World Bicycle Day occurred on Sunday. The big ride organized by AutoMat, police and several embassies took off from old barracks at Karlín, crossed the river, continued via a cyclepath and Rohan embankment (no, not Tolkien's Rohan) and finally returned to the barracks.
I've been playing larps for almost twenty years (wow, the time flies). Amount of costumes and props keeps growing, they don't fit in one backpack anymore and it's quite a workout to haul them to and from train stations. For many years, our biggest event used to happen at an old castle ruin Pravda ("Truth" in Czech) which is not very far from my hometown and I found that a bike with a trailer can carry all the stuff comfortably, is almost as fast as a train on the way there and even faster on the way back. But then the event moved to Raspenava which is 150 kilometres away. Now what? Well, just depart a day earlier and cover the distance in two stages, no problem.
First try happened last year, but it took another one to find a comfortable route. The flat section via Libochovice and Roudnice is easy and stayed the same. Main road from Úštěk to Česká Lípa is hell (steep climb, narrow, no shoulders and way too many logging trucks), so I redirected it via Dubá, Doksy and Mimoň, and it worked out very well. Last year I crossed the mountain ridge before Liberec at a high and steep pass between Křižany and Kryštofovo Údolí, now at a hundred metre lower and less steep pass between Jítrava and Dolní Suchá. Note for next time: it's better to stick to the road between Chrastava and Mníšek because the cyclepath zigzags over the steepest hills available there. Then it becomes usable until Oldřichov.