Biking to the top of Slovakia

One of my cycling goals for this trip was to ride my bike to the top of Kral'ova Hol'a (the Kings Mountain) in the Low Tatras. It's not actually the top of Slovakia (that's Gerlach in the High Tatras), but I think it's the highest spot (1947m/6386ft)in the country that you can ride to, and the climb up there is rated as the most difficult in the country. I waited as long as I could hoping that all the snow would melt off, and finally set out on May 18 from Presov. It was a beautiful day, but as I approached the Low Tatras, I could see a huge cloud bank - sure enough, Kralova Hola (KH) is big enough to create its own weather. I parked in Cervena Skala (the lowest place around at about 770m) and rode the 3km up to Sumiac in a light drizzle. Above Sumiac, the official KH road begins - it's closed to cars and motorcycles, but bikes are OK.

I was surprised (and irritated) to find that the road was dirt and gravel - I'd seen pictures of pavement. But I'd come a long way to do this, so I kept going. After a few km of dirt, I heard voices and came around a corner to find another biker talking to a hiker. The hiker assured me that the asphalt started soon, so the other biker (Martin from Kosice) and I rode on together for a while. At the saddle (where the asphalt finally started), Martin stopped to let his heart recover

while I ate a banana and then kept going alone.

Pretty soon I got above treeline and the wind picked up.

(I have no idea who was doing all that heavy breathing on the soundtrack to the video - I don't recall hearing it at the time.)

Much of the time it was a tailwind, but as I came around to the north side, it turned into a headwind. The summit was still lost in the clouds, but every so often they'd blow off so I could see how far I had to go.

The last stretch to the summit was still covered in snow,

but only required a couple of hundred meters of walking. (And it didn't seem nearly as steep as the 15+% that the web site promised.) By now the wind was howling and I was in the middle of the fog, standing up in my 34-32 lowest gear and barely making progress. As I approached the TV antenna building, the wind was so strong it blew me off the road, and I had to do the last 50m on foot. Fortunately the lee side of the building was completely calm, so I was able to change into a dry shirt and put on the rest of my clothes. I got a couple of pictures of the summit obelisk

and then decided to get the hell off the mountain before the weather got worse. As I walked out from my sheltered spot, the wind grabbed me again and almost blew me into a large puddle. My bike was flying out to the side at about a 45-degree angle as I was leaning into the wind the other way. Once I got away from the building, the wind dropped a bit and I was able to slowly ride down to the snowfield. Below the snow, the wind was considerably less and I was out of the fog. Martin had just reached the final switchback (he made it to the top too). My next trekking bike will have disc brakes. 12km of hanging onto the brake levers with cantilever brakes is hard on the hands! But I made it down in one piece. Much to my disgust, when I looked back at the summit, it was clear up there! (But clouded up again later.)