Mullets, moustaches, sandals and socks. Ze Germans have changed their image around in the last couple of decades, they’re now a young, forward thinking, fashionable nation, a far cry from the 90s party making stereotype.

That generation still exists though. I know this, because the Czechs know this. After the usual bland European star circle with ‘Tschechische Republik’ inside, it became a little more interesting; a duty free kilometre littered with enough Czech-priced off licences hawking tabs and booze, ‘Non-Stop’ casinos and go-go bars to lure all the 90s party making Germans to the border. A time warped home from home. Refuge.

Comedy in 5… 4… 3…

My face can’t hide emotion very well. It was flat, I was expecting hills.

The towns were nice though.

Heading towards Prague was pretty much business as usual, aside from the Czech’s tendency for a ridiculous overtake, and the propensity to close an entire road for a few kilometres for some ghost-town roadworks that don’t actually appear to be being worked on.

By this point I’d been riding for around 18 days, more than enough time for me to perfect my singing voice, develop full blown solo-conversations and increase my repertoire of badly whistled pop songs. I was in dire need of a a familiar face to talk to. Enter Jenny Sherriff.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Jenno.

Jenny took me in, showed me round her stomping ground in Prague, taught me a bit of lingo and introduced me to her awesome friends. It’s nice when you visit a friend you haven’t seen in ages and see that they’ve managed to carve out a nice friendship group and find lots cool bars and art spaces that would be missed by people who have even been living there for some time. There’s far more to Prague than the usual tourist sights (as with every city), and Jenny took me to lots of cool places. Thank you Jenny (nice to meet you).

Punctum art space during Zizkov’s community festival, complete with projector ink splodges. I missed out on the bottle orchestra though.

At this point in time I turned The Tangerine Dream ninety degrees, pointed her south and started pedalling again. The next stretch was down through the Balkans, however there was a bit more of Czech Republic to see and Brno was the next stop. One problem; the heatwave I’d been surfing since France decided to cease trading for a couple of days. Personally, I can only ride for so long in the rain, around half an hour in fine drizzle is my limit, after that I’m under the nearest half decent tree or bus stop. This was a nice, consistent, five hour long, downpour though, with no let-up — no choice but to sit it out. There’s not much you can do at the side of the road when you’re hiding from rain, unless you’re luckily enough to be sat near a kiosk or roadside entertainment, so most of the time your mind ticks over with ‘this is rubbish’ and ‘I’m not getting there today now’ whilst looking at a map. All very positive, constructive stuff.

My luck had run out…

…which lead me to be very…

The next thing to try and stand in the way was a couple of big ol’ Czech roadworks; one in the evening — a few kilometres of unmanned wet mud that was just about cycle-able, and one the morning after, a five kilometre stretch which if I couldn’t bike through meant another 20 around. Now this one actually had people working on it, which meant I had to have a bit more tactful.

“Bike. Velky Bites.” Whilst pointing down a destroyed road. I’ve perfected my charades.

After a nod, off I went, until I was met with a huge channel that they had dug out. I kept cycling up expecting to be told to piss right off. The foreman however waved me over, asked a few questions that were met with a blank face and a point towards my desired direction. He turned towards the bloke in the digger, shouted and gestured something, then Diggerman ended up filling in a small section and plonking a board across. That, ladies and gentlemen is Czech roadwork hospitality, in England I would’ve been told to piss off, in fact I wouldn’t have got that far; Health & Safety or some jobsworth would’ve sent me packing, here I got my very own bridge.

A disused train track I found. Except when I got back on my bike a train flew past.

They keep their borders safe in Czech Republic.

Narodni National Park on the Austrian border.