The Long Road Home

Now I’m in the westernmost bit of the Czech republic at the border with Germany.

I’m in Frantiskovy Lazne which is a v genteel spa resort all yellow Habsburg buildings and promenades and a bandstand. People are having all sorts of treatments with sulphur water and peat (apparently), and lots of things I’ve never heard of.

It’s gone really cold. I’m wearing both my shirts under my jacket, and long-finger gloves and new overshoes. Makes everything more difficult, I’m much more clumsy, and my eyes water in the wind and mess up my glasses. Just little things.

Last night I was in a village in the middle of nowhere, stars and moon and thick hoar frost on the fields. I stayed at a b and b with radiators lovely toasty warm. Was thinking of camping out in frost on the Sichuan Tibetan plateau, don’t know how I did it, I’ve gone soft since then.

I’ve also become FAMOUS (here, momentarily). Thanks to Toufik at Reuters Prague, two Czech TV channels did interviews and filming. This included rather dangerous-looking bits where I was riding along whilst the cameraman was crouching in the open boot of Toufik’s car whilst he drove. I’ve never seen them do it quite like that in the tour de france.

Since then, people wave, shout, toot their horns, clap, talk with me. Amazing really. A petrol station gave me a huge sack of energy drinks in cans which I had to apologise and mostly leave behind as they would have pretty much doubled the weiight of my kit. Some people asked me where my support car was. Men in overalls at a factory cheered. A lorry driver stopped to take photos. I was amazed I got onto Czech Tv because they’ve got such huge real sport stories of their own.

People have really been really welcoming even before the tv actaully. A bike shop in Trebic went mad when they realised I’d come to their shop from china, took photos, replaced brake blocks etc for nothing and gave me a (huge) pair of socks. They pumped the tyres to 90psi with a track pump. Feels great riding on these good roads with decent tyre pressure.

And the roads in the eastern Czech republic were just gorgeous, swinging gently up rolling hills, bending this way and that. I had a few days of warm autumn sun when everything was lit in beautiful colour, virginia creeper bright red in willow trees, yellow oak leaves and yellow sycamore leaves, manor houses and churches, spiders webs drifting across and sticking on my stuff. Blue hills, sun, and complicated shadows of bare tree branches over the roads. For miles I had the sun in my eyes squinting at the lines of roadside apple trees, sun reflecting silver off fallen apples and white dog daisies and chamomile daisies in the verge.

There were pretty towns with lovely squares where the buildings are painted with shepherds and cupids and people in togas. Then I had the sort of foggy cold days on which you look out in the morning, and really DON’T want to get on a bike on the road. Would be nice to stay in, get a bus, sit warm somewhere, have coffee and biscuits. Best not to think about it. Just go. When the sun comes through, you get glorious silver light and the grass is bright bright green like paddy fields and the woodlands look just magical.

Now I’ve just got to get across germany and holland and I’m home. I’m eating too many pancakes. That’s about all the news I’ve got.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 19th, 2006 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Czech Republic, On the Road. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.