Thanks for posting this. The old centre of town in Warsaw (where the CM ride ends) brought back memories of my own bike tour through Poland in 1989 (as part of a 5,000 km European tour that started in Amsterdam). Not many Westerners were visiting Poland at the time and the first democratic election was being held -- and The Wall was to fall four months later. I didn't see many cyclists but I also didn't see many cars either -- especially in rural areas. I could ride from Frankfurt-Oder (East German border) to Poznan to Gostyn to Wroclaw to Krackow and on into Czechoslovakia and have the road virtually to myself -- although I did have to share with diesel spewing buses and the odd horse and buggy from time to time!
I went back to Poland with my wife in 1995 as part of a tour that started in Hungary and ended in Ireland. To my dismay, we found a totally different story as we biked from the Czech border (near Ostrava) to the Latvian border. This time, only in Poland's northeast could we actually have time to enjoy the ride. In barely 6 years, most of the country had become overrun with cars -- and way fewer bikes than ‘89. Goes to show that communism had one thing right -- restricting car ownership big time!
2 comments:
Pretty impressive. I lived in Warsaw a decade ago and you hardly saw any cyclists and the narrow roads made it somewhat intimidating.
Thanks for posting this. The old centre of town in Warsaw (where the CM ride ends) brought back memories of my own bike tour through Poland in 1989 (as part of a 5,000 km European tour that started in Amsterdam). Not many Westerners were visiting Poland at the time and the first democratic election was being held -- and The Wall was to fall four months later. I didn't see many cyclists but I also didn't see many cars either -- especially in rural areas. I could ride from Frankfurt-Oder (East German border) to Poznan to Gostyn to Wroclaw to Krackow and on into Czechoslovakia and have the road virtually to myself -- although I did have to share with diesel spewing buses and the odd horse and buggy from time to time!
I went back to Poland with my wife in 1995 as part of a tour that started in Hungary and ended in Ireland. To my dismay, we found a totally different story as we biked from the Czech border (near Ostrava) to the Latvian border. This time, only in Poland's northeast could we actually have time to enjoy the ride. In barely 6 years, most of the country had become overrun with cars -- and way fewer bikes than ‘89. Goes to show that communism had one thing right -- restricting car ownership big time!
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