Špindlerův Mlýn is busy at any season. In the winter it is a top destination for skiers and in the summer there are swarms of tourist trying to find the best hiking path. The town is more like a resort area with plenty of restaurants and accommodations. You might see a tall guy dressed in green with a huge walking stick with furs on it. This is the Krakonoš character, but for locals he’s just an annoyance as he wanders around the center and if you want a picture with him he wants money. He is based on the folklore character who is guardian of the Krkonose Mountains. You can also watch on Netflix the movie Špindl, although it is corny, I found it amusing that their tag line is ‘what happens in Špindl, stays in Špindl’.
For biking you have several options – the lazy option is to take a chair lift with bike to the top of the mountain and select the path down fitting your riding skills. Always pay attention to ride only on paths allowing bicycles. Going of these marked paths is being fined very severely. One important lesson we learned was to make sure you lock the battery on the bike before letting the operator hang it on the side of the chair so it doesn’t fall. When the operator was taking Michal’s bike off the lift at the top he found that the battery was almost about to fall out!
Biking to the top is the other option and is a great way to find out if your battery is good. We did several trips starting from the center of Špindl. We tried both the lift and starting from the bottom of the hill. One long day we took a 49 km trip with a lot of steep hill climbing exhausted our batteries completely. Although since then we have learned that if it goes to zero and you let the motor cool down for a few minutes you can restart and may have some reserve.
You can start at any parking lot here, there is no shortage of them.
Luční hora – https://en.mapy.cz/s/nuvokaposu
Trip of 49 km with 1300 m elevation gain showed us the limit of our ebike. After 15 km downhill ride being left with less than 20% battery and 15 km uphill to go was not the best situation. However we were lucky to make it with the last “drop” of fuel back to Špindl.
Labska bouda – https://en.mapy.cz/s/pedocekopu
We do not recommend to go uphill through Vodovodní cesta – it is super steep and we doubt that it can be really ridden up. Going downhill was still challenging and we walked our bikes for a little part of this steep road. Just take the chair lift to Medvědín (from point 3) and continue from there.
Medvědí boudy – https://en.mapy.cz/s/pacepevubu
Do not miss this nice ride through Labský důl and back before you attempt the supersteep climb to Medvědí boudy. Connecting part of the ride from Labský důl is marked on the map as the restricted for bicycles, but we did not see any sign in the reality and the part from point 3 to 4 was easily driveable. On the other hand the path from Medvědí boudy to point 5 can be ridden only by experts and from the point 5 for another 600 m we doubt that even experts can ride that. (However, map shows it as rideable.) From point 6 you will ride downhill all the way to where you parked.
Špindlerovka – https://en.mapy.cz/s/fuhezaduno
The ride up is 13 km long ascend of 650 m which will test your battery, so don’t be surprised if you would have to stop to cool it down. Even though this whole route is marked as a bike road, the part of it under Moravská Bouda is rideable only for experts – we had to walk our bikes downhill for about 300 m. After arriving back to point 5 you will enjoy the ride down to starting point.
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