Plzen MTBO 5 Days, Czech Republic
Our final competition was the biennial Plzen 5 Days mountain bike orienteering event. We did it in 2017 and it was a major reason for our return trip in 2025. We’re delighted to say that the level of technical riding, social aspects and [some] of our results did not disappoint! In fact Sally got to the podium with a 3rd place in Sprint event which, given the calibre of the top 10 riders, was her best result of the whole trip … and arguably … ever!

There were over 1,000 involved from little kids (escorted by parents) through all age groups to 80 year olds – way bigger than the Masters World Champs that were held in Spain and THE highest level of MTBO competition in the world. All their maps are ‘old’ forests that many locals would have ridden at some point, which must be some advantage but interesting to note the Czechs didn't win a lot. We were delighted to find that the wild blueberry plants we’ve been riding over/around for nearly 2 months were finally ripe and small but super tasty.

There were 5 event maps over the 5 days. We completed in W60 (our class women 60-69 which was the same maps as the M70 men (70-79) that allowed for great post-race comparisons with us versus mates Norman Jones (Wales/Portugal), Peter Cusworth & John Gavens (Australia).
Nationalities of the 22 women in our class were from Sweden (incl Monica amazing champion every race aged 61), Denmark (incl our buddies Tove &  Sos who was 3rd overall), NZ, Germany (Eva & Ute), Austrian (Gaby), Finland & Czech. The only other major player in European W60 MTBO was absent – Charlie from UK – and Carolyn Jackson competes in W50. About half were aged 65+ like us.

First up on arrival at the event centre (EC) the local club who runs things are incredibly well organised. Ejpovice Village, 15mins drive East of Plzen/Pilsen city, has a big reservoir lake with decent size campground for our sole use. Every campervan (hundred+) was pre-positioned and jam-packed in with tents around, where we all stayed 5 nights. The lake was lovely for swimming and featured a wakeboard park that Deb planned to try out on the last day but alas it was booked out. In the communcal area there were big tents and masses of tables, a few sponsors sales tents, 2 bars and 2 food outlets for inexpensive meals. It was all gorgeous and quite peaceful – and also quite hot!

By the next morning, with event 1 in the afternoon, the place was heaving with no cars allowed to park inside the camp and no more peace -– the vibe was fabulous though! Most people could speak English and it was the 2nd language after Czech for all bulletins etc. Families with kids of all ages, masses of teens and under 21 year olds, teams from all over. AND best of all cheap cold pilsener beer including non-alcoholic fruity Berrali for just NZ$2.50 or $3 large!!

EVENT 1 – Honest O Nest Middle distance, about 6km direct (actual about 8 km), 100m or so climb – plus 3km & 120m climb to the start at a nearby village. Temp 30°. 20 or so competitors in our class W60.

This is a traditional Czech one where you follow the usual point to point controls PLUS have 3 or 4 ‘nests’ area with 2-4 controls in each circle on the map with magnified areas on the side of the map. The first 2 were on a grassy rough open field marked out with taped shapes and you couldn’t cross the tapes, only at gaps, to access controls. For scoring you could miss 1 nest control only for 5min penalty. More mistakes meant a miss-punch.

The hardest part for us was working out the start! Once in the field the first nests were all visible so not difficult – it was just so different that a number of people miss-punched. The 3rd (and 4th) nest was in the forest and was a bit trickier to work out where the nest actually started with no visual clues – you really had to know your location perfectly. We both went ok coming in 9th Deb and 11th Sal. Highlights were finding a big ripe cherry tree to raid on the ride home then straight into the lake for a swim!

Each evening there was prize-giving, ‘diplomas’ for top 3 in each decade then some kind of entertainment that usually went on very late and very loud – more-so as each night passed! Sally confesses to not getting nearly enough sleep between that, late night revellers tripping on the tent pegs, neighbouring tent conversations only a metre away, and the dawn chorus birds!

EVENT 2 – Sprint, 3.2 km direct (approx 4.5 km actual), 50m climb, 15 min drive to the start in Plzen outer suburb. 22 Competitors in W60-69. Temp 33°. A maze of fast single tracks with only a few route choices and Sally took it steady for safety with perhaps too many stops for map checks …. but RAPT to be spot on nav and came 3rd! Deb sadly in 18th place. Off for a celebratory lunch with the Trans-Tasman gang Heather Leslie & John Gavens, Peter & Carolyn Cusworth, Bill & Carolyn Jackson, Ricky Thackray, plus Welsh Norman Jones. Then a bit of retail therapy at our fave Decathlon sporting shop (like R&R on steroids). Back at camp EC in time to watch the triathlon-O – orienteering in team of 3 for run then bike then swim. Good fun watching on with Danes Yes and Tove & Sos, UK Keith and Norman. Karena, Bob and Arniss (team GB) participated with lots of laughs.

EVENT 3 – Middle distance 6.4 km, direct (actual more like 8.5), 150m climb at Dobric forest 20mins drive. 22 Competitors. Temp 33°.

Tracks were often not all marked especially recent logging and most of us took at least one wrong leg. Cross forest travel is allowed in Czech only if carrying your bike but we know of a few who did this technique to cut time… certainly wouldn’t work for us! Also, tracks were not always marked as you'd expect – some worse grade some better, some flowing but many with lots of broken branches to run over.

Result Deb 12th and Sal 13th . The finish area had heaps of parking, BBQ type food outlet, bar of course and lots of places to get shade on the 33+° day. Last controls were spectator so we went to cheer on a few. On the way home stopped for another cherry forage – they are all over the place esp little wild dark red very sweet variety.

EVENT 4 – Long on the same map as #3 (which was held back so we couldn’t swat it up overnight). 10km direct (approx 13km actual), 250-275 climb on similar terrain but different controls. 20 or so competitors. Temp 35°. Lots of route choice and challenging riding in parts. Deb did Ok in 9th but Sally bombed a bit more on 15th place. The fun that day was lunch treat – Czech style wurst sausage and bramborak (like spicey hash brown) …. lucky we ate well because we waited for nearly 2 hours for our friend Norman to appear and finally he walked to the finish line following a bad crash. Sally took him straight to the Plzen A&E for a 6 hour visit to confirm he had fractured his scapula AND 5 ribs!!! Tough bugger but he was proud to have finished! He slept that night upright in his car due to the risk of lung problems.

EVENT 5 – the finale chasing start middle distance, 10.4 km direct (actual about 12.5 km), 150m climb, start 3km from the camp. Temp 33°.

The start time was defined by your combined times to date for 4 events up to the top 10-12 riders then others tagged on at 2min intervals. So Sally’s start was 10:46:56 and it seemed weird to take off all alone PLUS the map had most controls in numeric order BUT a bunch you could get whenever it suited you – again a common Czech thing but a bit nerve-wracking for those of us new to the concept. The race finished with a short uphill to the finish line near the camp bar – a perfect way to end and lovely single track riding…except we both made route errors in the last 3rd that cost us.

Shortly afterwards the MTBO 5 Days awards ceremony was held. A highlight was seeing all the kids getting their special cycle caps and the amazing organising team.

RESULTS – Deb 7th & Sal 14th for the day and overall Plzen comp Deb 9th & Sal 11th (out of 22). We were 4th & 5th places if you compare just the W65-69 group which matches what we did in Spain… a much better result from all the riding and training in those 2 months? Not bad but also frustrating as we both had some good runs and some bad – bit like golf! However we were thrilled to finish all 5 events intact as about 25-30% of other riders failed.

The experience was great fun, lots of camaraderie and new friends made, excellent maps and tracks, beautiful forest and rural areas … but also at the camp lots of smelly loos, overflowing rubbish bins, late night partying when we would rather be sleeping… and really hot weather 30-35° every day. But we’ll most likely be back – 2017 + 2025 + who knows!!

Other good mountain biking opportunities in Czech
On our travels we visited some places that we would recommend for anyone travelling around with their mountain bikes:
Fave single track – Rychlebske Stezky 
Situated in Cerna Voda, NE part of Czech, northern Moravia near the Poland border. While in Warsaw Deb was looking up mountain bike good cross-country singletrack places. She picked the best one and as soon as she mentioned the name of mtb park Rychlebske Stezky Sally instantly recognised it as our FAVE place when we visited 8 years ago!! We’re delighted to advise that ‘Rychy’ is just as much fun as we remembered… even the 450m climb was familiar so didn’t seem so bad 3rd time riding up. First grind uphill for 1.5 hours mostly granite thru farmland then forest then stream crossings and big rocky obstacles with boardwalks. Track coloured green did NOT mean easy!! Eventually arrived at supremo Superflow long long downhill single track 11-12km that put to use our CAP training and pushed the limit of our hardtail bikes. SO enjoyable sweeping turns and heaps of rocks to roll over or small drops. Oh for our downhill bikes but we would never have made it up the hill to start with! Wow that was AMAZING!

The base has super nice quiet camping, a pub/restaurant/pension rooms that we didn’t need, a few families staying with wee kids racing on the pump track, good showers, clean toilets – all the basics except the cycle service/hire shop only opens weekends with crowds so we were happy to miss that. Bonus was Deb finding a bigger frog to scare me with and foraging some delicious cherries. Happy to report this is still our FAVE Czech riding…even the up!!!

Nova Mesto na Morave – UCI World Cup MTB land
Two hours drive SE of Prague, near Brno, we arrived to Nove Mesto Autokemp Sykovek to find an old rundown camp up in the hills above town, 750m altitude, but the cutest lakeside tent pitch – just divine in our happy place. We stayed 2 nights so next morning off to ride the famous trails of Nove Mesto, coming down from our camp through back roads, fields and forest to the trailhead. The riding was more fast flow trails popping in/out of dark tall stands to open low scrub so we did a couple of circuits. We watched some young blokes on the black short downhill jump track (shirtless seemed to make their jumps even scarier!), kids on mini pump track, but couldn’t find any sign of what we thought would be a gnarly track that was used last month for the UCI World Cup. We did find the huge Vysocina Arena used for grand winter biathlon events (nordic ski + shoot, as seen in the Olympics) so had to ride a lap and Deb demonstrated the shooting pose…not easy on a 30+° day the tarmac is close to 45°!

From the UCI event video we discovered how the World Cup MTB riders went all over, crossing the roads and regular tracks to catch every little section of gnarly roots and rocks – some we didn’t find. On TV highlights it gives a different impression due to all the taped routes honing in on just the exciting bits but actually most of the course would be fine for us to ride. Well worth a stop if you’re in the Brno vicinity.

Other tips for travellers with bikes and car in Europe:
• We always select an SUV type car with tall/long enough space to slide in our bikes upright without the front wheel but not needing to adjust the bike seat. Then camping and food gear goes in the middle and personal bags behind each seat. Soft bike covers used for lining the car.
•  In the off-peak season it was easy to find camping accommodation options, with the cost for tent + car + 2 adults varying from €25-50 (NZ$50-100). However on foul weather days we could usually find cheap accommodation for €40-55 (NZ$80-110) – handy to get dry and clean and comfy
•  We found parking in cities/towns to be a real nightmare and quite expensive. So, many times we would use a local train with our bikes or park in the suburbs and ride around. Most cities/towns are pro-biker with good network of cycle tracks to enjoy. It’s also a great way to see a lot in a short time. The only downside is needing to carry decent locks if you want to leave your bike for a while such as a museum visit.
•  Phone carrier for your bike handle bars makes it much easier to follow the GPS or maps when you’re riding around.
•  Trailforks was the most useful app – even the free version was sufficient help.
•  Allow plenty of time, at least a whole day, to clean off your bike and shoes and any camping gear in your last city. We usually carry a bucket and brush and we stayed in a hotel so we could dry out camping gear as we cleaned and packed up.
• Check in extra early with bike gear.
• Be open to chatting with locals – we rarely found anyone who didn’t get excited about talking with a New Zealander, even if they barely spoke any English!