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