Editor’s note: Sedgwick native Levi Bridges and friend Ellery Althaus of North Truro, Mass., have embarked on a 10,000-mile cycling trip across Asia and Europe. Bridges is filing weekly updates for the BDN.
A rugged dirt path before me runs beside a wide river and disappears in the shadow of a massive gorge. I ride following the rough trail’s serpentine twists. Another cyclist suddenly rounds an upcoming turn and waves as he passes by. A small yellow sign reading “Route 2 bicycle trail” stands by the path with an arrow pointing ahead.
I am riding on a rough bicycle trail outside of Prague in the northern Czech Republic. After riding 7,300 miles, this is the first bike path we have found outside of a big city. From Prague, we will ride into northern Germany on flat lands skirting around the already snow-covered Alps.
After several days’ riding, the bike path meets the mighty Elba River. From there, we’ve been told a nicer bike path follows the Elba’s shores all the way to the North Sea.
The bike path begins near a central square in Prague and follows a river outside the city into the woods. We have spent grueling months riding along central highways in Russia and Ukraine where bikes are permitted because secondary roads are often unpaved. Following the paved bike trail outside Prague, I delight in thinking that my days of riding next to speeding vehicles have ended.
It is peaceful riding beside this river. I feel deliciously alone. The trail runs along flat land near the river and passes under steep clefts of rock leading up the gorge wall. I ride through wooded lanes and pass between thick copses of overhanging trees whose leaves blaze red in late autumn and form an auburn canopy above.
Cycling along this path is amazing, but its drawbacks soon become evident.
Fifteen miles from Prague, the paved bike trail becomes interspersed with segments of rough dirt track or old cobblestone walkways along the river. Our heavily loaded bikes, better geared for road use, don’t fare well here.
Once, I take a wrong turn, and accidentally follow a hiking trail up a steep mountain with beautiful views of small German river towns below. Stairs on the trail descended down the mountain forcing me to carry my bike down.
Another time we had to cross the river to meet the trail, but the only bridge nearby was a set of stairs built around a massive gas line which lead up to a concrete platform that supported the gas line over the river. We hauled our bikes up and down six flights of stairs on either side of the bridge. Ellery ripped his pants coming down the stairs.
For nearly three days we follow the trail from the Czech Republic into Germany. The experience is slow but rewarding. The shape-shifting bike path follows the Elba through a wide river valley where old castles adorn the crests of rolling mountains.
We arrive in Dresden, Germany, on a bumpy cobblestone path. I move onto a small patch of mud along the cobblestone’s edges, hoping for a smoother ride, but my bike just slips and slides.
That night Ellery and I decide to take a main road north in hopes of saving time. Winter is approaching and we need to move quickly.
We ride hard for two days through East Germany and discover that small paved bike paths beside most main roads also link German towns together. They are so numerous that we can almost ride on them exclusively.
Astounding levels of cycle-specific infrastructure in Germany make bicycle travel easy and safe. Separate stoplights for cars and bicycles hover near most intersections. Unlike the small town without a stoplight in Maine where I grew up, small German towns of 1,000 people or less often have at least two or three stoplights for drivers and cyclists.
On this trip, we rode nearly 5,000 miles before seeing a stoplight outside of a major city. It consisted of a small blinking caution light in a Western Siberian town.
In Russia, I often worried about riding on roads with a large percentage of drunk drivers. But here it is the higher number of people on the road in newer, faster cars that worry me. I am not accustomed to sharing the road with so many other people.
The high number of cyclists on German roads and bike paths also forces us to remain alert. I learn that lesson quickly. On a bike path in Dresden, I absentmindedly drifted into the opposite lane and nearly ran into another cyclist.
On our fourth day in Germany, we make a big push to the city of Uelzin. A strong rainstorm is expected, so we plan to cover a large distance today and ride less tomorrow.
That morning our bike path ends when the road it follows turns into a major highway for a mile with exits leading into a small city. At the end, the highway becomes a small road again with a bike path running parallel to it. We don’t see a “no bikes” sign, so we ride on the road’s shoulder.
Cars beep, signaling we aren’t wanted here. A siren blares behind me and a police car zooms past. Just before the highway ends, I spot Ellery speaking with a police officer on the road.
“Highway, no bikes!” the officer says in a thick German accent as I stop beside them.
We have been pulled over for riding off the bikepath. The officer takes our documents and returns to his car. We wait expecting to be fined. Instead he returns, smiles and escorts us off the highway. We don’t speak German, so he explains how to find the bike path using hand signals.
Today quickly becomes one of those rare and impossibly hard days that sometimes happen on the road. They all end the same: trying to cover a huge distance in pouring rain before it becomes dark.
We spend the day getting rained on, fixing flat tires, and becoming separated when a police officer pulled over Ellery, who was riding behind me, after we lost the bike path and again momentarily proceeded on a big road through a small city.
By mid-afternoon we lose the path and ride on the shoulder of a lonely road toward Uelzin. We have ridden so far north that there is scarcely nine hours of daylight. It is dark by 4:30 p.m. I want to stop and eat, but I am racing daylight. It starts raining heavily as it becomes dark. Cars switch on their headlights. The road becomes dangerous, but I deliriously pedal onward.
Just when I consider giving up, a small bike path appears on the left and I turn onto it. I have ridden nearly 100 miles hardly stopping and I am nearly too exhausted to continue. I slowly ride past harvested fields of corn and turnips in freezing cold rain through the darkness. The bike path leads all the way to Uelzin where I later meet Ellery.
Today, we have moved into West Germany. From here, bike paths are so good that we almost never ride on normal German roads again.
With the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9 now just several days away, I could not help but scan the horizons of East and West Germany and analyze the differences. To a traveler, one of the biggest dissimilarities on either side of Germany today seems to be bike paths. In West Germany, the system of good bike paths is more developed than in East Germany where many are still being built.
You can still become lost on good German bike paths when well-marked signs sometimes show directions for towns which are so small they don’t appear on our map. One morning we lose the bike path near a city and nervously continue on a big road for several minutes. Soon our bike path snakes out of the woods and runs alongside the road again. We leave the road and rejoin it just seconds before a cop drives by. Ellery looks back at me.
“Phew, that was a close one!” he says.