As you know I decided to take my plan to do my longest ride ever as a charity event. I collected money via https://pomagam.pl/kolazakolo/ for bikes for children in SOS Children's Villages in Poland (https://wioskisos.org/). This was new experience for me. One, that I saw how charity actions work from the organizers point of view, and the second one, that my long ride was announced in advance. I was used to ride just by myself and just later telling everybody about my achievement. I was afraid that I will be more dissappointed if something goes wrong during the ride. But luckily, both the charity part and the ride went well. First, we, that is me and another 57 supporters, collected about 3000 PLN. Less then my aim, but still it will be enough to get one regular bike and one push bike to each of the four villages in Poland, so I feel we will do something good for these children. Aditionally I got special prices from monocykl.eu guys, so two villages will get also two unicycles each. I just couldn't resist the chance to have more unicyclists here in Poland. Second... most of the text below will be about the ride. Two days before I was on our morning training before Ericsson Poland Classic ride (more info coming soon) and I felt like my legs don't want to spin. I also felt the same on my Friday bike commute. But suddenly the feeling went away on Saturday morning and my unicycle was spinning nicely to the meeting point.
Morning was foggy, but dry. I was afraid of some rains forecasted, but it seemed the day will be sunny. In front of the Wawel castle I met two cyclists that wanted to assist me Maciek and Tomek and we set of into the fog at 6 o’clock in the morning.
The Cracow part was mostly on Wisła (Vistula) river banks and it was smooth and easy. Just one construction work made us enter the river banks via unpaved road.
Unfortunately the Vistula banks are not paved on the exit from Kraków towards the East, so we took the local roads that guided us to Niepołomice.
It was foggy, but when the sky started showing up above us, just when we entered Niepołomice, it started to rain. But just as we sat on the bus stop, putting some rain cover, it turned out that it is just a light rain and we decided to continue without the jackets.
After Niepołomice we crossed the forest by a nice, cycling road and turned north to meet the Vistula river again. From that point we were on the Vistula river trail that heads East until the end of Małopolska region. Unfortunately due to missing parts it is about 45 kilometers ride to get there from the center of Kraków. These are kilometers missing, so that it is easily possible to go there with children, for example.
On the river banks it is so easy to ride that we continued quickly. After some time we finished first part and got onto the village roads, but that is rather pleasant change, especially that mostly small roads with just local traffic are used and designated bike roads are prepared in most places where the trail goes along the bigger road.
Time went quickly, fog faded and soon there was the time for my companions to get back. It was just 9:30 A.M. and we were about 65 kilometers into the ride. I knew that it is enough to get back with them to fulfill my charity commitment, which was about 62 miles / 100 kilometers as a result of money donated. But I decided to push more as it was just start of the trail and start of the day.
We decided that we will reach resting place after Ujście Solne together, but we haven’t found it finally, so we just stopped on some crossroads, had some break and the guys went back and I had some more rest, switched cranks from 125mm to 150mm position to go easier against the wind and I continued.
First kilometers alone were hard as motivation to spin was much lower, but I continued wanting to get to some shop for proper second breakfast. Then I realized my GPS was not recording for a couple of hundred meters. Luckily not a complicated trail, so I just turned it on and continued. At one turn where the trail turned onto banks of Uszwica river, I looked at the map and put my Glympse position on, and it was the last time I saw something clear on my mobile. The next time - near to the Kopacze Wielkie resting place, it turned out my screen is black.
Due to that problem I couldn’t enjoy the resting place. I just went to the shop on the other side of the village and, as the shop surroundings were not very pleasant, continued the ride to find a better place. There I stopped to eat my second breakfast and try to repair my phone. After some attempts I realized the backlight is off and what I’m trying to do is to enter my three pin codes blind. ‘Good luck’ I said to myself.
It was bit awkward to ride without any emergency contact, but as I was not that far from my planned end of the trip, so I decided to continue. At the point where the trail meets Dunajec river I saw a sign stating that the tip of land between the two rivers is just 1km on a farm road. I decided to take a look at it, but after some time on reasonable farm road it got thinner and thinner and I ended up walking the singletrek between some bushes.
Luckily it was close enough to the end and I managed to be there just at noon. The point itself was not amusing. The best part of the view was the ferry, which connects the other banks, but the best point of the stay there was that I managed to log into my phone and call my wife. I felt much safer with some connection to the world, but with the screen mostly black I still had problems with the live relation from my trip. My twitter entries got crazy at some moments.
When I got out of the bushes, it started to rain, so I took the shortcut between the cows and climbed to the bike path. There was nowhere to hide, so I speeded towards the final village for my trip.
Just before the village I hit 100km mark, so it was easier to say I’m going back, but still from that point there is more than 30 kilometers of the trail, so I need to get back one day. My route finished in Wietrzychowice, where I saw the center, got some food in the shop, waited a bit for the next rain to pass and started the way back.
Surprisingly on the way back I was riding against the wind again, but I guess that’s normal when cycling. Luckily it was just a few first kilometers and when the route got back to Vistula river the wind was mostly in the back. On the way back my biggest concern was how long my Garmin will live. I planned to use my mobile as the backup GPS, but now it was hardly usable. I was quickly passing the segments and I was quite soon at the place where my friends left me.
Just a while later I got to Ujście Solne and I went to the main square to find some restaurant for the lunch. It was even marked on the map, but I haven’t found it, so I continued. I knew that one restaurant was indicated when we left the first river bank segment in the morning, but that was so far away.
With this motivation I rode quickly and almost non-stop across the villages and after many disappointing crossroads (due to the fact that it was not that crossroad yet) I finally saw the sign indicating that the bar is 150 meters from me. I continued, but it was closed! It was 2:30 PM and it opened at 4 PM on the weekends. Additionally at the same time my Garmin died. I was really upset (mostly about the bar) and I sat down on the side of the road to eat something and rest. One driver stopped and asked if I was OK. Nice to see that people react. I was perfectly OK after a moment and I decided to go to the bar just in front of the Niepołomice forest. It was quite a distance still and my water finished, so I stopped at the shop to refill and continued.
When I got to the place, I was quite tired, but a splash of water and fresh clothes made waiting for the food more pleasant. I also treated myself with a non-alcoholic beer. Non alcoholic because, first, Polish law is quite strict to cycling drunk, even if it is less strict than for cars, and second and more important, I was not sure how my body would react. The food was average, but I was not picky at the time and I was happy to have something hot.
I knew that I could just cross the forest and get a ride home and I would have my 100 miles completed anyway, but the day was still young as I left the bar at 4:30 PM, so I decide to give it one more push. I continued and when I crossed the border of Kraków, I knew I had enough time to get home before the sunset.
It was definitely more cyclists on the riverside than in the morning, especially in the city center. I took it easy at the last parts, not to make any stupid mistakes at the end. I even got my only failed mount that day, but luckily with no consequences. I visited the dragon at the Wawel castle to complete the route and went back home.
Just home I merged all GPS tracks, as my Garmin got recharged during the lunch, so I had 3 separate ones. Only then I realized I did something even bigger than 100 miles, as I did more than 200 kilometers. 204 was the final count.
That was a good cycling day! And even better, my legs on the next day were not that sore, just well tired.
