Off to the Czech Republic for beer

I spent the long weekend with Brendanas riding bicycles. Here’s how it went.

Day 1 – Saturday 1/10/2011 – Regensburg to Waldmünchen

I got up at the happy hour of 4:45 am and headed down to the train station and caught the first train to Regensburg where I met one Brendanas Hollandas. He was, as is typical, fairly disorganised which was fantastic as it matched myself perfectly. We decided a map wouldn’t be bad and found one that covered the surroundings and a bit of the Czech Republic.

Brendan’s plan was to cycle to Pilsen in the Czech Republic to drink a beer. What? Surely the German’s can brew beer too, I hear you say… Well yes, but Pilsen is where pils beer comes from. So we set off early-ish afternoon in the warm Autumn sun. We headed up the river and weaved our way into the hills and over to Waldmünchen arriving in the evening. We stayed in a hostel and dined at the local pizzeria. I had a radler…

Above left: Brendan clips his heffalump bag onto his bike before leaving. Above right: Shadows riding towards Waldmünchen in the late afternoon.

Above left: Brendan and I riding as dusk fell. Above right: View from the door of the hostel in Waldmünchen.

Regensburg to Waldmünchen – Time: 3:56:56 Dst: 92.28 km Avg: 23.37 km/h Max: 73.83 km/h Avg cad: 71 rpm

Day 2 – Sunday 2/10/2011 – Waldmünchen to Pilsen, Czech Republic

We set off in the morning sun and reached the border about 20 minutes later. Brendan invoked the time-honoured tradition of playing the border game. The first section in Czech was all up hill but luckily that was followed by all downhill and then a couple of hours of all flat. We arrived in Pilsen and found a hostel. Then we were off to drink some beer in the warm afternoon.

Above: Brendanas standing at the Czech border. Below: Brendanas plays a quick round of the border game.

Above: Brendanas in Pilsen with his golden whatsit.

Above: Beer being consumed by Kiwis.

Waldmünchen to Pilsen – Time: 2:53:13 Dst: 77.23 km Avg: 26.75 km/h Max: 59.64 km/h Avg cad: 73

Day 3 – Monday 2/10/2011 – Pilsen to Regensburg, Germany

We grabbed some goodies from a bakery for breakfast and started the ride back to Regensburg. We took a different route with somewhat less climbing this time. It was still rather nice with some very nice roads and radwegs. The last 20 km was downhill along a cycle path through forest. Very nice.

Above: Leaving the youth hostel in Pilsen.

Above: Cris riding towards Regensburg.

Above: Cycling along a cycle way towards Regensburg.

Pilsen to Regensburg – Time: 5:59:22 Dst: 157.69 km Avg: 26.33 km/h Max: 65.19 km/h Avg cad: 74

Cycling to Pilsen, Czech Republic_web[maptype=G_HYBRID_TYPE]

Above: A cunning little map of our route over the three days.

Above: I stayed another day in Regensburg before heading off to a conference in Leipzig. Here’s a nice sunset I snapped while riding around on Tuesday evening.