Bike trip #15 to the Daniubiana Art Museum

Sunday, 11 June, 2017 – to the Daniubiana Art Museum (excerpts from my journal The Pressburg Diaries, vol. 4 and a biking logbook)

 

Sunday was a nice day for biking, despite Zuza having awoken with another one of her migraines. Since we decided to bike together, we left a little later than we’d wanted to so she could wait for the aspirin to kick in. However, by 9:30 in the morning we were on the road. We swung across the Pristav Bridge and onto the long stretch of bike trail that runs down the Danube River on the Petržalka side, known as Hradza. A pass by the Flintstones (a buffet-bar along the river and a popular stop for bikers and joggers) revealed a possibility for a lunch stop later on.

 

We biked through the throngs of rollerbladers, bikes, and people with dogs and kids in strollers. The traffic was terrific. We stopped for a drink and a rest at Vyza, another “buffet” (bufet in Slovak) along the way. Here was a sign which said:

     “Trinkgeld nie je mesto v Nemecku”, or “Trinkgeld is not a town in Germany.” Trinkgeld is the Slovak word (from German) meaning tip money. At this point, we’d cycled 12.391 kilometers, to be exact.

 

We meandered down the trail and stopped along the Danube for a view of the estuary and the art museum in the distance. We were now at 19.8 kilometers since leaving home. Another five kilometers or so and we’d arrived at the museum, which was built on a man-made island in the river. We were now 24.09 kilometers from home. We locked the bikes and went into the museum for a gander. We saw works by artists such as Palo Macho, Dorota Sadovska, and Petra Lajdová.

 

From the museum, we got back on our bikes and pedaled back up Hradza to another bufet called Obrátka. But when we’d locked up our bikes, we were dismayed to find out they didn’t have any food! How is that possible?! So many bikers, right off the trail and no bloody food??!! We were at 26.9 kilometers and hungry. They only had some pagač (traditional Bratislava-style biscuits baked with pork fat), which was better than nothing. Those filled us until we could get back up to the Flintstones and have a proper lunch. By now Zuza was winded. I was OK, since I’m accustomed to long distance biking, so I just took it slow and easy. We both ordered pljeskavica (grilled minced meat patties with onions, ajvar and mustard, which seemed more Balkan to me than Slovak) and bread on the side. Zuza wasn’t impressed with the food, but for me it was fine.

 

We got back on our bikes and began the trip up Hradza home. Along the way we passed a nudist colony at a small lake in Rusovce. On a really hot day that could be a fun place. Now we were at 40 kilometers, and we arrived home, at last, having cycled a total of 48.51 kilometers.  I had never considered that biking and art could be combined, and today we did just that.

 

 

Introduction

I’ve cycled pretty much every place I’ve lived except South Korea and Italy. Although I arrived in Slovakia in 2015, I didn’t acquire a bicycle until June 2016. That bike, a lightweight mountain bike built by the Italian company Azimuth, was a really nice one, that is, until it was stolen in May 2017. I’d never had a bike stolen before, but there’s a first time for everything. Bratislava is not a good place for bikes, which is a tragedy considering how many trails and areas there are to cycle!

There are three main areas of cycling interest around Bratislava: north, up into the Malé Karpaty (Little Carpathian) Mountains and along the Morava River; west, along the “Iron Curtain” trail and the border region with Austria; and along the Danube River and into Hungary. There are lots of stunning countryside and vineyards in this part of the world. 

In May 2017, I replaced the stolen bike, purchasing my current bicycle, a blue and orange Kellys Spider 30 with 27 ½ inch wheels. Immediately, I started a biking journal and began documenting my bike trips in and around Bratislava. In this part of my blog, I will highlight the best of those trips.

Bike trip #1 took place Sunday, 21 May, 2017, the day I purchased my mountain bike from Green Bike and took it on its maiden voyage around the city, through parks, etc. The next several trips were just short commutes or evening rides around parks in the neighborhood. At that time, I was using a simple cycle odometer mounted to the bike, and I’m not entirely certain it was 100% accurate. I’ve since replaced the odometer with Sports Tracker, a GPS sports log and tracking app on my phone.

I have to say that I'm a fair weather biker. I bike usually only in good weather. That means little or no wind, never any rain, and preferably not too hot and certainly not too cold. It also means I start my season in May and wrap it up in October. Every year I tell myself to keep cycling into November or December, but at the sign of the first frost, I check the bike's tire pressure and go back to doing whatever I was doing in my cozy chair.

I will post pictures of the trips as I can. I do not have photos for all the bike trips I made