Winterbiking through the Czech highlands

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I arrived here in Brno a couple of days ago, and the preceding days of biking were without doubt the most intense ones so far. Since I have the time, and there is no one in this empty hostel to listen to my stories, I'm going to write about it here.

So five days ago I left a beautiful city called Kutna Hora. It started with a steady treat of uphill biking and as I got higher, and higher, the snow that I'd been waiting for so long started to appear, filling up the air around me and adding to a thickening white layer covering the hills. Biking was still quite doable though, and I was thrilled that my spiked winter tires, that had made me look stupid for the previous two - snow free - weeks, would now make me look like a well prepared adventurer. A little later I would found myself in famous cross country skiing territory around Nové Město na Moravě and I even came across some down hill skiers in a small resort. That night was also the first time that I camped in the snow, and I have to admit that it wasn't a very relaxing experience. This trip was partially supposed to give me some time to think, but it turns out that when you're tired, cold and busy with your tent and making food, there isn't always much brain juice left for writing, reading, relaxation or questioning the meaning of life. In these conditions, I don't think that anyone would think of writing a book, a recipe for apfelstrudel or germknödels, doing something romantic, building the Eiffel tower, producing movies like Star Wars or Batman Begins, compose songs like "Eye of the Tiger", invent the bicycle and so many other things... I can only say: Thank god for a basic level of comfort! Where would we be without it?

The next day the carpet of snow had grown and I biked over roads of varying quality: from practically inaccessible roads where I had to drag my bike through heaps of snow, to some more compressed and bikeable layers. The traffic was clearly having a hard time and several cars had gotten stuck into the heavy white piles, which the strong wind had blown onto the road and into my face (fortunately I was wearing skiing goggles). Occasional gusts would blow me off the road, seemingly announcing the end of civilization. For some people, people who are not from Holland, this might just have been an average winter day but not for me! There I was, on my bike... People were clearly surprised to see someone cycle through this Doom's Day scenario and expressed their surprise in different ways: honking, the middle finger, a look of disbelief or sincerely concerned people suggesting that I stop biking and find a hotel. My favorite however, was the guy who lowered his window to let out some encouraging cheers as the woman in the passenger seat was capturing my adventure on her smartphone.

So Doom's Day also had its pretty faces, like the beautiful landscape of white hills, a herd of deer that crossed my way and around that same time the start of the descent. It had become dark and the wind had settled down as I was slowly rolling down my way back towards the flat lands, where everything was calm and shades of brown and green had taken back there place in the landscape, as if nothing had happened...

Tired and feeling a little sick, I decided to push through to Brno where my brother had booked me a nice hostel. After all this my body has claimed a couple of days of rest, which has given me some time for relaxing, reading, thinking and writing. Tuesday night I did leave my bed to have dinner with a friend from nearby, which was really nice. I'm feeling a lot better now and pretty soon I will continue biking to my next destination, Krakow. Eventually I am still planning to bike to Kiev, but one step at a time.

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