cycling update from Brno, Czech Republic.
Wroclaw in Poland, scene of the last email, was cool, and we hung out for three days. I had to gt my bike fixed again, the bearing kept getting lose. The polish guy who fixed it was a lazy fool, and couldn't be bothered to do it properly, which meant more fun and games trekking around cycle shops in cities further on the route.
In wroclaw we watched aussie juglers and ballon artists, and ate Ukraine cusine. Plus we watched a dull US film, A Civil Action, but atleast it was in english.
We rode out of Wroclaw, and were stopped by a group of 6 polish sunday cyclists, who insisted that we cycle along with them for about 13kms, were they bought us drinks (tried to make us drink beer at 10am!)and we semi successfully communicated a little. One guy was very sure to tell us that drinking Pepsi was 'nicht gut, nicht gut'. We left them, and went on to complete our biggest and hottest day yet, 130kms (80miles!) and 45 degrees in the sun respectively. The reason for such a big day was the lack of a campsite where it should have been according to the map. We ended up finding a site full of dutch people, and it had a very strange, kind of eerie feel. Not that dutch people are strange or anything...
We cycled into the Czech Republic, over some sweaty mountains, queueing at the border while the lady with too much blue eye makeup checked our passport against a list of middle east wanted terrorists. I guess a terrorist might try crossing a border on a bike.
At Prague we camped outside of the city to avoid the degenerate bums that congregate in the Travellers Hostels, of which there are 6 run by the same company. These places are full of yankees and aussis smoking marlboros, drinking coke and watching MTV, while out side lies a remarkable city. The campsite was cool, if expensive for czech, and we spoke to some finnish and danish people. A finnish guy told us that he worked with '6 dudes' in computers in finland, and descibed himself as 'a nerd' when we asked what he did. Strange angle on english.
In Prague I got my bike fixed again, as the bearing were knackered. It took 5 shops until on of them said they'd do it. However, on the way out, 60 ks from Prague, the wheels was lose on the bearing and suddenly buckled in a small town called Kutna Hora. Luckily the town had a cycle shop, where I left my bike over night to be given two new wheels. On collecting the bike, the shop people had given me a new (low quality) cog block, replacing the high quality Shimano block which was only 1000ks old, and new low quality tyres, replacing my sub 1000k kevlar tyres. So, rather embarrasingly and difficultly I had to get them to replace the origianl bits,. But it worked out ok, and my wheels now spin twice as fast.
Brno is the first city that we've vivisted without having to go to every bike store in town, which is nice.
We met a kiwi couple last night, and proceeded to drink beer for, yes, 30 pence a pint, until the early hours. I recommend the Czech Republic to all who love cheap beer.
Until the next thrilling installment, take it easy.
Tom Moreton (tom@fatbeehive.com)