COVID Bike TripCOVID Bike Trip

This trip happened during the depths of covid, in May 2020. It was a time when going outside at all was complicated, the rules changed from one day to the next, and we realised that if we sat at home for even one more week, we'd all collectively lose it.

So a plan was hatched -- a bike trip. Where's better isolation than on a bike, after all? Since finding accommodation during covid wasn't exactly ideal for hygiene reasons, we unofficially named the trip Tour de Chaty ("Tour of the Cabins"), or alternatively, Lend Your Cabin for a Bike Trip.

Straight off the train in Ružomberok, we kicked things off that very first evening with a ride up to cabin number one -- Kika's place in Vlkolínec. From there we continued through the valley between the Low and High Tatras and eventually ended up at a guesthouse in Liptovský Hrádok, the only real accommodation we used on the whole trip.

Day three belonged to the Priehyba mountain pass. We crossed it down into Heľpa, where Horehronie greeted us, along with cabin number two at Zlatno.

This is roughly where the girls started realising it was Easter, and they'd somehow forgotten to buy any food. Lol.....

And since pretty much everything was closed from Friday through Monday -- plus Horehronie is basically Slovakia's own wild west, where the bears say goodnight -- it was down to me and my supplies to keep everyone from fainting off their bikes from a calorie deficit. Luckily I'd brought enough food for a small army, and we also found some old jars of lečo stashed away at Zlatno, so in the end nobody actually starved. The biggest hit, especially with Katka, turned out to be Saturo -- my powdered meal-replacement drink that I happened to be testing at the time and randomly tossed into my bike bag for the weekend. So no, nobody went hungry in the end, but it was pretty funny trying to keep several hungry women fed for days on nothing but preserves and powdered food :D

From Zlatno we headed further south through Muráň, Tisovec and Klenovec, eventually ending up at Janči's cabin near Kokava nad Rimavicou. From there it was just a short stretch to Lučenec, where we caught the train back to Bratislava.

Despite the gloomy covid backdrop, it was a perfect trip -- great weather, great people, and we soaked up every bit of it.