Day 15 - Prague, Czech Republic - Goodbye Fairing, Hello Climb

Joan's View

If you ever saw the video that Wade created about his & Tony's 2010 cross country bike trip, they did a 4,700 foot climb to cross the continental divide at Monarch Pass. On the video Wade played the Miley Cyrus song, "It's the Climb." to show how much fun they had on that endless climb. For our ride today, I'm still looking for the song, something about thighs and calves burning? 😂

The first 11 miles of our 63+ mile ride were mostly bike path along the Elbe and flat. We passed 3 Nazi / Communist bunkers that were fairly close in proximity. 

Tony made the executive decision to save 7 miles today by taking the short cut through the mountains. OK. 🥺 

About a quarter of the way up the mountain, we came upon our first roadside shrine of the trip. That's interesting because the majority of Czechs have no religious affiliation, credit given to the Soviets that wanted religion removed the country.

Even more interesting is that only about a mile from this one, we had to avoid a group of people congregated on the road. We realized just as we were passing that a priest was blessing a shrine there.It would have been nice to stop to ask someone, but when you stop on a hill, you know what it's like to get started, and then add another 75 lbs to that start.

Ascending the mountain there were several cute wooden figures. My guess is that they were put there to give the goof balls that ride up the mountain some encouragement, or maybe laugh at them.

We stopped a little farther up the road to give the heavy breather in the back a break. Notice the bike parts of riders that never made it. The log was a creative bike rack too.

I took a picture of the Garmin when we and the little marker finally reached the top. Note the elevation. Tony said the grade hit 15% at times. In comparison, the hill by the Wolters to the bike path is probably 20% grade per Tony, and if you've ever been on that one, you know what it takes to get up that beast of an incline.

 

We chilled on the cruise down the mountain while Tony used the brakes to regen the batteries a little. Somewhere closer to the bottom, we stopped to watch a dog competition in progress. This one was more of an amateur competition because the dogs went their own way at times. The handlers still gave them their treats, Anne!

You can see that we were back riding along the Elbe again. At about the half way point in today's ride, we came across a kayak navigating competition. It was a tent city, kind of like GOBA, set up around the makeshift rapids built alongside the Elbe. We watched a little while. Lots of people of all ages competing. 

The starting line

We decided to move on, but the direction that we were supposed to go was up a curvy ramp to get to a bridge. Well, we went for it and got stuck on the first curve. Tony was lifting in the front and I was pushing from the back, but one of the panniers got wedged. This nice German guy whose kid was probably at the competition saw us and decided to help. He tilted the bike without understanding what could happen. Well, guess what? The fairing broke...again. Tony backed the bike down and parked it to decipher what plan C was for the fairing. He removed the quality tape and zip tie creation to find out that the part our hero fixed in Denmark was busted in half. Tony salvaged whatever pieces he wanted and we left the broken parts and scratched fairing in the trash can. We can all take a moment of silence for my beloved protective fairing now.

                                                                                                                                                        

The Z ramp in the background is where we got stuck

Tony doing salvage work

It took Tony a little while to disassemble and decide where to relocate the Garmin and mirror since those were once part of the fairing. Our German friend that tried to help us told us how to get up to the bridge another way. When we did figure that out, the bridge was under construction and the walk bridge was barely wide enough for our bike. Tony had some close encounters with other bikes.

Made it to the bridge

The view of the competition from the bridge

A few more miles in the town of Rundnice, there was a nice Cafe that looked like a possible spot to eat and charge the batteries since we still had 1,500 foot of elevation ahead of us. I went in to ask the server if we could charge the batteries. At first she was apprehensive, but agreed when she understood that we would eat there. Our food with great presentation was eaten at a slow pace so that the batteries had more time to charge. Tony had to get another beer just to make more time for the batteries. During all that we started chatting with our server, Natalie. She is a political science major studying in Prague with plans to work at an embassy. She wanted to know our thoughts on the political happenings in the US. She explained how she and her boyfriend are becoming more conservative in their views. Her boyfriend who is from Canada lives in Croatia now, but is trying to get citizenship in another country.  Her Mom owns the Cafe and Natalie was there to work before going back to school in Prague.

Our newest friend Natalie

We climbed then coasted, climbed then coasted again and again until we arrived at our Airbnb around 4:00. Tony booked this one like others on the ground floor. The ground floor here means going up a small curved staircase. We took as much weight off of the bike and pushed it up into our room. There is no fairing to remove at least. 😂

We walked about 30 minutes to St. Thomas Church for 6:00 English mass. The priest, with shaky hands and using a cane, gave a 35 minute homily from his seat. He served in Poland during Communist control. Included in his message, he told about how the government knew everything that he did and was called in monthly for questioning. 

After mass, that same priest was doing confessions so we got in line. There was one person in front of us. The priest was talking to some people in the back of church. The guy in line with us told us how that priest works on his own time schedule. We started chatting because he knew that we were American. Turns out that guy is the US Ambassador to the Czech Republic, appointed by his colleague, Trump. His name is Nicholas Merrick, and he told us about his career and he taught at a Catholic High School in Pittsburgh. He had a friend who taught at Bishop Alter in Dayton. Wow, this trip just keeps getting more interesting all the time.

On the way back to the Airbnb, we crossed the famous St. Charles Bridge which is lined with religious statues. That bridge and most of the heart of Prague is the place to be on a Saturday night!

Tony's Extras

I felt terrible when the fairing finally broke beyond repair. This is one of Joan's favorite part of the tandem. We get caught in rain now and she will be as wet as me.  In fairness to the fairing, I gave it three separate chances to retire gracefully.

First, I turned left and crashed without checking. Then I dropped it while attempting to reinstall it. Finally, I tried to take it up a ramp with a sharp turn, despite the fact that everyone (meaning Joan) involved knew there had to be a better idea.

That fairing survived crashes, repairs, and my decision-making process. It deserved a medal. Instead, it ended up in a trash can alongside a bike path.

Today's climbing was absolutely savage on the lungs and heart, but we survived. Tomorrow is a well-earned rest day before tackling 4,900 feet of climbing on Monday. Because apparently 3,200 feet today wasn't enough character building.