Cycling Across Europe | Bikepacking Czech Republic & Austria

It's such a liberating feeling to know that everything that we need is here on the bike with us. Only the absolute essentials, nothing else, no distractions and all we have to do each day is cycle, eat and sleep. The legs may be sore but the mind has never felt more free. We knew it would be a challenge. Surprise, surprise we've got rain again. We didn't even know how far we'd get. Before this trip we weren't cyclists but we are travellers and we are persistent. We've travelled by many methods in the past, by backpack, by car, by van, by boat, by plane but never before had we travelled by bicycle. There's something very freeing about travelling slowly and well by bicycle we would be going slowly. So how do we go about planning our first bicycle travels? What about a two-week trip through central Europe? One week along the south of the Czech Republic through vineyards, wineries, rural villages and medieval cities and then back through the north of Austria following the Eurovelo 6 Danube route along the second largest river in Europe as it meanders through some spectacular and ever-changing landscapes. Okay so we have a rough route in mind. Now there's one problem, we still need some bicycles and are we cycle touring or bikepacking? Well in our usual style we proceed to devoting more or less all of our time to cycling research and within a very short space of time we go from knowing absolutely nothing about the world of cycling to well knowing a little bit more about it. We narrow down the bike choice to two options, a touring bike or a gravel bike. We'll be camping and cooking all our own meals on this trip and so the touring setup would allow us to carry big panniers with lots of stuff and because we're new to the world of cycling we would be able to sit in an upright comfortable position on a big soft seat but we would be heavy and slow, maybe too slow and so the decision is made it will be gravel bikes and with gravel bikes comes the bikepacking setup. With a bit more research and trial and error we realise that the traditional bikepacking luggage setup of handlebar bag, frame bag and saddle pack was just not quite going to give us as much space as we would need. For a weekend trip sure but for two weeks with on and off bike clothes cooking and camping equipment, food, cameras and a drone we would need some extra space and so with the addition of a strong but lightweight aluminium rear rack and two small 12 litre panniers we think we're set. So we download some cycling apps, we bought some of those tight clothes that you're supposed to wear, adjusted some bits on the bike, dribbled a bit of lube on the chain and off we went. Here we are, we're doing it, we finally set off for our first bikepacking trip. We're only five minutes from the house, we just joined the cyclopath. So we left Otrkovice this morning. A lot of the journey today is going to be along the side of the Batya canal and the river Morava which is a huge river running through Czech republic and we're currently on one of the major locks where the river turns into the canal and Vendy is going to tell you something about it. So Batya canal has been built in 1930s by Tomas Batya. It's 53 kilometers long and it runs from Otrkovice to Skalice and the purpose for it has been for actually Batya's businesses. Batya's business was a big shoemaking business based in Zlin and he had workers living in Otrkovice and the reason for the canal was actually to transport coal for his businesses. Today it's just used for recreational navigation, just boats running back and forward. The best way to enjoy the canal is either on the cyclopath as we're going to do because it runs right next to it or on the boat on the canal itself and it's just really nice because there's lots of stops and locks and restaurants and cafes that have been built up since. So just a nice place. So a quick lunch stop done. This section of the cycle path is so close to home that it's really normal for us so we're going to push on a bit until we get to the start of the wine region and that's close to where we'll be camping tonight and the scenery will get a bit nicer and so we'll speak to you guys then. We didn't get too far after our lunch stop but we had an excuse and stopped for a coffee because there was a big dark cloud and it looked like it was going to rain. But anyway we're about halfway today. We entered Bolesovice, now we're in Otrkov and that is the beginning of the South Moravia wine region. So the scenery is getting nicer. I don't know if you can make out the wine on here. Good morning guys. We just realized that we never filmed anything when we got to camp last night. We didn't get here very late but by the time we did get here and have a shower and do some laundry and cook some dinner and all these things, sort some things on the bikes, it was pretty much time to go to bed. So we had a decent sleep for our first night sleep in the tent. So we've had a quick coffee this morning and we're going to cycle into the first village here to pick up some something from the bakery for breakfast. So I'll show you the campsite. This is the site in Milotitsi that we're staying at. It's really quiet the campsite but we've got this nice spot to ourselves here. Plenty of space on the benches for all the gear out. Wendy's already packing up the tent. We've already packed up the sleeping bags and whatnot. We've got this washing line across the back here. Our system we think is going to be to wash the clothes, the cycling clothes every day after we get to camp. We've only got a couple of sets of cycling clothes with us and a couple of sets of off-bike clothes and we want to be putting fresh cycling gear on every day. So we went into the shower with the cycling clothes on and we took some washing soap as well as soap for ourselves and then we washed the clothes and we hung them up there to dry and by the morning they're dry. So hopefully that system will work every night and we'll have nice fresh clothes to put on. And so yeah, we'll finish getting packed up here and then we'll hit the road. So, day two. We're on the move again. We just stopped for a quick bit of breakfast in Dubnany. Is that how you say it? Dubnany, yes. Something like that. And we're on the way to Mutianica now on a nice cycle path. It's only about four kilometers. Yeah, a bit of main road as we came out of the village there and then back onto a nice cycle path now. Yesterday we had a great mixture of like main road, secondary road, cycle path, gravel. We had a bit of everything, eh? And we only done 56 kilometers and we had, yeah, all surfaces so that was pretty cool. If we can have that again today that would be awesome. Maybe a little bit less main road would be nice. Wine cellars everywhere. So it's now just village after village of these cute little wine cellars. On one side and on the other side, the wine. That was a beautiful route. Time for a lunch stop now though. Where are we honey? We're in a predicted area called Palava and this body of water is a dam called Novembrini. Nice spot for lunch. So lunch stop's finished. Time to get on the road again. I can already taste this wine in Mikulov so we better hurry up. So we've arrived at camp, set up tent, had a shower, washed the clothes and we're ready to head into Mikulov town now to go and drink some wine. Mikulov is an extremely beautiful town located in the South Moravian region of the Czech Republic. It's well known for its rich history, stunning architecture and of course the reason why we love it so much, the wine. The town is surrounded by wineries and vineyards and so after a nice stroll from the campsite on the edge of town, we found ourselves at a bar to begin sampling some of the local grapes. This evening we would also celebrate eight years together and so even though it was only our second night on this trip, we decided to take a break from the camping stove pasta and treat ourselves to a nice meal in town. We began day three of our bikepacking trip at a fairly gentle pace. We were feeling a slight lack of energy in the morning. This was most likely due to the wine consumption and the fact that we were still getting used to sleeping in the tent again. But once we got the legs spinning for a while, we soon forgot about the fatigue and we were back on track for another full day of pedalling. We journeyed through some sleepy rural villages and found some nice quiet smooth roads through the fields. This landscape of small roads winding their way through huge fields is very typical of Moravia. We then found ourselves getting some proper use of the gravel bikes with a long section of farm tracks and dirt roads with some picturesque views. It was around here that we unexpectedly joined Eurovelo 13. If you can see up there that's the sign for Eurovelo 13 which is the Iron Curtain Trail. The route that we made through Czech was just something that we made up, mostly Vendy made up. Basically just going through places that we wanted to see and we're not really following any particular cycle route or anything. We didn't actually realize that today we were going to end up on Eurovelo 13 and we were just speaking to a guy last night at the campsite who is doing Eurovelo 13 all the way from Hungary to Germany. So that's pretty cool that we're doing a section of it just now. On the way back as we come through Austria we do plan on doing the whole route on Eurovelo 6. If you don't know about the Eurovelo routes you should have a look at them. We only discovered them very recently as well when we got into biking and it's super cool the network that there is through Europe. So we're excited to see what other parts of Europe this summer we can do on these Eurovelo routes. So we've just stopped for a water top up from this shop now. We've not found anywhere on the route today to fill up the bottles. I'm carrying three bottles and Vendy's carrying two but it's a hot one today so we've gone through it all already. It's not even lunchtime yet and in the villages in Czech Republic on a Saturday and Sunday most of the shops are still shut. Where we stay there's still supermarkets and things and everything's still open but yeah the weekends here well there's not much going on at all and it's difficult to find an open shop but luckily we've just found one just as the water ran out so happy days. We found this perfect bench in the shade right next to the shop so we decided we'll just have lunch too. I've just topped up some food as well for later on for dinner and breakfast tomorrow so I've got no space anyway so we need to eat something before we can carry on. Time to move again. It is indeed end of lunch stop right on the bike. We spent the next couple of hours cycling through the farmlands. The scenery was nice but nothing spectacular but the roads were quiet and we had time to listen to some calm acoustic music and chat about our newfound love for bicycle travel. We were going through places that we would never otherwise choose to go through and moving at a speed that we could really take everything in. Things that we would miss if we were traveling by van or car. We started to wonder how it had possibly taken us until now to discover the world of cycle touring. The quality of the cycle paths increased as we reached the city of Znojmo. We just came into Znojmo. We've never really been going through big cities yet on this trip. This is the first one and Steve came down from the kerb and his back rack came off. Is Steve fixing it? An easy fix or is anything snapped? No it'll be all right. He'll be able to fix it? Surely. Well good job it happened in a city. At least if something's broken there'll be a bike shop nearby. That's very true. Thankfully that was an easy fix. Time for a coffee now. So we've just finished a quick coffee stop in Znojmo. It's a much nicer city than I expected actually. Bendy's been here before but I've never seen it and it looks quite nice. Feeling better after our coffee? Not really. Not really. Didn't kick in yet. We've just had a look at the route and we've got about an hour or so to go. We've got 17 kilometers to go to the camp but it's all uphill from now. We've not had too much elevation today so far. No but we've done already like 60 so feeling pretty tired. We've been making good progress today. So Bendy's just looking at a few options for the route now because there's two or three different ways that we can go and we'll have a quick look about the city again and then get on the move. 70k down. 10 to go to the campsite. Nearly there. Nearly there. 80 kilometers in a whole day. If you're a cyclist you might be thinking that's not very much and you're right. It's not a huge distance for a whole day but we've only owned these bikes for a week or so at this point and previous to that the last time we cycled was when we were children and so we're feeling pretty proud of ourselves right now considering that we've cycled three days back to back with luggage and if you've ever been touring you'll know the difference that luggage makes. So it wasn't long until we reached the camp for the night, got a nice shower, freshened up, pitched the tent for another night of simple living and Bendy made us some pasta for dinner and of course this is Czech Republic so even though this campsite is in the middle of a national park it still has a pub and so we finished the evening with a few beers. We hope you enjoyed coming along for the first few days of our bikepacking trip. If you enjoyed this video please give it a like and remember to subscribe because next week we'll be releasing part two of our trip and we would love for you to join us again.