Tom Hutton goes deep into the Czech Republic to discover a world of epic trails and amazing scenery. And the odd earworm too.

WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY TOM HUTTON

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

Caught in a landslide, with no escape from reality

Noooo! Why did somebody have to mention Bohemia?

Sure, it’s a good thing to ride with a little earbug swirling around in your head, right? It loosens you up a bit. Possibly even makes you smile, which has got be better than grimacing your way down the trail.

And if you really stretch your imagination, maybe those Scaramouche and Galileo sections might just provide a soundtrack that works for a few sweet, short, sharp turns.

But… Trying to find your flow while singing goodbye to everybody and predicting an imminent end… mmm, not sure this is helping.

But I am in Bohemia. And I am trying to think of a title for this feature that isn’t a play on the Czech and check thing (Czech mate – Czech this out, etc.), so if I can shake off this relentless harmonious humming after a day or two, then maybe, just maybe, the orchestrator of this musical torture chamber might be forgiven.

Meanwhile, there’s riding to be done. And what awesome riding it is too – a seemingly endless ribbon of dry, dusty singletrack dancing its way through some delightful deciduous woodland. Twists, turns, humps, bumps, little ups, big downs and huge smiles. My guide, Jan, is a cross-country monster and fast, and I’m breathing way too hard to sing anything at all, while still barely keeping his rear tyre in sight.

So where is Bohemia? In a nutshell, it’s the western end of the Czech Republic. It’s a blossoming ex-Iron Curtain nation wedged between Germany, Poland, Slovakia and Austria.

It’s probably most famous for its picturesque capital city, Prague, or its biggest export, Skoda cars. It’s also well known for its beer consumption. But the good news for me is that the Czech Republic also takes its mountain biking very seriously, so much so that the Nove Město round of the UCI XCO World Cup was voted as the best of the 2018 season. And, as luck would have it, I was in Nove Město enjoying some of those very trails, known locally as Singltrek pod Smrken, attempting to clear my head of classic rock ditties while holding on to the ever-disappearing Jan.

I’m on a week-long, three-centre mountain bike safari that takes in the trail centres of Singltrek pod Smrken and Trutnov, linking them with some more natural stuff in the delightfully rural setting of Kokořinsko.

The trip has a truly international feel to it, with my fellow riders hailing from Denmark, Italy and Mexico. And we’re ably led by the ever-smiling local Radim, and the rapidly vanishing, World Cup organiser, Jan.