On Friday (19.08.) Alex, Carsten and I got into a black car. Behind us in the trunk were our own fine steel racing bikes, hung up with blankets, and our rucksacks were also packed again with some clothes and other stuff. We looked intently at the black display of the onboard navigation system and for a brief moment only saw our dark silhouettes, then suddenly it lit up, we flinched briefly and a friendly female voice said to us: “Route is being recalculated!” We looked at each other quizzically, started the car and drove in the afternoon sun on the A4 towards Poland, arriving at the mountain hotel above Unterkubin in Slovakia at around midnight with our seats somewhat impaired. Our racing bike kilometers should therefore be ridden somewhere completely different and this time in the home of racing bike pro Peter Sagan!
After the trio had recovered mentally during the night and physically after breakfast, our map enthusiast Alex quickly clicked together a route, we changed our clothes, packed our Fellowbags, put our bikes together and were ready for #anadventureaday through the Tatra Mountains at around 8.00 am under a bright sun. We started at about 700 m above sea level and drove 6 km into the valley while we could already observe the exposed peaks above a flat carpet of clouds of the same height on the descent. The first feelings of happiness spread and cleared my head. It wasn’t that difficult, after all, we had cycled at least 600 km from our neighbor’s door and this uninhibited curiosity about the kilometers and metres of altitude ahead allowed us to conquer the area like Indians on bicycles. After the first climb through a charming forest, we rolled through a small village with the great name of Lúcky, passed the Lithuanian reservoir on the left and were surrounded by idyllic mountain ranges. After 10 km of flatland, we finally entered the lower Tatras and the next 600 vertical meters to the 2nd summit were spread over a smooth 13 km, where we overtook countless runners, initially very scattered, then in clusters, occasionally a motorhome or a car stood at the side of the road, trying to convince their friends about this sport by clapping ;). It was a mountain run or something similar, because at the summit there was a lot of activity in running shoes and we tried to get to the front between cars, athletes and onlookers like at a bazaar. When we finally got through, it was time to spread our wings and head down the mountain at 80 km/h.
If I had to describe a typical Slovakian house, for me it would be a weathered wooden block house with colorful door and window frames, a faded tin roof with rust stains and a wild little plot of land around it – just as we were impressed by it in Liptzovská Lúzna. We then drove 40 km on the main road 59, which first took us almost 300 meters up to the ski resort of Donovaly, before enjoying a 23 km long descent. We got used to the light pedaling, which was enough to ride 45 km. In Karlovo, of course, this condition was stupidly normalized again and the heart rate rose back to 90 bpm. We followed the unspectacular Route 66 and spontaneously turned off onto a “you-don’t-want-to-go-here-with-your-road-bike-road!” We thought about it briefly, but decided on the unpredictable. Riding with 25 mm tires in the ruts of excavators or hand-sized grass hubs that rearranged our luggage or made our helmets wobble in the opposite direction to our bodies is not exactly what you see in road bike catalogs. Bunnyhops to jump over gravel ditches downhill, to have a sense of balance like a blind tightrope walker and to be able to muster up the enthusiasm to feel comfortable where you are just rolling off the tire. In any case, we had the “technical skills” needed to have fun even in this terrain and not have to push or dismount – absolutely ingravelable (watch out for that new word). We rejoined Route 66 in Medzibrod and followed it for 25 km. We rode the last stage of the day with an average gradient of 4% on the Dresden-Meißen route with our usual stamina and loss of salt water until we reached a traffic circle where we turned off to the finish mountain. A small covered spring with the words “pitná voda” branded on it provided us with refreshingly cold water. The last 10 km of poor pavement worked up another sweat. The last kilometer became a mountain sprint. After 160 km and almost 3000 m in altitude, we reached our destination hotel in Srdiecko in the late afternoon sun.
We put our bikes in the ski cellar, had a shower, watched a bit of the Olympics (women’s mountain biking), went out for a bite to eat and a drink and looked at the sky, where the same moon was shining as back home.
Sunday morning… Despite staring intently at the alarm clock, it wasn’t worth looking at it, and the spring-like mood that the sun’s rays were trying to spread through the open window were, along with the bio-noise, only small fighters against this great tiredness that was a sign of the physical exertion of the previous day. (…) That was just a joke, of course, as we were standing at the breakfast buffet just before 8 o’clock, yawning and rubbing our stomachs with a coffee cup in our hands.
Heavy thunderstorms and rain were forecast for Sunday around midday. We therefore tried to set off as quickly as necessary to avoid this weather forecast. Averaging 56 km/h for the first 10 km, I flew down this Slovakian patchwork of potholes with a view ahead, so that my bags were shaking on the handlebars and seat post. Once in the valley, we headed straight up an 18 km long pass road from 600 m to 1200 m. This road had been laid past Mlynárska and Rovienky with serpentines. There was a strange lack of wind, which was very unpleasant, as our jerseys quickly turned darker shades of color. Wiping the sweat from your face with your shoulder at some point came very close to wet, fine sandpaper. We shone in front of us and the crank continued to be turned powerfully. Drops of sweat fell on our thighs and shoes every second until the road descended again and we said goodbye to the Lower Tatras with a seemingly endless descent and wonderful landscape impressions. We rode a brisk 30 km on the flat through Liptov-Hradek and Liptov-Sankt-Nikolaus, where we picked up our old route from the previous day at the Liptov reservoir. Meanwhile, the sun had had enough of everything and was replaced by summer rain. The ascent with the fairytale forest and the hotel mountain still lay ahead of us. What quickly becomes apparent in the rain is that you can’t be particularly disciplined about riding behind someone, because I personally prefer the cool drops from above as a cyclist to the dirty warm ones from the rear wheel of the person in front – which dry car drivers can rarely understand – a shame really!
In Lucky, we put a few euros on the counter to fill our bottles with drinking water. The rain played a concert on helmet, bike, rider and asphalt. Surprisingly, it was much more pleasant than we had feared. I was thinking more of conditions like those in the Giant Mountains at the beginning of July. On the side of the road, people with umbrellas fought against the drops, some children wore none, but blue garbage bags like a cape. When we arrived back at the hotel, the rain stopped. Alex, Carsten and I paid tribute to Peter Sagan and then it was time to get changed, pack up and head for Dresden. On the way home, we fortified ourselves with Slovakian cuisine and were still fully impressed by the whole weekend. I am very happy when I can share such an experience with friends, it is always like sitting around a campfire together. It was great guys.
Some photos and video clips say more than I could write down here.
With this in mind, “bye zatial” to the next adventure.
Below you can see the routes so that you can ride them yourself. We didn’t overdo it in terms of length, as the elevation gain was strenuous and we didn’t necessarily want to arrive in the dark stressed out. On the second day, we shortened the planned 140 kilometers to “only” 111 kilometers due to the rain.
