Stanowitz to Bezdruzice: The monster of all hills to the top of a ski hill. - Exploring Germany, Czech Republic and beyond... on our Recumbent Tandem - CycleBlaze
It took us a while to leave the campground this morning as we were approached by many of our camping neighbours and so we happily spent some time visiting with them. We have learned not to worry about schedules when these opportunities arise. After all, meeting fellow travellers and locals are a big part of the joy of travel for us.
This couple from Germany have a love of travelling in Africa to escape the German winter. Inspired to buy this type of tent from their travels in Africa, they use it for their summer European travels. A great set up.
With the Garmin GPS in tow, we felt ready to hit the trail. Or at least, we knew where we were going. I noticed a gnarly looking serpentine route leading out of Marianske Lazne on the map, and I wondered what this would mean. Having spent the previous day in this town sight-seeing, we had noticed the towering hills around the town. Sure enough, when we turned off the main drag and saw the steepness of the grade, we both sighed and proceeded to ride straight up - at least 18%...and on a fully loaded bike, this is tough work. Anyway, the climb went on forever - around hairpin turns, often on cobblestones and without a break, for a number of km. We were riding through a forest parkland with many hikers were walking through as well. Partway up the hill, a man was leaning on his garden gate and called out to us. We stopped and he enquired why we had chosen this route - he agreed that it is pretty, but pointed out that we were climbing a mountain. This man is a sculptor and his wife is a chiropracter - he offered us her services if we needed help with aches and pains. He mentionned that he was going to write an article in the local paper about us Canadians who had come to bicycle in his country. When we got to the top, we saw that indeed it was a mountain - that is, a ski hill and our lunch stop was by the chair lift looking down at the village in the valley. It's funny how quickly you forget the struggle of getting somewhere, once you have a chance to recover and enjoy the rewards. For a period of time, we proceeded along the top enjoying spectacular views. However, the condition of the trail deteriorated and the surface was unrideable at times due to the large, sharp rocks lining the trail. It somehow seems unfair that you have to walk when the terrain is flat. We enjoyed some incredible downhills - which means of course, that we had more uphills to ride. All of our complaining about the hard work aside, I must say that we saw spectacular scenery, shared the road with occasional cyclists and saw almost no cars. In other words, it was cycle touring at its finest. Czech locals were cheering us on throughout the day as we struggled up hills, and we found ourselves falling in love with this complex and beautiful country even more. The wilderness and natural beauty of this country is an unexpected treat. Once again, we wonder why we don't see more Canadians or North Americans. We have only seen a few couples of Dutch cyclists on this route. With our thighs burning from the exertions of the day, we decided to pull over at a campsite, Bethlem Camping. We were the only campers and had a spot on the lake for only 4 euros. We are indeed blessed. Needless to say, we fell asleep early and enjoyed the peace and quiet of our campsite.
Part of the way up the ski hill we took time to check out the elevation graphs of he route.
One of the views from the top - we rode up from that valley a few hills ago. We like that we are getting stronger on the hills - yeah, Czech Republic!!
