April 30, 2017: A 215 km Okolo Prahy ride

215 km, 9h05, 2591hm


I prepared a 200+ km loop today. It was raining yesterday so again no long cycling weekend. At least for today I had a 215 km loop that went all the way around Prague. A different way of riding this time


Early in the morning it became obvious that the weather would be good


Finally! It had been so many weeks of irregular and unstable weather. Pretty annoying!


The advantage of a loop is that I was seeing some different terrain


25 km of cycling; bye bye Prague


Getting comfortable for a long all day ride


Entering Central Bohemia, where the entirety of this ride took place


I somehow passed this Specialized shop, but on Sunday it was closed for sure


Jilove u Prahy


After a lot of climbing there was a sudden downhill: It went very steep and I really enjoyed doing this one on disc brakes. The Vltava river is right in front of me.


That disc brake controlled descent made me so happy that I made a movieclip about it


From the top of that hill I descended to the Vltava bridge


I went down to Route 102, which led me to Slapy


There was a motorist here who asked me instructions. A local Czech asking this foreigner for advise, the world upside down.


It was getting warmer and sunnier, I liked it!


There was a long climb to Slapy and then I stayed on a higher plateau for some miles


Little church chapel 


Vltava Museum


Quite the contrast compared to the previous days and weeks


Being out on my bike again for a nice ride is so lovely. It is so simple and yet so fun


Lost in thoughts I tried to capture the most enticing scenes mother Nature had to offer me.


So many new roads were exposed today. Cycling in a loop around Prague is in a way refreshing compared to always going from Prague into one certain direction.


The desolate calm hinterland of Czechia, this time not even that far away from Prague


The hills of Central Bohemia, many hours spent here


Ain't no ride without a Holy Cross


I headed out south, then slowly started going west and then north.


Cute little old car


In the town of Novy Knin there was a potraviny where I stopped for some refreshments. 85km done


Of course refreshments were only possible thanks to Vietnamese owned enterprises haha


After leaving Novy Knin there was a lot of climbing, all of it on unknown roads. Quite tiring but it was so different from what I usually do.


The top of the forest and from there back downhill again



This part was so incredibly steep with 24%. The fact it was gravel made it impossible for me to climb it. I walked this section and even that was harsh.


One of thé steepest roads ever in Czech Republic


On top there were beautiful yellow fields. It was that time of the year again?


District of Prague West


Very close to Zlicin. This reminded me of the rides in Krivoklat and the winter rides. I took the metro to Zlicin a few times and cycled from there. That was now only 5 km away. But we were not gonna take the easy way out. The goal was 200+


At a certain moment a plane landed just over my head. It was a good timing.


I kept navigating through Prague West and went further north, which led me to the city of...


Kladno! This town looked very depressing actually. 


I was not a fan of it hahah.


We continued from there, it went north over Prague in the direction of Cakovice now. Last 40 km.


City of Velvary with many cobbles



The last stretches, back in Prague East. It went over route 608... again!


However, this time I rode it all the way down and found a connection that I did on my very first ride ever. That was a nice feeling


For the rest it was just the usual stuff going through Bast etc;


215 km is not too bad put together with my 16 km run and small MTB ride.


Mission accomplished

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