{"id":35764,"date":"2025-03-25T19:14:41","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T19:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hopcycling.pl\/?p=35764"},"modified":"2025-03-26T07:42:30","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T07:42:30","slug":"brevet-powodziowe-klasyki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hopcycling.pl\/en\/brevet-powodziowe-klasyki\/","title":{"rendered":"Brevet Flood Classics '25"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u2013 Please tell me what the 2024 training season was like for you and what do you wish for 2025?
\u2013 It was a great season, I will never forget it. And what do I wish for the 2025 season? The same as in 2024.
\u2013 Be a little more specific.
\u2013 I slept a lot, played a lot of Candy Crush Saga because I like it a lot, sat on the couch a lot and stared at the wall dead inside after work.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This dialogue, which never happened (but could have), nicely illustrates my current physical condition. I don\u2019t know if you know this, but a lot of pre-race conversations \u2013 whether they\u2019re races, long rides, joint training sessions, or even brevers, as in this case \u2013 are preceded by conversations about lack of fitness and lack of preparation. It\u2019s a tradition we\u2019ve learned since school:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We gather in smaller groups and each of us says in turn how badly they didn't study and how badly they'll fail the next exam. This conversation ends, you all enter the room, grab a pen and try to write something, but you can't, because you don't even understand the questions. You look around with a blank stare, and everyone around you, as if in a trance, writes as if they were court reporters. Then you know where you are in your body and what color that part of your body is (I invite you to the entry about Uganda<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It's similar in amateur cycling. No one is in shape, and yet everyone is at the start of a 211km long brevet in the mountains. A brevet is a race, only without racing - I explain, because I've never taken part in anything like that in my life. I didn't plan it this time either. And as Mr. Zenek sang: "How it happened - I don't know". However, if I had to point out the reasons: the title said K\u0142odzko Valley, and RideWithGPS showed me the data in feet and miles, so I ignored it. And I've already written everything I could about the Valley: once properly and comprehensively<\/a>, once on the heads<\/a>, so that the blog can live. And there was one more reason: I decided that if I am able to cycle around the Basin, I do not expect anything more from my fitness. And I will only add that since returning from Lesotho (4 months ago) I have been on a bike with Baranek twice and during those rides I did not go far from Warsaw. What is more, I have not ridden in the mountains on typical road tires for\u2026 6 years! Here I end the topic of \u201chow unprepared I am\u201d, although I could go on for a long time. Obligatory point checked off. Besides, the organizer is Mr. Piko, with whom I have a special bond that even he does not know about. Surprisingly often we find ourselves in places where Pawe\u0142 had raced just a moment earlier\u2026 and it was completely by accident. This was the case in Morocco, Rwanda, parkour <\/em>in Romania and probably other places I forgot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My plan is simple. Stick with Wojtek, whose journey is similar to mine, and who also has Ebola (probably a writer's hyperbole). It's even a symbolic adventure, because it's been exactly 9 years since we traveled this horrible route together. Milan-San Remo<\/a>. Yes, 9 years ago I wrote the same blog posts and we rode the road longer, faster and better than now. Then we rode it again, I think. The Strzelin Hills<\/a> in the middle of a pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when we meet after 5 years, on Saturday, at 7:30, before we cover 211 km and 3200 m vertically, in the Polanica-Zdr\u00f3j Sports and Recreation Centre, we have a lot to talk about. The first one is: why in in the turds<\/em> there is no helmet hanger at Orlen. Only then do we get to "how out of shape I am."<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The driving itself doesn't stress me out too much. We're going to finish, survive, maintain our dignity, and have fun - in that order. We've already mastered driving from the back of our minds and experience. Young padawan<\/em> they still use carbs and muscle \u2013 but in our case, that\u2019s not an effective strategy. It\u2019s a bit like telling a fool to \u201cuse your brain.\u201d As a certain rapper once sang:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I oppose the power of the brain to the power of the muscles<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Especially since my carboloading took place on Friday evening, as soon as I got out of the car in Polanica and took a deep breath, so the subject is passed. All my attention comes down to choosing trousers: shorts and legs or long ones. I think it's a technique learned from commandos (or more precisely, when we were them in kindergarten) - redirection. Instead of focusing on the difficulties of overcoming the route, I focus on the lower clothing. Just like with a headache - all you have to do is hit your finger with a hammer and the headache stops being a problem (I think, if you check - let me know). Unfortunately, riding in long trousers is a different sport for me than in short ones - the cotton disappears somewhere. However, I do many hours of thorough analysis and take long trousers. The key argument is that I won't have to wonder when to put on and when to take off trousers. Or laziness that I will have to do anything at all. I know because I had 3 pairs of gloves with me, for all weather conditions, and I know how many times I changed them. In general, the whole trip was mentally energy-saving. I only wrote to Ania that I was going, asked where and at what time I should be there by car, and the rest happened by itself. I simply followed people and did what they did.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To better illustrate the problem of clothing in the early Polish spring, I have prepared a special, professional graphic:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I ride the same bike I always ride, everywhere, for the last 5 years. The damn Factor refuses to fall apart no matter what I do to it: Moroccan taxis, Ugandan vans, Ethiopian buses and dozens of throws of cardboard leave at most slight blemishes on it. Since it got new Dandy Horse wheels with 32mm GP5000 it has become even more irreplaceable. I am seriously disappointed with the bicycle industry. Here it is, in a version where you can't see it, but you can see the reception of our OSIR, which could just as well be the set design at Przystanek Alaska.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I have no idea what I can write about the route itself. I think I've written everything I could about the valley, and then some. This time, in keeping with the main theme, the motif of last year's flood appears, which wreaked havoc in the area. Indeed, it breaks your heart when you pass Radoch\u00f3w, Stronie, or L\u0105dek, even though the area has already been more or less cleared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At the start I meet a hundred million familiar faces that I haven't seen in person for about two hundred million years. I really like the idea of riding without any classification. It requires extraordinary precision and finding the golden mean. Where dignity doesn't end yet, but also where misery doesn't begin yet. Our group gets smaller with every kilometer - sometimes it grows a bit, but most of the time, from the area of the climb behind Z\u0142oty Stok, Wojtek and I ride alone. These 12 hours together (2 of which in motionless) allow us to analyze just two cycling adventures that we have experienced together in our lives. With each subsequent climb I also begin to believe more and more that it is indeed Ebola in his lungs, not a cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, we eat breakfast like true professionals. I'm sitting among the ultras - they know how important proper food is. According to the latest research, sausages are essential. I would like to remind you that I take no responsibility for any sentence I write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Do you know why, on the first dozen or maybe even dozens of kilometers of the route, not a single new hole in the asphalt has appeared in recent years? Because it has not found a place for itself. After that, it is comfortable, surprisingly comfortable even. Maybe with the exception of small breaks in the asphalt, from time to time. Currently, this asphalt is probably in the vicinity of Szczecin. Well, if I wanted to ride on perfect asphalt, I would go to Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have prepared a few jokes, and the safest one is that K\u0142odzko after the flood is not much different from K\u0142odzko before the flood. However, I think it is inappropriate to write them. The fact is, however, that apart from individual shop windows, I did not record the effects visible today. However, you also know that I treat the condition of the buildings in the valley as its advantage, not a disadvantage - of course from the point of view of a tourist. If I lived there, I would write differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the tasks on the brevet card is to do some shopping in a store between kilometer 80 and 95, i.e. in the area most affected by the flood \u2013 as part of local micro-support. We find this one, the most inconspicuous of inconspicuous stores. We go inside and we know. It is exactly the same feeling as when you enter the only store in the village in the middle of Ethiopia, all eyes are on you and you have absolutely no idea what to buy. Out of the corner of our eye we manage to find a pack of isotonic drinks. We make sure we can buy one each, but it still seems stupid. Wojtek chooses Sesame, which he will finish a few hours later, I take dust with water and sugar, i.e. halva. Even though I don't like it. However, I can't stand the pressure that grows with every second, as I stand in front of the counter and my eyes roam around the assortment. For a moment, we even telekinetically agree with Wojtek whether to take a newspaper, for example, "Kobieta" - maybe the last one. Then it turns out that we can't buy it with a card, so we let Mrs. Blik. If every customer spent as much time there as we did and bought as much as we did - the lady would have to seriously contribute to the business. But in return we get a stamp for the book from her. Yes, the store had its own stamp. I'm almost certain that we are the only participants who even got a stamp for their brevet cards in the grocery store. Suckers!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I have some moral problem with taking pictures after natural disasters. Like taking pictures of people in African mud huts\u2026 and I hope I didn\u2019t offend anyone at this point. I think the line between poverty tourism or showing misfortune and documenting reality is very thin. Maybe it depends on the context. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this case, its purpose is to show the destruction, and at the same time to warmly encourage people to visit the area by making them aware that from a tourist's point of view, there are no more problems here and it's worth it. Because it's worth it, the valley is always worth it. Especially since, despite the enormity of the destruction, it's not as bad as I imagined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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