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2020-10-31
Last week I rode my first "century" — a 100 miles on a bike in one go.
I live in Prague. The one in Europe, not in the U.S. (though most people are probably more familiar with the czech capital, there are two cities named Prague in the U.S. — one in Oklahoma[a] and one in Nebraska[b]; both with ties to Czech immigrants). I'm planning to write more posts about that but right now the only important thing is that I wanted to ride around the whole city for a long time now. Prague is not that large so it seemed doable.
I wasn't sure how to plan the route. Do I follow the border of the city as closely as possible? Do I even care about riding around the official border or would just making a large circle be enough?
One of the issues are bridges. Prague is divided in half by the Vltava river (Moldau for the German folks). The South side is fine, there are plenty of bridges close to the edge. But in the North there is one bridge close to the middle of the city and the next one is in a city about 17km away. I wasn't sure that I want to go that far.
This is a bit technical and boring so bear with me. Roads in Czechia are divided into classes and are numbered. The highest class is a highway, those are marked with the letter D followed by a one-digit number (the most infamous being the `D1`). Next are 1st class roads, marked with a one- or two-digit number. These are administered by the state and are usually a part of the international road network. Most of them are restricted only to motorised traffic.
Next are (you guessed it) 2nd class roads. These are meant for transportation between districts ("okres" in Czech) and are administered by the "regions" ("kraj"). They are marked with a and a three-digit number starting with 101. Second class roads vary in size and pavement quality and are usually not restricted.
101, similar to 404, is a noticeable number. I first noticed the 101 route because it lies close to where my parents live, just outside of Prague. It was familiar to me.
That's why I was surprised to see the same number on the opposite side of the city! Surely there can't be two routes with the same number? Turns out there is a Wikipedia page for most of roads in Czechia and I learned that the 101 is not only the first 2nd class road but it's also the only one that is circular! (I'm not sure why am I so excited by this...). It goes all the way around Prague — quite close to the edge on the South side and all the way on that far-away bridge in the North.
The whole route is 150km long which is about 100 miles. Get it? It's 101 miles on the route 101! On a 1-speed bike!! (I'll see myself out now...)
At first, I've mentioned the idea to my father, who is avid biker (though not really long distance), but I didn't want to have him on my conscience if something happens to him (he's not *that* old, but still). That only made him take it as a dare. He started to ride 100km almost every week just to show me that it's nothing. So that was settled. We only had to choose a day.
Last weekend was probably the last nice weekend this year. The weather was perfect — clear skies and no wind. Unfortunately it was also the weekend when we switched back from daylight savings time, so the already short day got even shorter.
Clear skies are nice but don't really matter if it's dark 1/3 of the time...
Distance: 168km (104 miles)
Elevation gain: 1327m
Moving time: 08:21:11
Total time: 10:58:03
Average speed: 20.1km/h
We did 18 extra kilometers because we got lost a couple of times. We were afraid that there would be to much traffic to ride comfortably but that was true only in the South when we were close to the D1 highway. South-west side was quite pleasant. In the North-west the road was surprisingly small and badly kept at times.
The elevation profile looks something like this:
__
__/ \
__ / \
\ __/ \ | \ /
\__/ | | \_ |
| | \_ /
| | \_ _/
| | \ _/
| | \ _/
\__/ \ _/
\_________________/
50km 100km 150km
Vltava Vltava
South North
We were riding clock-wise starting in the South-east. I was scared of that first climb after crossing Vltava — I've ridden it downhill before and it looked brutal. It was — especially on a single-speed bike. I was afraid I would mess up my back but in the end it was OK.
The long descent in the North was nice if a bit boring by the end. It became dark when we were at about 110km mark. The flat part until 150km was really pleasant and the climb after that was so slight we almost didn't notice it. The last part was also the one we were most familiar with because we've ridden there before.
Overall, I expected it to be much more challenging. It should be doable by anyone who rides regularly and can do 70-80km in one go.
A couple of tips:
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