April 16, 2025
Day 6 - Kostelecká Lhota to Kolín
I woke up around 7:00 and went downstairs for breakfast. There was still food to choose from, even though I was one of the last guests. I got scrambled eggs, some cheese, and vegetables—multiple times. After breakfast and packing up, I paid for the hotel and moved on. It was around 9:15 when I started today’s ride. I wore a long-sleeve merino shirt with a windproof vest. I knew the weather would be warm with strong southwest winds, which meant I’d have a tailwind 75% of the time—great for my second-longest day of the tour. The temperature was around 18 °C, max during day should be around 23 °C. I knew I would be changing top wear during the day for certain.
This time, I forgot to turn on the GoPro camera. It’s a wonder it happened for the first time today (edit: second time, first time was at the Day 1), because it regularly happens on my trips. I realized after five minutes and turned it on. As you can partially see in the image, my cockpit setup consists of Jones H-bars (shorter version) with mounts for a Garmin Edge and a GoPro camera. I also have a mirror attached to the bars. Finding a mirror that could be reasonably mounted on my H-bars was a struggle, but I finally chose the Ergotec M-77LV. The only problem with it is that the nuts holding the mirror joint can easily come loose while riding on gravel or rough roads. So I ditched the "folding" feature and used Loctite on the screw. Luckily, today’s road surface looked very good so far, and there weren’t many cars either. There would be only one climb today, and it wasn’t very demanding. After the climb, the road would be relatively flat until the Kolín, so even though it was around 90 km in total, I should handle it with ease. At around 9:51 (9.4 km), in the township of Borohrádek, the first climb began. The first part of the climb had a good surface and relatively low traffic. The trees provided shade. In the second half, the road deteriorated rapidly, and I was riding near the center if there were no cars nearby. At least it was during the ascent, not the descent. I could feel the wind blowing. At 10:15 (14.6 km), I made a quick stop to refill my bike bottles from the spares. The temperature was around 19 °C, but I didn’t want to change yet, as I still had to go through a descent. After turning left onto road 3067, the traffic almost disappeared.
At Holice, I encountered the road closure sign (of many of today). Luckily, it was only a local street, so no big deal, and Garmin did a good job. But soon after I returned to the course, another road closure sign appeared. Maybe I should check if it’s really closed. And it was. At first, I thought maybe I could walk it somehow, but no—not with panniers fully loaded. So I stopped and looked at the map to figure out which way to go. I didn’t find a route that could clearly take me to the right path and hoped Garmin would solve it instead of me. I rode back the way I came and navigated through the streets. Soon after, Garmin caught up and plotted a small detour. I was happy— a bit wet from sweating, but happy. All I have to do was take some turns, ride through some cobblestones, and I was on the right path again.
Until now, I was riding at a slow pace because I planned to have lunch in Pardubice and didn’t want to wait outside the restaurant for it to open. But I started pedaling a bit faster—what if some other roads were closed too? The ride was very pleasant: the sun was shining, I had a tailwind, the road was good, and traffic was low. I met some other bikers along the way. At around 11:15 (31.2 km), another road closure sign appeared. This time, it looked serious. The detour would add a solid 10 km. While waiting in front of the traffic light, I decided to try it—maybe I’d get lucky. So I took the left turn, and in front of me was a cycleway. Lucky me. I rode along the closed road. The cycleway should go all the way to Pardubice, with a small break in Sezemice which I didn't mind at all. At 11:24 (33.8 km), I changed the first GoPro battery. The cycleway was in very good condition, as always. The road traffic became heavy as I entered Pardubice. I was heading to a local restaurant for pizza. Some turns and a one backtrack later, and at around the 11:44 (38.6 km) I was there—at Restaurace Garáž.
I ordered Pizza Funghi (as always) and was 100% satisfied with it. The pizza was crisp, the sauce was great, and there were lots of mushrooms and cheese—10/10. After eating, I paid, changed into a short-sleeve merino shirt, and didn’t forget to turn on the GoPro this time. At around 12:27 (40.3 km), I put on the sun sleeves and also applied sunscreen to my face, as I could feel the sun getting stronger, and I still had at least three hours of riding ahead. Navigating through Pardubice was easy with Garmin. The only problematic part was the bridge, which is shared with pedestrians. Otherwise, it went smoothly. The cycleway ended for good in the village of Živanice. The traffic there was a bit high for my taste—I expected a lot less.
At around 13:33 (59.8 km), I refilled my water. At 13:57 (66 km), another road closure sign appeared. This had become a habit today. Not a good sign, as I knew I was heading through Selmice. I stopped, looked at the map, and wasn’t happy at all—the detour would be a solid 15 km. On the other hand, if I continued and found out the road really wasn’t passable, I’d have to backtrack and take the same detour anyway, just longer. I decided to risk it and continued, feeling a bit stressed. At 14:07 (70 km), I arrived at the road closure sign. There were exceptions for buses, so the road must be passable—at least partially. I continued. There was no traffic at all, and I didn’t really mind that the asphalt was gone, as I have a suspension stem.
I’ve tried a total of three different suspension stems so far. Not because I have an abundance of money, but once I tried one, I couldn’t go back. The first one (and the best) was the Redshift ShockStop. It’s polymer-based and can be tuned to your liking using different polymers. The only downside is that it only works with drop bars or straight flat bars (because it’s pivot-based). The Redshift smooths out the road very well. The second one I tried was the Vecnum freeQENCE. It’s parallelogram-based, so it works with both drop and flat bars. It can be tuned using a hex key, but unfortunately, even the “softest” setting was too stiff for me. So I ended up with the Kinekt suspension stem. This one is tuned by changing the internal spring. I found the spring that suits me best.
Five minutes later, I arrived in Labské Chrčice, where I was greeted by heavy road machinery. My stress level rose a bit. I rode on the sidewalk (yay!) and then navigated through the village via local roads. At the end of the village, I saw a road worker and asked if I could ride through the next section. He said, of course, I shouldn’t worry at all. I thanked him and continued on happily. At 14:24 (74.4 km), the closure ended, and my bike was covered in fine gray dust—mainly the wheels. I cleaned it a bit with water but didn’t want to use up my whole supply. Meanwhile, I saw a van heading toward the closed road. “You’ll be back in five minutes,” I thought, since the road wasn’t passable for cars due to the machinery. And sure enough, five minutes later, I saw the same van reversing—he had no place to turn around. Hope that was the final road closure for today.
When arriving in Týnec nad Labem, the traffic became heavy again and stayed that way almost all the way to Kolín. I didn’t expect so much traffic on tertiary roads. Once again, a cobblestone section appeared, but it was a short one. At around 14:57 (80 km), when my direction changed to south, I started to feel the headwind. But since I had less than 15 km left, I didn’t worry much. When I saw the railway tracks on my right, I knew I was close to my destination, as the final part of the route would run alongside the tracks. I arrived in Kolín at 15:29 (91.6 km), then headed to the city center—and that was it.
At the guesthouse, I took a shower and found a local restaurant, Arco Café & Restaurant. I had Kulajda soup and then salmon prepared as a "steak" with grilled vegetables. The food was really great. Back in the room, I checked for local bakeries (for breakfast) and found four nearby, which was great. I started charging my electronics and, after some browsing, went to sleep.
Money Spent: 47.05 EUR (Accommodation) + 33.74 EUR (food)
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N.B.: I have tweaked the background transparency for some gauges in this video (and onward). Also railways are now shown on the map.
edit 1: Added info about first "forgot to start GoPro recording".
Today's ride: 95 km (59 miles)
Total: 344 km (214 miles)
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