Well, this is a new blog about the ride from last year. This means that some of the observations may have possibly changed. This was a quite challenging and enjoyable ride, so we thought that it may deserve a spot here.
We started from Nižbor again. You can use a large parking lot at the bridge, or a tiny parking lot at our favorite restaurant Zastávka Nižbor (see our earlier blog about this marvelous place).
As this ride was one of the longer ones with an altitude gain over 1100 m, we had to do our usual battery switch, where the lighter rider gets the battery of the heavier rider at the moment of battery getting lower than 50%. This makes the batteries equally (almost empty) discharged at the finish.
You will start on the regular road uphill ride to point 2. After that you will be going downhill to Zbečno, following the red tourist mark through the nice forest. In Zbečno, you may decide to avoid the steep uphill fight to point 8 and downhill ride to point 9, by simply following the road and after crossing a little creek turn right and arrive to point 9 by the normal road. From 9 to 12 you will be following the red mark again. The stretch from 10 to 11 is again a steep uphill ride. When you join the regular road again after a side trip to forest point 13, you will go downhill on a bumpy stone filled road to Křivoklát. Our brake pads were quite overheated when we stopped for lunch at restaurant Sýkora (we can recommend their selections). If you are not visiting the castle with quite a rich history, you can park your bikes at the start of tourist red mark after crossing the river, and walk several switchbacks uphill to look at the castle from a distance. Do not try to walk up there with your bike.
From Křivoklát you will follow the road through Roztoky and suffer the long uphill ride to point 14. We usually try to avoid regular roads, but we cannot recommend going on red tourist mark right from Roztoky. You would be probably walking your bike all the way to crossing the regular road before point 14.
When you reach point 16, you may decide to go down to the river and finish your trip on a nice flat paved road. Or, as we did, follow the red tourist mark all the way back to Nižbor. Unfortunately we lost the red mark park at the point 23 and followed by mistake the forest road down to the river. So, the rest of the red mark path we did not really test for you.
https://en.mapy.cz/s/mekotujeje 48 km, 1154 m altitude gain. To see this ride in context, check our interactive maps.
