A Sweat Fest

Dresden, Germany to Terezin, Czechia -- 47.5 mi, 9.9 mph, 3840 ft

Wow, today, was a tough one.  It started off by saying goodbye to dear Cam, who left us early this morning to catch the train back to Berlin and plane back to Oslo.  It was great to have him around for the last few days and to share his wit and wisdom.  He fell into our non-planned days very nicely.  Our final ride day together was on bike paths, quiet roads, and a few crazy sidewalks once we entered Dresden.  He, Meg and Kylie cooled off in some chanced-upon fountains near the new city center, and we celebrated our final night together at a tasty cafe near where we stayed.  Of course, we finished dinner with ice cream, more good conversation, and card games.

Packing up this morning, we knew that the day would have at least three times the amount of climbing we’d averaged during the first three, low-key days. But the fact I (Dean) was already sweating at 8:50 a.m., when we left the Air B&B, definitely did not bode well. Since we didn’t have enough food for a full breakfast, we decided to just start riding and find a market along the way. A LIDL grocery store fit the bill at mile five.

Sometimes we run out of paved road

Breakfast stop

As we left town and started to climb more seriously, I started to get the sense that there might not be many bike paths today. I suppose because German roads usually have independent bike paths to the side, the main road tends to be “shoulderless.” As a result, we were left to slog our way uphill while hugging the white line. We were all getting pretty hot and, stopping for a water stop at mile 12, Kylie's face proved it.

Flush-faced, about 12 miles into the ride 

Dex, apparently, was not in the mood for a hot, sweaty, climb at all. At mile 15, he couldn’t take it any longer and broke down sobbing. “This is stupid! Why are we doing this? There is no point! And we have a headwind going uphill!!” In Dexter-speak, “This is stupid” translates to, “I am very dissatisfied with the current situation.” I couldn’t really argue that the ride was not particularly fun. In fact, I felt obligated to set realistic expectations for what was ahead. We were only part way up the first hill and still had at least 10 miles of climbing before we got any relief. And that didn’t take into account the steep 5-mile climb at the end of the day!

We convinced Dex to take off his black tights, which he likes to spray with water to keep himself cool. After 15 minutes of rest, we got back onto the bikes. knowing the sooner we got going, the sooner we reached the top.

A few miles up the road, we left Germany and entered the Czech Republic. No one was particularly celebratory. Suddenly, there were many souvenirs, alcohol, and tobacco shops, or “Super Stores” with “Super Preise.” I was surprised to see that many of the shops were run by Asians with stereotypical conical straw hats. Shirts, pots, plants, and ceramic garden animals and gnomes were very popular items. We eventually stopped to get water as we were running low. Small bottles were unavailable, so we got 9 liters (6 1.5 liter bottles) and managed to drink, or store all of it in our camelbacks and water bottles. We would not be going too far in this heat without it.

Brief stop to cool off

Fill 'er up

At 1:30, were reached the 710 m (2300 ft) summit. It was a particularly warm, hazy day, and Meg and Dex were not at all amused by my request that the head back down the hill after the reached the top for some better photos . Meg relented and walked down to take a couple shots of Kylie and me.

At the top!

The downhill was welcomed and both tandems got within a couple mph of 50. I was once again very thankful with how stable these bikes are even fully loaded and at high speed. The down continued down into the large city of Usti Nad Labem. By this point, it was after 2:00, extremely hot, and we hadn’t had lunch. After some hunting around some residential streets mostly filled with cement apartment buildings (and lots of staircases), we found a small restaurant. It mostly looked like a bar, and no one was eating, but I showed a woman the word for “lunch” in Czech. She seemed to debate the situation with another woman, but in the end, they seemed to agree on Schnitzel. Awesome, we knew what that was and we also heard the words pommes frits (now we’re talking). We ordered two, not knowing how big they’d be and because the heat had dampened some of our appetites. It turned out it was perfect. However chicken schnitzel is made, it seems to always be juicy and flavorful. The waitress reluctantly accepted our Euros, but that drove home the point that we needed to find an ATM for some Czech Korunas.

After lunch, much of the ride was along the Elbe. It struck me as odd that we had done so much climbing given that the Elbe runs through both the cities at the start and end of the ride! Apparently, we had taken a shortcut. We pedaled between the railroad tracks and the river for a few miles and eventually came to some shipping locks. None of us were excited when we realized the only way to continue was to take the bikes up and down sets of stairs marked for bikes. This was not much fun. Once through this maze, we got to enjoy another set of stairs at the tunnel leading under the railroad tracks. Arrgh. Given the heat, the public pools we passed were packed and looked very inviting. There were also plenty of people enjoying their Saturday, relaxing and swimming along the lazy river.

The river Elbe 

Negotiating the river locks

At 5:00, we reached the moment of truth.  A 1000 ft. climb separated us from our destination for the evening.  We debated trying to find a better route by staying along the river a bit longer, but there was no guarantee that alternative would be less strenuous, so, shifting into our “granny” gears, away we went.  The road started out as a brick alley between well-worn cement houses but soon transitioned to a narrow asphalt road winding up between the trees. Kylie and I stopped part way up to wait for Meg and Dex. Meg, we learned later, had had suddenly gotten the chills and Dex's legs felt like rubber. They both drank and rested for five minutes, then were moving again.

...and still going

Once at the top, we enjoyed the steep backside before passing through the old city walls and around a shady city park to our hotel. Yippee. We did it and were all in one piece.  That counts for something.  As we checked in, we noticed a few locals sitting outside the hotel with large steins of beer. Czechia is, after all, the number one beer-consuming country in the world. After showers, we headed back downstairs to eat, definitely feeling like we'd earned our dinner. While playing a game of 500, we couldn't help but notice that one group of happy, grey-haired, and pot-bellied men were the same ones that had been there when we had arrived. A bit to our dismay, they hobbled over to a parked car an hour later, and drove off.

Old city walls