Around three and a half hours' drive east of Prague - in the middle of nowhere - you will find the bikers' paradise of Rychlebské Stezky just a stone's throw from the Czech municipality of Černá Voda. The Rychleby Trails mountain bike trail park was opened in 2009 and the lovingly designed MTB trails and routes have been attracting bikers from all over Europe ever since. The key data: 60 kilometres of trails with a maximum altitude difference of 450 metres. The geological basis for the trail centre is a mid-mountain foothill of the Giant Mountains. Spread across these mountains and hills is a network of 13 trails with four different levels of difficulty. Beginners, children and riding technique freaks all get their money's worth on the Rychleby trails. 5-6 professional trail builders look after the maintenance and upkeep of the trails.
Rychleby Trails: Uphill flow trails instead of lift assistance
There is no lift assistance or uphill shuttles in the trail park of Rychlebské Stezky in the Czech Republic. Instead, the Czechs inspire with specially designed uphill flow trails. The entire area can be used free of charge. However, small donations for the maintenance of the trail centre are always welcome. If you want to let off steam on the Rychleby trails for several days, you can set up camp directly at the base for 20 euros per night. Toilets, showers and a wash house are also available on site. To round off the infrastructure perfectly, there is also a small bike shop, a bike hire shop and a restaurant in the same building. The trail park is closed from 1 November to 31 March. All information about the trail centre and the route map can be found here here.
The perfect bike for trail centre use
On a road trip to the Czech Republic, the Rychleby Trails also proved to be an excellent testing ground. For two days, we combed the network of trails in the Czech MTB park with six trail bikes. The suspension travel ranges between 111 and 144 millimetres. An unusually wide range, as some of you will now realise. But we have deliberately chosen this constellation. Because more and more manufacturers are trying to Trail bike to reinvent itself. Sub-types of this mountain bike category, such as short-stroke down-county bikes or downhill specialists with an enduro character, mingle with the classic all-rounders. To find out which development approach works best in practice, we compared all the concepts with each other. You can read the test in BIKE 10/22 - on sale from 6 September, as Digital edition and in the DK Kiosk app.
The test bikes at a glance:
Max Fuchs
Editor
