Taking My Friends For A Spin

Karen (left), Steve, and Daisy pause on the farmer's road above Malé Číčovice.

Regular readers of this blog will recall that I almost died while cycling a few years ago. No, it wasn't due to an idiotic Czech driver, as you might expect.

The thing is, I was actually riding a stationary bicycle at World Class Fitness on Wenceslas Square. I was taking a spinning class run by drill sergeant Michael Sommer, at the urging of my friends, world-famous artist Karen LaMonte and her husband, Steve Polaner. At least, I had thought they were my friends, until I started the class and realized that I -- the supposedly fit and micro-famous bike blog author -- had been lured into some sort of sanctioned torture session.

I barely survived. I'm not kidding. (You can read about my experiences in a previous blog post here.)


Between Malé Číčovice and Okoř.

At the time, Steve and Karen (who themselves had no problem surviving the spinning; indeed, they thrived on the exertion) would feign fear as I talked of what it was like to actually ride a bike outdoors. While spinning, they said, they could always turn down the knob that controls the resistance on the bike, while riding up a real hill was another thing entirely. (Of course, I'd witnessed their spinning prowess and knew they'd kick my ass on a real hill.)

We'd promised one another that we'd go on a ride sometime. They wanted to see some of the sights that regularly crop up on this blog.

Well, almost two-and-a-half years later, we finally succeeded in doing just that.


Karen and Daisy heading into Malé Číčovice.

It was a beautiful spring day, and Steve and Karen drove with their bikes over to our house in Černý Vůl, west of Prague, from where the four of us, including my wife, Daisy, set off.

We cycled along the cool, leafy country road to Statenice to the village of Tuchoměřice, where the first of the day's harder climbs awaited us. Of course, neither Steve nor Karen had any trouble whatsoever getting to the top. If anything, I'm the one who was struggling. I hate hills.



From Tuchoměřice, we took the road heading toward Středokluky, but turned off on a little road that leads into the hamlet of Černovický. From there, it's a wonderful ride on a farmer's dirt road down into the neighboring hamlet of Malé Číčovice, home to the charming restaurant and pension called V Polích.

It was recently voted one of the best restaurants in the Czech Republic and sadly, considering how close it is to our house, we've yet to dine there. Soon, but not on this day, because we wanted to take Steve and Karen to the Family Hotel Okoř, in the neighboring village of Okoř, which is also home to the picturesque ruin of a 14th-century castle.


At the Okoř castle ruins.

The hotel is one of our favorite cycling stops for a beer, and one of our top spots for dinner. I maintain that the restaurant serves the best steak you'll find in these parts. (I wrote about the steak on my other blog, Gusto. You can find that post here.)

We stopped for a lazy, well-lubricated lunch, sitting outside at one of their cozy outdoor tables.


The best steak in Prague. Damn good French fries, too.

From Okoř, we cycled through Velké Přílepy to Úholičky. They wanted to see the famous Smallest Pub In The World, which only opens at 5 p.m., so we stopped at the pub across the street and had another beer. (By the way, I was able to confirm that this pub does not serve the cheapest half-liter of beer I've found this year. As I wrote last week, I thought that they charged 17 CZK for a half-liter, but I was wrong; it's 21 CZK ($1.25) for a Gambrinus. Still, not bad!)

WATCH: Among his many talents, Steve is a budding filmmaker and, using his iPhone 4, shot and edited an intricately plotted -- and totally improvisational -- movie as we were cycling. I'm including an excerpt of "Team Armageddon" below:



From Úholičky, it was another steep climb up to the Roztoky highway, which we took for a bit until we turned off for Únětice. We wanted to show Steve and Karen our New Favorite Place, the wine bar/cafe known as U Lasiku, which I also wrote about last week.


Table service courtesy of Karen, at the pub in Úholičky that I must remember to find out the name of the next time we're there.

We ordered a pitcher of rose wine and soda water for a refreshing spritzer, as well as an assortment of delicious tarts, homemade by the owner, Michaela. (By the way, I learned that U Lasiku is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, for those of you contemplating a visit.)

From Únětice, it was back to our place for an impromptu Russian-inspired dinner of smoked fish and eel (which Steve and Karen had picked up at a farmer's market at Anděl earlier that same day), washed down with some icy cold Stolichnaya.

To say that it was a good day is to belabor understatement. Let's do it again soon.

RIDE STATS
Length of ride: 27 kilometers
Average speed: 14.5 kph
Maximum speed: 49.2 kph
Time on the bike: 1.49.32
Pivo Index: 5 (plus a few glasses of rose spritzer and, oh yeah, some vodka)
Distance ridden so far in 2011: 171 kilometers

This is a panorama photo of the Czech countryside taken by Steve using the Photosynth app on his iPhone 4. Very cool. Click to enlarge to get the full effect.


Check out this accidentally weird shot Steve made of me, also using the Photosynth app. The invisible man.


Some of the homemade tarts and sour pickles on offer at U Lasiku (above and below).




Daisy, on the road again.


Pit stop in Úholičky (above and below).



On the road between Okoř and Velké Přílepy.


Caption contest!

The Best Little Wine Bar In A Place You've Probably Never Heard Of

U Lasiku is a funky little wine bar housed in an old wheelsmiths in the village of Únětice.

We've got a New Favorite Place.

At least for a few weeks, until a possible Even Newer Favorite Place opens up just down the street from the first New Favorite Place.

Let me explain.

Nothing interesting ever happens out here in the sticks where we live, in the village of Černý Vůl, west of Prague. But now we've got reason to be excited about two new additions to the neighborhood.

And Daisy and I decided to set off on a bike ride the other day in an effort to hit both hotspots.


Daisy on the road. I can't remember just where. But how nice is that cycling?!

We started off in Černý Vůl, headed down into Statenice, and then decided to tackle the big, long -- I said long, right? -- hill that rises up out of Statenice toward Lichoceves. It's a cruncher of a climb, and we haven't been riding much, but both of us summited successfully.

From Lichoceves, we took the road leading to Noutonice, and from there to the phonetically challenged Svrkyně. From there to Kozinec, and then Tursko, and then down into Úholičky.

We'd had a mind to stop off at The Smallest Pub In The World, which never seems to be open when you want it to be. And it maintained its reputation on this day. It was closed. I now realize it only opens at 5 p.m. everyday, which would seem to rule out a lot of business from thirsty bikers. Go figure.


The cheapest half-liters?

We decided to take our business across the street to a pub that I can never remember the name of but which is very welcoming to cyclists. Especially considering that a half-liter of beer is, I believe, 17 CZK ($1), which would be this year's winner (so far, at least) of the cheapest half-liter. I say I believe, because I think I overpaid for our round. I thought they were 22 CZK each, and gave the guy 50 and told him to keep it. But on our way out, the sign seemed to say 17.

Which means just one thing: I'm going to have to go back and do more research.


Our friends Fiona and Rory

From Úholičky, we climbed back up out of the valley toward Roztoky. Another steep climb. And then it was down into our neighboring village of Únětice, which is where all the excitement is happening.

We wanted to check out a cute little wine bar/cafe that we'd been hearing a lot about.

Our route, before my Garmin conked out:


Now, Únětice is not the first place you think of when you say the word wine bar (although interestingly enough Únětice does have an early Bronze Age culture named after it, so it does have that going for it).

But let me tell you about U Lasiku.

It's housed in a former wheelsmiths, and it couldn't be more charming. Funky furniture scattered about, both inside and outside. Bric-à-brac galore. Friendly owners. A cute scraggly dog who'll curl up at your feet (on your feet, actually). And a lovely array of drink (Czech wine, German wheat beer on tap!) and food (homemade sweet and savory tarts, Caprese Salad, homemade sour pickles, and the like).



It was everything we'd hoped it would be. And it's just a short walk from our house in the next village up.

No sooner had we sat down than Fiona Gaze and her fiance, Rory Houlihan, strolled in. They live in Roztoky, and they'd been among the folks to tell us about U Lasiku in the first place. We had a great chat as we drank and ate.

As if U Lasiku weren't enough, Únětice is also the home of the new Únětický Pivovar, a small brewery that I'd heard wasn't supposed to open until mid-June but which we'd gotten word that it might have opened early. It's housed in the building of a previous brewery that began cooking beer way back in 1710 but which went out of business in the 1950s, I believe.

That was the other destination that Daisy and I had in mind. So all four of us headed over but discovered that, indeed, it's not scheduled to open until June 11.

But how cool is all this? A craft brewery and a new wine bar, both just down the street!

Life in Černý Vůl just got a whole lot more interesting.

Stay tuned for more about the brewery in an upcoming post.

RIDE STATS
Length of ride: 25 kilometers
Average speed: 15.8 kph
Maximum speed: 47.8 kph
Pivo Index: 3.5
Time on the bike: 1.34.38
Distance ridden so far in 2011: 144 kilometers


The outside of U Lasiku (above) and various shots inside and outside the place, including the delicious homemade tarts (below).









Scenes from the ride: a poppy in a field of rapeseed, rose bushes abloom, fields of young wheat swaying in the breeze, country architecture.

Wind, Rain, Clouds And Tears

A weeping woman mourns over the fields where the village of Lidice once stood.

This post was originally published on July 7, 2007. What with the imminent release of the Czech film "Lidice," I thought it might be helpful to re-publish it. It's a fantastic ride to a moving memorial. Here's the trailer for the film:




It was cold and cloudy, dark and windy, with the occasional raindrop. I had been facing a stiff headwind for the entire route, and was cursing out loud as I fought the elements and my own fatigue.

Then I came upon the vast memorial ground in the village of Lidice, unexpectedly, and I was quieted.

I should say that I came upon the vast memorial ground that used to be the village of Lidice.

If you don't know the horrific story, Lidice was a Czech village that was obliterated -- wiped off the map -- by the Nazis on June 10, 1942.

Almost 350 residents were murdered, in the end. First, 173 men of the village were stood up and shot in front of some mattresses that had been set up against the wall of a barn. Much of that brutality was even filmed by the Nazis and can be seen at the Lidice memorial museum.

Eighty-two children were taken to a concentration camp in Poland and exterminated. Their mothers were taken to another camp and were also killed or died.

The order to raze the village and kill its inhabitants was in retaliation for the assassination of a top Nazi official in Prague, Reinherd Heydrich, who was mortally wounded in an attack by Czech parachutists on May 27, 1942.

I had been familiar with the story, and had known that the village was just outside of Prague, but like the concentration camp at Terezin, I had never bothered to visit, thinking that it would be too much of a downer, I guess.

I had decided to cycle out to Lidice, northwest of Prague, at Rob's urging. He'd been out there a few weeks ago and thought I should check it out.

I took the usual route out to Tuchomerice, and then headed off west, instead of going north to Okor.

You can (finally!) follow my exact route on bikely.com by clicking here.

Prague to Lidice, Czech Republic

Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

You can find my exact route from Prague to Lidice on bikely.com, or by clicking above.

The weather was awful, but I was determined to get to Lidice. I guess I was so focused on the ride that when I finally came upon the memorial, which borders the road I took, I was taken by surprise. And the first thing I saw was a statue of a weeping woman looking out over the vast field where the village once stood. All that remains now are a few foundations.

The cold and wind seemed to fade into memory.

The park was deserted. I continued farther into the grounds, where I came across the location of the mass grave where the men of the village are buried, marked by a cross of thorns.

I then walked my bike up to a sculpture erected in memory of the 82 children of Lidice who died in the reprisal, and was profoundly moved.

It's an amazingly simple but powerful work, featuring lifesize statues of 82 children staring back at you. You cannot help but be affected. Visitors have left lots of little toys and stuffed animals in front of the memorial. I felt compelled to remove my cycling helmet while I was viewing the sculpture.


This simple but powerful sculpture depicts the 82 children of Lidice who died in the reprisal, and is dedicated to all those children killed in World War II.

I then proceeded to the lovely rose garden, which contains more than 21,000 rose bushes of 200 different varieties. It's a peaceful place, with classical music (I believe it was one of the Brandenburg concertos by Bach) piped in over small speakers. One area of the garden is designed in the shape of a rose without a bloom, in honor of the children who died.

I would like to return to Lidice on my bike. It's a great ride, and a memorable destination.

And next time, I'll be a little more prepared, mentally, for what awaits.

RIDE STATS
Length of ride: 54 kilometers
Average speed: 19 kph
Maximum speed: 44.8 kph
Time on the bike: 2.48.36
Distance ridden in 2007: 1,104 kilometers


Visitors to the children's memorial left lots of little toys and stuffed animals behind.


Looking out over the fields where the village of Lidice once stood.


The rose garden contains more than 200 varieties and features an area shaped like a rose without a bloom, to symbolize the children who were killed.


There are many foundations sprinkled throughout the Lidice memorial. This is all that's left of the Gothic St. Martin Church. Its priest, Josef Stemberka, was killed along with the rest of the men of Lidice.