Bubeneč

It should have been a straightforward process. All we had to do was transport us and our 21 bikes from Dresden to Prague. Simples. What actually happened was a shambles.

Although the bus arrived a little earlier than expected at the hotel in Dresden, I was rather concerned when I saw the size of the enclosed trailer that they had sent with it. Even at a casual glance, it was hard to see how 21 bikes would be able to fit inside. We soon found out the answer - they couldn't.

It might have been easier to work out a solution if the driver spoke even a single word of English. He didn't. We discovered that he did not speak a word of German either. He did not even speak sign language! It was completely impossible to communicate with him.

All he could was point at the bikes and shake his head. That certainly was not going to solve the problem. The only possible solution was to tackle the problem ourselves. I delegated our engineering squad (Ken, Paul, John , et al) to examine the problem and come up with some sort of answer. At that point any answer would do.

The only possible solution was to dismantle the handlebars of every bike. For the next hour the engineers took to the bikes with a frenzy of activity, quickly converting them to a pile of nuts, bolts and cables held together with duct tape. It was quite a sad and ugly sight.

The deconstructed bikes were finally all cobbled into the trailer, and we were finally able to go on our way. The story was however, far from finished.

When we arrived at the hotel in Prague, the driver wanted the trailer emptied. This seemed very inefficient and unnecessary, as we will require another bus transfer out of Prague on Wednesday. The lack of any sort of language link, meant that I would have had more success talking to the statue at the hotel entrance, so unpack the bikes is what we did.

The next 30 minutes were spent dragging the sad looking bikes from the trailer to the garage and piling them in some sort of bike cemetery in the corner. We had been assured that a representative from the bike company would be at the hotel at 5 pm and would be able to answer all our concerns. I eagerly looked forward to offloading a truckload of concerns when they arrived.

As the appointed hour arrived, there was a group of us waiting in the hotel foyer, but no sign of anyone from the bike company. Over the next 45 minutes I made an uncountable number of phone calls trying to locate the elusive missing person. At one point I was told they were waiting in the "Green Saloon" at the hotel. The only problem was that the hotel does not have anything called or resembling a green saloon. This was rapidly degenerating into a complete farce.

We finally tracked down the missing lady in the underground garage, assisting a small group of German riders. I explained who we were, and was rather disappointed that, although she spoke some English, it was marginal at best. This was not going to be easy.

It got even worse when she thought that we were riding from Prague to Dresden. I tried to explain that we were riding the OPPOSITE direction, from Hamburg to Vienna. That seemed to be news to her. We even showed her our itinerary. She glanced at it, but did not really seem interested. By that time I was really over the whole process. I can only hope that they will have someone in their office on Monday who both speaks English, and also knows what we are here for.

I have a feeling that the next few days will be rather challenging.Read more