Pedaler’s Poem

By Leah

A half-dozen cyclists left Grand Marais,

Bound for Europe via Thunder Bay.

With spirit and gumption, they neither hemmed nor hawed,

Just jumped on their bikes and pedaled out of Prague.

On Goulash!  On Dumpling!  On Pilsner and Pastry!

There’s a pub!  A cafe!  Don’t miss that bakery!

Reaching the Danube, they made a hard left,

The Pedalers were bound for Budapest.

A flat tire here, a bruised knee there,

For a bunch of old fogeys the problems were rare.

Mo’s derailleur exploded on the Hungarian Plain,

They yelled for Mark Spinler but he never came.

The six-week adventure was now sadly complete,

With bikes on the plane, they sat in their seats.

Back home in the forest, The Prague Pedalers are at rest,

With one nagging question:  Where to go next.

 

 

Home again!

Leah:  Some of my images from our incredible journey.

Clockwise from top left:  Accordion player in Gyor town square, Czech soldier,  leaving Tabor,  Prague Castle guards, laughing girls in Krems,  fisherman on Luznice River, woman and dog in Bratislava.

Heading Home

Jini:

Today we took our packed bikes and gear to the airport. We’ve seen so many things, had wonderful times, and functioned exceedingly well as a group. This was a great trip.

Thanks for enjoying, we hope, this blog!

The Prague or Praha Pedalers…….

Petrof pianos!

Jini:

A highlight of this trip happened today: I visited the Petrof Piano museum and factory in Hradec Kralove, an hour and 40 minutes train ride from Prague. I own an upright piano and have always wanted to see where it was made. I am now even more inspired to play once I get home.

Some interesting piano facts:

Petrof has been making pianos since 1864.

There are 7000 pieces in each piano, 4000 move.

210 people work in the factory.

All wood in the pianos are from Central Europe.

There’s more on their website: http://www.petrof.com

Here I am at the piano bar, a grand in the museum that had an attached bar with stools all around.

This is a machine that each piano is attached to that plays each key 1000 times before it is finished. It made a terrific din. Each piano takes about 22minutes.

Really fun time!

 

 

From Budapest to Prague

Sue:  Leaving from Budapest was easy.  Roll the bikes out to the train and load them into the bike car. 

But finding our way out of the Prague railway station was more difficult. We took a wrong turn and ended up doing an extra elevator and escalator with our bikes. We also learned it takes two people to get a bike up an escalator. 

When in Budvar

• TIM:  What does one do when in Cesky Budajovice?  Of course one drinks Budvar Budweiser beer!  Not the American swill version, but the original Czech version.  Best when accompianed by Czech goulash.

More of Budapest

Jini:

We are in a funky, comfy one bedroom apartment where the bedroom is the living area. No complaints! Price is right and the location is great: one block from the river across from Parliament.

 

Last night I walked a few blocks to a Turkish style public bath for my first experience with a Hungarian mineral soak. Down winding steps into a domed room, dimly lit and  steamy to a medium sized pool flanked by 3 saunas, cooling pools and one small very hot pool. Suddenly there was loud Turkish music and 3 belly dancers shook, gyrated, smiled and did their dance around the pool. What a show! This is performed about 3 times a year. I just happened to be there.

 

Train to Budapest

Sue: Had a pleasant 2 hour train ride from Lake Balaton to Budapest. Bought the tickets at the station with the help of translator app, loaded our bikes into the train car with the bicycle symbol on the side and we were off. 

Budapest

Maureen: Temperatures are noticeably cooler but the streets and cafés remain lively. 

Magic Bike Suffers a Mishap

Maureen:  We have been talking about the noise. Was it like a train wreck? A train loaded with rebar hitting a train loaded with taconite?
Or was it like a giant crunching on a mouthful of ball bearings, Captain Crunch cereal and auto parts?
Like an AK-47 loaded with shotgun pellets?
Well, it was the kind of noise that causes a cyclist to get both feet free immediately, and then ease to a stop without further pedaling.  
The rear derailleur was gone. The cage with the two pulleys had broken off and circulated around the top of the cassette toward the front derailleur. The parallelogram body had rotated up to jam between the cassette and the seat stays. And one link of the chain was coming apart. Of greatest concern to me was the significant deformation of the part of the frame where the derailleur bolts on. 
Tim and I took the chain apart, ably assisted by Leah who acted as the Park bike stand. We removed such pieces of the derailleur as we could, and shortened up the chain to try to makes a single speed bike. This was time consuming but ultimately proved unsuccessful.  
Then we tried to get the bike on or under a bus, also unsuccessfully. It was not raining much but we did have occasional hail. 
A saint and his father stopped to try to fix it, but they were also stymied. After taking Dad home, the saint drove me and the bike to the Bringa bike store 15 km away in Székesfehérvár. The mechanic and the shop owner bent the derailleur hanger back into position using a vise and several wrenches made in the Middle Ages. Then they installed a new derailleur. 
Tim and Leah arrived at this point and we watched the final adjustments being made. I then took a test ride, paid about $80 dollars ( yes, a brand new Shimano Deore rear derailleur), and, after thanking everyone, profusely, rode on with my team.