There was a cool, old school Skoda in the garage.

So that's my wrap up of day 1. In all, I had a great time! However, I am glad that tomorrow is going to me more downhill than uphill.

Thanks for reading!!

OMG....tomorrow

Well, it is finally almost here. I am actually really looking forward to getting started, mostly so I can stop having the following narrative in my head:
"Yeah, this is going to be a great adventure!"
"What am I doing? This is crazy!"
"What else needs to get done before I leave?"
(repeat 1 million times)

I've done my last few rides with fully loaded bags and the bike handles wonderfully. I don't really notice the extra weight until I am going uphill more slowly or downhill much faster. I would estimate the weight of the bags and gear to be about 25-30lbs.

After five different tries, I finally found a route I am happy with for the first day. It has been very helpful to load up my bags and ride the route, so that tomorrow isn't a monumental occasion. I'm just going to keep going instead of turning home.

(This kind of reminds me of the running scene in Forrest Gump. "I just felt like running." Or in my case, riding.)

So in the words of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment -- it's time to hit the leather and ride!

My new bike plus modifications

(If all you care about is pictures, stop reading now.)

When I dreamed up this trip, I thought I might do it on my old, trusty Merida road bike. But upon further inspection, it did not have the attachment points to add any kind of racks, so my options for bringing gear would be very limited. 

I was very excited to see that Trek offered a line of adventure bikes, the 520, 720, and 920. They are one of the sponsors of the Timex Multisport Team, and I was thankful that they agreed to help me out with purchasing a 720, even though it has nothing to do with triathlon. 

This bike has an aluminum frame and a carbon fork, just like my Merida. But the advantage comes in a few other areas:

1. It is rack ready and it was no problem to install the rear rack. Since it bolts directly to the frame, I am feeling more confident about hitting the cobblestones or poor quality roads.

2. The front bags (the fluro-yellow ones) came with the bike. There are clips on each fork that accommodate the bag holders and you can easily remove the whole thing for regular riding or just the bags for access. They are only rated for about 3kg each, so I'm planning to fill mine with rain and cold weather gear that I will want to use quickly.

3. It also features disc brakes, which should come in handy on some of the downhills or at sketchy intersections. 

4. My legs are very excited that the back cassette is an 11-32. I'm sure the granny gear will feel less granny with all the stuff mounted on there...

5. Comfort-wise, it does have a bit wider tires as well as a handlebar with built in "squishy zones" to reduce the road vibration. I was planning to put some gel pads on the handlebars, but it was unnecessary. 

Other modifications and gear choices that I made:

- The bags on the back are on loan from my friend Tim. So they are more experienced than me. 

- In addition to the back rack, I also added fenders. I really, really want to minimize being wet and grimy for extended periods.

- Instead of road pedals, I am using my mountain bike shoes and pedals so I can actually walk around when I stop for lunch or to check out something cool.

- As I usually do, I will be riding with a front and back blinky light so I am more visible to other drivers. I got some Cateye lights that are ridiculously bright and are USB charging.

Now, time for some thank-yous, since this has been quite the ordeal:

- Trek Bikes for being a great team sponsor, as well as making great products. If you want to check out all the specs on my bike, you can find them here.

- My old bike store, Santa Fe Trails in Leavenworth, Kansas was turbo-fast with ordering the bike, assembling it, testing it, and then mailing it to me. Once I got it, I only had to re-assemble a few things and it was ready to roll. 

- My new bike store, Lifestyle, and the owner, Stefan, has been unbelievably helpful with all things bicycle-related. He ordered the parts I needed and installed and adjusted everything, plus did my bike fitting so I am comfortable for two weeks of riding. If you are a Graf/Vilseck person, this is the bike store you need to go to!

- And thank you for reading this far!!

That's not how I define a "path"

I mentioned that I reworked part of my route to avoid an unnecessary/dangerous hill. So when my training schedule said "4 hours easy," I headed out the door to test out the new route.

Outbound - Things were proceeding well and I was happy with my detour. At one point, the path became fairly rocky gravel, but not terrible. But then I missed a turn that I didn't even see. Figuring I would get it correct on the way back, I proceeded to get back on the paved roads, using one of my Bavaria Cycling Tips: If you are lost, head to a Maypole.

Each town's Maypole can usually be seen from miles away and they are conveniently up during the nice cycling weather. Heading to a Maypole will get you to a town, and there will be a bunch of the yellow road arrows pointing you to where you want to go.

This time, I made it all the way to the Czech Border, at about the 50km mark. I stopped to take some photos of the border area, since I am going to just ride past on Day 1.

I can only imagine what this looked like during the Cold War...

The granite markers show the actual border and say "D" on the German side and "C" on the Czech side.

With that stop complete and after putting on my Castelli Gabba jacket for the descent home, it was time to get going. It was unseasonably cold on Sunday, so I was very happy that I had the extra layer.

The section I missed: I followed the route with no problems for a few minutes. Then I was on gravel, but decent. Then I missed a turn again; I thought "I didn't see a turn," so I took the time to stop and back track.

There were two indentation that appeared that farm vehicles might occasionally come this way. No rocks, just trampled down soil. I was surprised that it was actually pleasant. That is, until in a few seconds I realized that my computer was telling me this "path" continued straight into a field full of crops.

I stopped and just started laughing. I should have taken a picture of me completely surrounded by all the plants. But I got turned around and headed for the Maypole and then back home.  It wound up being a 4.5 hour ride, but definitely good practice for the real deal.

Uh...no.

Lessons from my practice ride

The other day, I took advantage of the beautiful weather and took my road bike out for a test of Day 1 of my ride. This would allow me to check the route as well as the bike computer navigation process.

My training plan called for a 3 hour ride, so I was only going to go part-way and then turn around and go home. Here is the elevation profile for all of Day 1:


You may notice that the theme here is "up."

So I was not surprised that I spent a lot of time in the Granny Gear, just trying to spin up the hills without expending too much effort. I was slightly concerned that when I add on all the extra weight, even my easiest gear might be too hard.

I then encountered my first route problem in the city of Floß. My route took me down a short, steep downhill that ended at an intersection with a stop sign. The visibility at the intersection was really bad, with only about 50ft of view to one side. After that, the road continued back up at about a 9% grade for half a mile. Not a good situation!

Very soon after that I took a turn that routed me unnecessarily onto some side streets. But this was only a minor annoyance.

Other than that, the rest of the ride was great. There was also a pretty stiff headwind, so I got some extra challenge climbing the hills.

But on the way back - I was like a rocketship!!

Returning home, I looked up the cassette that will be installed on my new bike. And fortunately, that bike easiest gear will be about 20% easier than my current one. Good news for my legs :)

Ride planning: Each daily segment

If you read my previous post about finding my master route, I discussed how I got to my daily average goal of 135km/day (about 84 miles). However, since I will be staying in hotels, that definitely factored into figuring out exactly where to ride each day.

But let's start at the beginning of analyzing a day - I know my starting point (either home or the hotel), so the first step is getting out of town and headed in the right direction. Ride with GPS will come up with a route between two points, and I found that was a good starting point, but needed to be carefully examined. Especially in some of the less populated areas, it would tend to route me onto the gravel bike paths. Because of the additional time, wear and tear on my body, and possibly sketchy travel surface, I did my best to minimize these parts. If I needed to ride a bit farther, so be it.

Using the Google Map layer, as well as the Open Street Map layers on Ride with GPS, I had a good idea if I was going to be on a paved road or not. But the best case was having Google StreetView coverage to double check. StreetView doesn't really drive on dirt roads, so that was another good indicator of where to go.

I lived in Poland for three years and did plenty of bike riding, so I am under no illusion that the paved roads are going to be well paved. But  it is definitely better than a gravel path.

If there are any major tourist attractions in the vicinity I might alter my route to see those. I can only think of one case where I actually did that, even after consulting my "Poland for Tourists" road map book.

So once I am getting around the 135km mark for the route, it is time to check the viability of hotel rooms. I used Booking.com exclusively for finding places to stay and their map made it easy to see if a place was near my route or on the wrong side of town. My criteria were pretty simple - WiFi and I would prefer an included breakfast. I also made a note to myself if there were grocery stores nearby so I can stock up on snacks and water.

Another thing to keep an eye on was the elevation change over a given route. If it was going to be hillier (like Day 1 and Day 3,) I purposely kept those days a bit shorter. However, it is pretty much flat to downhill for the rest of the route, thank goodness.

Planning out two weeks of riding took me about five days and definitely got faster when I was in more populated areas. I will probably look over the routes again before I go so I can make more detailed notes.

One resource I did consider using is the EuroVelo routes. This is a network that crosses Europe.





While this seems like a great idea, the reality is that in the Eastern European countries, these aren't necessarily mapped out very well or have posted signage. So trying to plan this from elsewhere became an exercise in futility.

So that gives you a snapshot of all the planning that went into this, but since I really like maps and overly planning out things, I really enjoyed doing this. We'll see how I feel about it when I am riding on a cruddy road in the middle of nowhere!