April 11, 2025
Day 1 - Ostrava to Hranice
I woke up at around 6 in the morning... maybe "woke up" isn't the right term as I couldn't force myself to sleep for longer periods. My plan in the morning was to buy some food for the day. The evening before I had found some local bakeries. One opened around 6:00, the other at 8:30. So I went to the first one and bought some bread rolls. Then I packed all my stuff, went to the second bakery, and bought some mini pizzas. So food was secured for more than a day.
I departed short after 9:00. First, I needed to get out of Ostrava. Fortunately, Ostrava has a lot of bike paths and my planning paid off as my Garmin device was navigating me precisely. The quality of the bike paths was really good. The weather was fair. At first I anticipated around 8 °C, but soon after I departed I removed the vest as it was already a bit warm (I had a long sleeve merino base layer, then wind-stopper layer, merino jersey, and vest initially). I knew there would be fairly strong wind gusts, but because I was heading south, I wouldn't mind some tailwind. Once I left Ostrava, I knew that I would ride for some time on roads with moderate traffic, so I wanted to make it as fast as possible.
Also, I realized that I only had 1 000 CZK with me (as my native currency is EUR) and that it might not be sufficient in case I needed to pay for accommodation in cash. Therefore, I withdrew an additional 1 000 CZK just in case. As it happens often to me, I forgot to turn on the GoPro and only realized it after the money withdrawal. The weather was good, partially overcast with temperature around 13 °C. After one railway crossing and about an hour of travel, I was finally beyond the city limits at 10:15 (11.2 km). I had planned this route to avoid main busy roads, so it took me some time to arrive at the calm ones.
The first third of the road was kind of like a roller coaster. The first bigger hill came at Bilovec Lhotka at 10:42 (18.7 km). Not the biggest one and not the steepest one, but one of the longest of the day. Because of the weather, I had to zip/unzip frequently to avoid getting wet. I don't particularly like weather around 10 °C because it's difficult to find what to wear without getting wet from sweat or being cold from the wind—doubly so if it isn't fully overcast and the sun is shining. At around 11:07 (26.2 km), I arrived at the city of Bilovec. During planning of this course I wanted to stop by a local brewery and buy some beer, but I somehow forgot about it (or don't know why I didn't stop there) and headed to one of the steepest (if not the steepest) hills of today. After the climb, some 20 minutes later, I arrived at Bilov at 11:21 (27.2 km) where I changed my base layer from the long sleeve version to a short sleeve one. I was a bit wet from sweat. The temperature was around 14 °C, but the sun was shining about 60 % of the time. There I met a road cleaning car and headed to calm roads with no climbs for some time. At around 12:00 (34.2 km), right before Hladke Zivotice, I stopped for some food—eat the mini pizzas at a bust stop. After replenishing my energy, I continued at a relaxed pace. By now it had become fully overcast with some hints of sun.
After another railway crossing and one not-so-good gravel road (two of them) and one fair cycleway, I arrived at another railway crossing, waiting for the barriers to go up. I waited for some train to pass, but after about 4 minutes of waiting and no train, the barriers lifted and I moved on. I think I crossed a total of 4 railway crossings this day. In front of me, 2 more climbs were waiting. The first one started around 13:53 (54.3 km). Quite lengthy and a bit steep. It ended just after Stary Jicin Hermanice. And right after that, another one. This time a bit steeper. Until now, the road quality had been really good. This was a segment with some small potholes and some road quality "issues." After a descent, one of the last climbs was in front of me on a partially cobblestone road and partially concrete road. I knew that after this climb it would be downhill to Hranice. After one wrong turn and the last climb, I arrived at my destination at 15:00 (70.4 km), Guest House Diana. I was the sole guest (along with one family). The temperature has risen to solid 17 °C.
After the shower I've eaten the one left mini pizza and also one canned sour lentil soup which was really good. Washed my merino base layer stuff and prepared for the next. In the evening I've watched some TV and around 22:00 went to sleep.
Money Spent: 7.85 EUR (food) + 1.2 EUR (additional cost - money withdrawal) + 48 EUR (guest house)
edit 1: Added images
Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 70 km (43 miles)
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