One evening, after a reasonably rainy day my friend Richard (formerly known as Lafo, recently re-nicknamed by me as Ryžo) suggested we go out for a “short sweet bike ride” (his direct quote). You see, I have known Richard for over 15 years but have not really been in touch with him since he left Stony Brook more than a year or so ago. It must be said upfront that unlike Richard, I am not nearly in that good a shape as he is, not to mention the fact that I am easily twice his weight. At this point I was still blissfully unaware of what his concept of “short and sweet” is but in the interest of full disclosure it must be stated that it does not even to begin to approach mine.
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Elevation profile of the ride.
The bike after the ride
I quickly dismissed his idea to go and explore the complex network of to us unknown logging roads on the account of it being past 7pm with two or so more hours of daylight left. Somehow, that didn’t seem like a problem to him but he eventually agreed to atoned-down version. We would bike from Ladoven to Bystricka, turn to Skodovo and Strane on a well-known logging road and from there on a predominantly asphalt road to Jedloviny, Vrutky and back home to Ladoven. So the first few miles were pretty easy uphill, the weather was nice and cool, albeit it was getting darker. It was a nice workout and we managed to keep a pleasant conversation going. Eventually we turned to onto a logging road which turned into a considerably technical (for me anyway) and steep downhill ride. Naturally, Richard would have left me in the dust, had there actually been dust and not mud. That … and a lot of rocks. At some point the road got too steep for my comfort and I got off the bike and pushed it slowly downhill. I was thinking how often did I use to get off the bike on the way down when I still lived in Slovakia and mountain-biked regularly. The discussion whether this is just me getting old and squeamish or the hill was really that steep ended unresolved.
The bike after the ride
At the bottom of the hill, just before reaching the bus stop at Martin – Strane I saw Richard waiting for me, in front of a gate. A locked gate to be exact. That didn’t seem to bother Richard very much because as he put it, he knew about a by-pass. Over the years I grew weary of his “by-passes” and other “quick-fix” solutions but there there was no other way out. “There”, he pointed at a barely visible path cutting through 6 feet tall wall-like bushy growth intertwined with prickly wild raspberry plants, freshly drenched with rain. He was not kidding and soon we found ourselves wet wading through the junglish growth carrying bikes on our shoulders. We got out alright, naturally, only after I stepped on what looked like solid ground but 2 seconds later turned out to be some sort of mini swamp, deep just enough engulf my entire foot. But there was one more obstacle to conquer – a brook – about 15 feet wide freshly fed by hours of continuous rainfall. There was a bridge, or at least something that resembled a bridge. Two wet and slippery wooden logs laid across the stream, well 6 feet above it to be exact. High enough to make for an unpleasant fall. We decided to hop across on boulder, using bikes as support. I got across fine, even though Richard was constantly predicting my fall into the water. Well almost constantly, he did stop when he himself slipped and dunked his right foot with his fancy cycling shoe under water.
The bike after the ride
This was our first possible bailout point but there was still almost an hour of daylight left so we carried on to Jedloviny, part of the town of Vrutky and from there took the marked bike path following the Turiec river back to Martin. it was not exactly dark yet, so I suggested we take a detour on the way home and bike past Kosuty to the villages of Diakova and Drazkovce and then back home. I have been down this road many times before although this time I neglected to take the preceding rainstorm into account and thus we found ourselves on an extremely muddy road with unusually high concentration of puddles. After a grueling filthy ride we got to Diakova around 9:45pm and it was convincingly dark . We put on headlamps and continued back home. Well … to the bar really. The waitress was nice and allowed us to bring our filthy bikes in and brought us two Kofolas and pretzel sticks (DRU tycinky). After an intermezzo with Slivovica we had more Kofola and pretzel sticks and than bid each other farewell.
The only sad part of it is the fact I was not there
I would not be able to drink Slivovica during a bike ride ! No way 