The Vltava and its Tributaries

Last week, as I set about the final preparations for this tour, I found myself getting quite nervous about it, because I realised that not only was it going to be my first multi-day solo tour for a few years - since this tour in 2019 - but my first *ever* in a country where I don't speak the language. When you're with another person, you have someone to bounce ideas off, weigh up the options when there's a problem, or bandage your sore foot. One of you can guard the bikes while the other goes off in search of help / information / train tickets / a bike shop / wine. Two heads, verily, are better than one.  When you're touring alone, you have no safety net.
So I was very relieved to have made it to the last day of the tour, more or less unscathed, on schedule and in the right place, with a relatively short (~80km) route planned for the day and a generally downhill trend making for an easy trundle into Prague to catch my train home.   (There were, of course, a few uphill bits too, just to make sure that I didn't forget where my small chainring was; which was fine until my front derailleur forgot where the small chainring was, and I had to stop to adjust it.)

My pre-booked train was at 16.25 and I really couldn't risk missing it - and I hoped to have time for a proper lunch in Prague, too - but even so, when the alarm went at 06.00, I regretted having insisted on ordering breakfast for 06.30, even though I'd actually had a pretty good night's sleep.  The hostess had evidently slept well too, and got out of bed on the correct side. She was much more friendly (as far as possible given the language barrier) than on my arrival yesterday; provided a delicious breakfast with half decent coffee - she had enough English to insist that it was "not instant!"; and didn't demur when I asked to have my flask filled with yet more coffee.

When I woke up I'd opened the curtains hoping to see a magnificent sunrise heralding a day of glorious sunshine for my finale. Instead, I saw greyness, and low cloud hanging in the trees, just like the last few days.  Nevertheless, at the time I left it was not actually raining, and I was able to start without my rain jacket for only the second time on this tour.  My route for the day involved a couple of hours more "kilometer fressen", on small country roads - my independent planning, rather than following a designated cycle route - before joining up with the Eurovelo EV7 route which follows the Vltava river into the centre of Prague.  I was in a relaxed, "end-of-term" sort of mood as I set off, and an earworm of the broad smooth theme from Smetena's "Vltava" had replaced yesterday's frenetic "Anton aus Tirol"! 
Very soon, I found myself having to activate my "always ignore road closures" principle.

After exactly an hour, I spotted a promising small bakery as I passed through the small town of Neveklov, so I stopped for a second breakfast, augmented by an actual espresso (instead of flask coffee) as for once they had a real espresso machine in the bakery! The experience was only marred by some dog poo which had been left right outside someone's front door,  next to the bakery and distressingly close to the bench where I wanted to sit. How very dare they.  (The amount of dog poo left around was one of the more unedifying features of this trip.)

Also in Neveklov, I chanced on another pharmacy and so I made a second attempt (the first was yesterday in Tabor) at getting caffeine tablets. The helpful, English-speaking pharmacist explained that currently they are unable to get pure caffeine tablets at all in Czechia (he wondered whether the tablets are made in Ukraine!*) and the best he could offer was a liquid concoction containing caffeine in combination with various other stimulants, including taurine, which I try to avoid.  I declined - but displayed next to the till there happened to be blister plasters, so I bought a packet to try to mitigate the chafing on my foot, which had not bothered me at all over the last couple of days but had suddenly become painful again.
[* - The caffeine tablets I bought after my return to Germany were, in fact, made in Ireland.]
Another hour further on, after an extremely steep and twisty descent from a village called Rabyne, I had my first encounter with the mighty Vltava river. It's actually a reservoir at this point so it looked disappointingly tame! 

I followed the road downstream as far as the dam, which I crossed - but then, instead of continuing downstream all the way from here to Prague, I turned back the other way, upstream along the opposite bank of the reservoir, before climbing over the shoulder of the adjacent hill and back down to return to the Vltava via one of its small tributaries.  This looked much more fun on the map, and I wasn't disappointed.  Access to the forest trail I wanted to take was via what appeared to be a sawmill yard, with a closed road barrier, where a van was waiting.  Brazenly combining "always ignore road closures" with "rule no.1 of successful trespassing" - look as though you are supposed to be there - I rode up alongside the van, swerved my bike through the pedestrian gap beside the barrier, gave a cheery wave to the van driver (and anyone else who might be watching) and accelerated off down the track ahead before anyone could think to challenge me.
Now I was on a delightful, easily rideable gravel track (see, there had to be some roughstuff, even on the last day) descending through forest beside a little burbling brook. This was definitely the best part of the day's ride, although it was mainly an aural rather than a visual experience - the brook remaining mostly hidden in the lush vegetation - so I didn't take any photos.  After descending for a while, the valley opened out and I had great fun splashing the bike through a shallow gravel ford where the brook joined the larger Kocaba river, a left (west) side tributary of the Vltava.  But moments later I found myself confronted with an altogether more daunting ford across the Kocaba itself - full, muddy and fast-flowing after all the recent rains.

The adjacent footbridge looked quite rickety, and uncomfortably narrow for pushing a loaded bike, so I decided to go for the ford, but walking the bike, not riding it, as the muddy waters prevented me from seeing what the road surface was like, whereas by walking I'd be able to feel ahead with my feet.  This turned out to be a good decision.  I put my bike on the upstream side of me (so that the current pressed it towards me, as opposed to trying to tear it away from my grasp) and leaned it diagonally towards me to form a strong triangular brace shape. By midstream the water was up to the wheel hubs and pushing powerfully sideways on the bike.  I don't think I could have controlled it if I'd been riding. The road base under the water, which I think must have been concrete slabs, was smooth and slippery and I could feel my feet trying to slide away with the current.  If I'd slipped over I'd have been sunk, literally.  The triangular bracing against the bike, leaning my weight against the force of the current, was my salvation.  The fastest-flowing part was the very last few paces before reaching the opposite bank and I was relieved to get through this and safely out.  Next time, I must remember to remove my tool pack from the under-down-tube bottle cage, as not only did it create extra resistance for the current to push against, but the tool pack itself filled up with water so all my tools got wet and had to be dried out and oiled when I got home!
After that excitement, the road following the Kocaba gorge downstream was quite underwhelming, with holiday homes lining the road all the way down until the confluence with the Vltava at Stechovice.
(Re-visiting the route on the map while writing this, I saw that this entire section, from the barrier at the sawmill down to the confluence - including the scary ford - is actually part of the Eurovelo EV7 long distance cycling route which leads from Malta to the North Cape of Norway! Not that you'd believe it on the ground, where I saw no signage, no other cycling infrastructure and met no other cyclists!)
From Stechovice, where I stopped at a third pharmacy for a third iteration of sorry-no-caffeine, I could have taken the rather narrow and busy main road alongside the Vltava. Instead I chose to carry on following the EV7, which at this point crosses over the Vltava and goes - rather steeply up and down - over the shoulder of another hill to join the banks of another, larger tributary, the Sazava.  The EV7 routing and engineering is pretty bonkers around here, in fact I don't think it's really been "engineered" as such at all; someone has just got hold of a map and joined up various existing paths.  The surface varies from smooth tarmac to broken tarmac to big horrible stone setts to steep loose singletrail (thankfully just a short section).  There was a gradient I'd estimate around 25%, on broken tarmac with lots of loose gravel which made descending it pretty scary, and I'd hate to try it either descending or ascending on a bike fully loaded with camping gear and/or less capable tyres than the ones I'm using.  In at least a couple of places there were posts or fences with such a narrow gap that you'd have to unload your camping panniers to get a bike through.  Given that these Eurovelo routes are intended to attract long-distance cyclists, including those making the step up from leisure cycling and therefore maybe not as experienced or hardened to coping with tough road conditions, it seems like a pretty poor show.

The slow going along the Sazava cost me quite a bit of time, so, after a quick coffee stop (while avoiding dog poo beside the bench, again) at the point where I rejoined the Vltava, I got back into full-on "kilometer fressen" mode, spurred on by two things: the next section of my ride being on a nasty main road (with road works) which I wanted to get through quickly, and the prospect of a Wiener Schnitzel lunch in Prague.  I consider Wiener Schnitzel to be mandatory on any trip to Austria, and I had of course ridden through Austria earlier on this tour; I'd even taken the trouble to look up online reviews to find "the best Wiener Schnitzel restaurant in Prague" (and it was conveniently near the railway station!).  So, kilometer fressen, hopefully followed/rewarded by Wiener Schnitzel fressen.  What's more, the sun had come out during that last coffee stop,  and I was beginning to dare to hope that today might be the first and only day I wouldn't need my rain jacket on this trip; although there was still the ride home from Berlin to come later, and I wouldn't have put any money on my luck holding that long!
The planned route showed some 8km along that main road on the left bank before crossing the river, but when I reached that point I couldn't see a bridge - there was an insignificant little track marked "no vehicles" leading down towards the river - but definitely no bridge, and I had definitely gone past the turn-off point - so I backtracked and went down the insignificant track. At the river bank, there was an insignificant little landing stage (not much more than a wooden pallet chained to the bank) and, on the far shore, a real old-fashioned punt-like ferry, with a real old-fashioned ferryman who emerged from the adjacent hostelry within about 30 seconds of me arriving on the bank with my bike, and put to sea to fetch me.

And that was that. On the right bank, from the far side of the ferry, a pristine tarmac bike path ran 20km direct into the heart of Prague. I was there at about quarter to three, which meant that even after spending 20mins or so taking photos along the riverside, I still had a good hour for lunch.

I was starting to get cold feet about the posh Schnitzel place, though - whether it'd be easy to find, whether they'd be full, whether they would turn up their noses at me arriving in cycling kit, whether their service would be too slow.  So when I happened to pass a very good-looking burger restaurant, with a table in the sun and a convenient wall to prop my bike against, I stopped there instead.  Still pending one Wiener Schnitzel dinner as a toll for my cross-border excursion into Austria!

And by the way, it didn't rain in Berlin after I got off the train, so for once on this trip the rain jacket went unworn all day.

TOUR SUMMARY
You can read the entire tour diary here
Total distance cycled: 490km over 6 days (including 26km each way to/from the train in Berlin)
Altitude gained: 5670m
Number of trains taken: 5
Number of countries cycled through: 4 (including 2 I have never cycled in before, Czechia and Slovakia)
Number of days with rain: 5 out of 6
Temperature range approx. 13 to 27 deg.C

TOUR RETROSPECTIVE
What went well?
Odd though it might seem, I'm including both the rain and the migraine under "went well". I had the right meds with me for the migraine, and as for the rain, well, nothing short of a yachting drysuit would have kept me dry in the deluge on Monday. I was able to plan around it, and neither of these things affected the overall progress of the tour.
Mechanically the bike was near-faultless, just a couple of minor snags with a valve and the front derailleur adjustment, both quickly and easily fixed with the tools I had on board.  The gear shifting was a bit reluctant on certain cogs, but that's the price one pays for using a fancy cassette instead of genuine Shimano, and I'll take that for the 300g weight saving :)
The Gravel King SK tyres were perfect for the mix of terrain.
Google Lens was a great help for translating short texts such as road signs and the labels on bakery items. I've never used it for this before, it's brilliant.
Komoot worked well both for route planning and for navigation.  For planning, I switched into "Open Cycle Map" mapping, which shows all the locally designated cycle routes and (mostly) helps you to make sure that your route is on "suitable" roads/paths.  
All the train connections were trouble-free, including the reservations for the long distance trains, for which the Czech Railways web site works perfectly (far better than its German counterpart).
My experimental "filterless filter coffee" technique worked like a dream and means I never have to bother to pack a filter cone again
What went less well?
Communication with the locals was a problem and I really should try to learn a bit more than just "please" and "thank you" for future trips; or at least get hold of a speech-translation app.
The chafing on my right foot was a real problem - probably due to grit getting caught between the toes and the sandal strap - and I need to think of some way to avoid this, maybe by stopping and cleaning the grit out every time I feel some in there, rather than just letting it clear itself as I always have done previously.
Navigation using my phone in the rain was a problem. I doubt that paper maps would have been much more successful - I'd still have had to get into shelter to check them, and memorise a chunk of the route each time.  Audio navigation using waterproof earphones, keeping the phone tucked away, is an option I might explore, although I do find audio cues annoying and earphones uncomfortable when worn for a long period.
"Lessons learned" for future tours
If you're an addict, take plenty of your drug(s) - in my case, caffeine - with you, as you can't rely on getting supplies locally.
Always carry enough food for at least one emergency meal.  I did this by accident - at the time, I thought I had foolishly overstocked - and it saved me!  The corollary is that you need to leave enough space in your bags to be able to fit it in!
Electronics are a single point of failure, especially when everything is on your phone: navigation, ticketing, accommodation bookings, weather, banking ...  I mitigated this by having a spare phone with me and by printing all my tickets out on paper.  I found myself worrying about the charger, though, and especially the cable - I had one cable to charge my lights and camera as well as the phone(s).  A second charger and cable might be good things to cram in.
Pack blister plasters.