I have to thank Sven Czatska from Enthusia.cz and my dear Betka that took me recently to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon on an inspiring bike tour offered by Bikecentric Prague. Let's premise that among the offer of bike tours in "Praha" this is definitely an alternative one; that is probably why I enjoyed it so much at the point to decide to revitalize this longtime-dormant blog. Because this was definitely a great experience.
We met our Bikecentric guide Karel along the Vltava (Moldau) riverfront, a cozy place reminding to me Donaukanal in Wien or Quais de la Seine in Paris. In fact the meeting point is at Baykazyl Naplavka, which is an alternative place for cyclists and, according their advertisement, it is at the same time: Action Bar / Bike Workroom / Bike Rental / Guerrilla Point / Music Stage
As reported on the Bikecentric leaflet we had a glance before, Karel was very nice but frank about distances, time and difficulties to deal with along the ride. And I appreciated his honesty, passion and easy-going style.
The tour lasted for about three hours and we were taken to discover lots of interesting places like abandoned industrial buildings, sections right-now under transformation to become posh districts (here Amazon has installed its Eastern Europe headquerter). We also hit a couple of works by David Černý, a Czech provocatory and dissacrant artist that I did like more than a bit. Last but not least we had a break in another Bajkazyl point in Žižkov, a very nice spot where one can find a cafè with old-style bicycles hanging upside down from the ceiling, used bike parts in a warm atmosphere and bike pro tools to fix up your 2-wheeled dudy. And we played a bit in it. At the end we realized that we got definitely bitten by the Czech variety of the famous bug that is spreading around.
I would recommend these tours as a nice complement to the visit of the most popular spots to everyduddy who's passionate for cycling and with the will to discover a Prague definitely "out of the beaten paths".
