[Bike]
The Bike Touring Pages of
Chris X. Edwards

Journals - 21 April 1999

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Tag 11 (Bozi Dar in the Krusne Hory [mountain range]; Wednesday 99.04.21; distance = 42.2; time = 3:24; odometer = 1252.1) -- It was cool, but not evil cold (like I had been waking up to )this morning. Being very dry last night helped the take down go pretty quick. The sun was out when I crawled out of my sack, but as I rolled out, it was gone and the normal grey was there. At the first town I got to (which was only a couple of kms from my perfectly isolated campsite), I saw a place that I thought might have groceries. Hmm. The windows of the place were almost entirely obscure by Marlboro stickers. Hmm. It just didn't look like a food store -- but since I had only seen one place that did look like a food store (back in Tachou), I decided to check it out. Fascinating. It was a food store, and there was a long counter with food in its displays and food on shelves behind the counter. The customer had to ask for everything -- shoplifting = nil. I got 2 boxes of cookies, a big bottle of orange soda, 4 Jogurts, 4 pastries and a candy bar for 98 KR (~$3). The guy said something about the glass soda bottle I was going to decant anyway, and when I brought back the bottle, he gave me a handful of worthless change. I felt very rich and very guilty right then. Onward. Next goal. Notice CLIMB. I had frequent map checks and equipment shuffling. When I got to Nejdek, I took a bad turn and had to CLIMB a big hill, until I got to the next town that had a sign on it. Nope. This is the wrong way. Back down, try again. This time I was on the right path. I could tell, because I was going up and up and up. Whew. Wearing rain pants and climbing is a drag. I did get my jacket off about 3 km into it. There was plenty of snow at the top and it was even snowing when I got there. There was a mini descent which didn't really lose much altitude. And then I found myself at the TOP of a ski run. There were some Seili Bahns, and I wondered why they were there (I thought Swiss-style lumberjack work). Nope -- skiing -- not enough snow here, though. The slope was really not much better than Staublig. I was freezing cold at this point, and it was raining/snowing pretty hard. I ducked under a shelter and ate 3/4 of my Jogurts (check the dates!! you can't take that stuff for granted here). Only a couple of kms later, I had CLIMBED to my next little town, but I was still cold. I saw a nice-looking restaurant with a fenced courtyard and windows to keep an eye on the bike. I'll note (?) an odd thing here. Most people seem to have a dog. They all live chained up or in a pen in a corner of the yard. They don't get much attention and are, therefore, very irritable and barky. There are signs everywhere "Pozer Pez" = beware of dog. This restaurant had such a dog who barked incessantly. It turned out that this place was a highly swanky restaurant. The rich people came here. These people drove German cars, had cell phones and wore sharp clothes. The guy at the table next to me talked to 3 different people in 3 different languages during his meal. I have a feeling his "girlfriend" was charging by the hour, just like his cell phone -- she was probably cheaper. So I had an awesome, huge gourmet meal and as many hot chocolates as I could stand ~ $7 US. Oh boy! How luxurious! I thought it was pretty funny to be there stinking, filthy and looking like a guy who'd just ridden through a tornado. The real irony is that I probably was THE richest person there. So, now that I was warm, stuffed and happy, I was looking for my trail out of town. The signage sucked here -- admittedly I wanted a pretty obscure road. Well, I got one! Not quite the right one, but totally awesome. This road went out of town and into the woods. It was VERY rough and I could barely do 8 kmph. In the absolute middle of nowhere, I came to a house that was all closed up (with working shutters). I loved this house and its setting. I want that house! It was so cool! A bit farther along, the path degraded more and more. Finally, I had to push the bike through snow for a couple of kms. At some points, I was afraid I'd wander off the snow-covered road and lose the road. Nope. Since this was a false turn, I couldn't figure out where I was on my excellent map. Hmm. I didn't get too worried. Despite the fog and drizzle, I knew I was only a few kms from a road somewhere! And sure enough, eventually, I popped out on a road and got my bearings and resumed normal riding. While riding on the very rough paths, I became very annoyed at my rapidly worsening hub problem. My rear hub was not engaging to drive properly, which was very irritating (and just about castrated me a few times). It was raining and very foggy when I got to the next town. I decided that riding in such thick fog was a bad plan and that I should try for a room and work on my hub. So, I got a 120 KR room -- $4!!! My God! Common showers, but damn good ones. They had a perfect locker room for my bike. Wow! I went out and did some shopping. This little town had a "bakery." They barely had anything in it to sell, but I bought a lot of it for the change you find in the dryer. Then, to this town's micro grocery. Same set up. I did notice that a roll of film is way expensive, but what I bought was still under $3 US. That includes a 2-liter of Coke, 2 Bounty bars, a pen and a lighter (I needed to singe some of my cords), some more Jogurts and 5 post cards. Incredible! This is a border town, and I walked over to the Asia market that is at all border towns. Fascinating. There were no whores here (on parade anyway). This little town has a cop station and seems very touristy for CZ. I think that this town is pretty clean cut, trying to attract German hikers and skiers, etc. Back at the hotel, I got my wheel off and started working on the hub. Tricks to get the cassette off: rest the wheel on a piece of firewood, so that the gear teeth of the free wheel are on the log. Then whack your "cassette cracker" with another piece of wood. Worked great. Next tip: to work on Philwood hub ratchets, you don't need to remove the cassette. Oh well ... the spring on this thing looks pretty kaput. I hope it makes it! I did clean out grunge, so that seems to have helped it a bit. We'll see tomorrow. Back in the room, I wrote post cards, this (journal entry), and planned. I washed some clothes in the shower and now that the radiator's on, they'll get dry. Yea! I love this country.
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Chris X. Edwards ~ September 2000