I first got a taste of cycling in the summer of 1988, when I was six years old. I don’t even know why it happened so late. But I remember exactly the place and the brand of my first bicycle: a drained rural swimming pool with a concrete basin, and a pink Spurt Extra. When the Spurt finally fell apart, I was given a touring bike from Eska. My parents chose it so I would “grow into it,” and I felt the pain of that decision every single time I dismounted. With iron regularity, my crotch met the top tube. Soon after, the invention of the mountain bike stormed into the Czech Republic, and my Eska became a laughingstock in my social bubble. It was replaced by an Author Texas. A solid chunk of honest steel—far too much for my slight build. I didn’t mind. What mattered was that it had 18 gears, flat handlebars, and knobby tires.
Cut. It was 1998 when, at the end of autumn, I ran into former elementary school classmates Libor and Venca. We agreed on a ride to the Jizera Mountains. There was already snow in the upper sections; riding alternated with walking, frost creeping under our fingernails. But the return was triumphant, our heads full of bold plans. The following year, we began escaping to the mountains regularly—into the Jizeras, along the Ještěd Ridge, and on special occasions to the Lusatian Mountains. It was a beautiful, pioneering time. My parents weren’t much into hiking, so many wonderful places in the surrounding mountains were reached by bike. I stored away memories of empty mountains, barren plateaus, remnants of dead forests, and the quiet village of Jizerka. Much has changed since then.
Cut. In 2017, I brushed a thick layer of dust off my memories. Malevil Cup, Rallye Sudety, Rychlebky, Singltrek, Zlaté návrší, Lake Garda, the Dolomites, Passo Stelvio, Passo Pordoi, Bormio, St. Moritz… Cycling was a fixed point in my life until 2014, when little Nina was born. Due to time constraints, I swapped cycling for running back then. In 2017, a gradual return began. In the spring of 2018, an icon moved into my home—a steel gravel bike by Tom Ritchey. I fell hopelessly in love with it. By the end of that year, I bought an old Author Sector and started putting together a workshop.
A few words about the workshop
The workshop is a modest refuge where a collector and amateur mechanic (both roles played by yours truly) finds calm and peace of mind, shielded from the people occupying the other spaces of our multi-generational house. My approach to refurbishing 1990s mountain bikes is constantly evolving. At the beginning, there was nothing—just memories of adolescence and a vague fondness for old machines with more or less patina, restored to full functionality and capable of tackling the challenges of the surrounding hills. Gradually came respect for the era in which these machines were created, and the need to give my collection a clear direction.
I longed to head out on adventures on old machines, which in my approach led to certain concessions to modern times. Let’s be honest—1990s cycling carried a fair amount of masochism. Back then, I didn’t see it that way. Looking in the rearview mirror, I now shudder at saddles resembling torture devices, 1.95-inch off-road tires, and handlebars trimmed down to 50–55 centimeters. To this day, I try to “humanize” my bikes, though I’m no longer quite as strict. The collection is growing, and it’s beyond my power to ride them all. I build both rideable (more comfortable) and museum-grade (more authentic) pieces. I still adhere to a “period correct” philosophy, and I still consider the logical final step of any build to be taking the new machine out for at least one ride.
Hand in hand with the evolution of my restoration approach, I also refine the focus of my collection. The 1990s in the Czech Republic remain central—and always will be. Back then, I used to go gawk at the complete Author model range at the Kerda bike shop in Liberec. Once I’d had my fill, I’d buy a bus ticket to Prague and spend the entire day walking from one bike shop to another. I found their list in Velo magazine, which was my bible. Everything nicely offline. Beyond the era itself, I limit my cravings to models with frames made of noble steel. I allow myself a few exceptions—I still dream of a titanium Morati, a Kona Hei Hei, or an aluminum AMP Research B3.
Dreams made real
At the beginning of my collecting journey stood a Czech steel bike, the Author Sector—a mass-market replica of the Author Extreme race bike welded in Robert Štěrba’s Nusle workshop. To this day, my heart burns for it, and sometimes my wallet too (both for the Sector and for the unattainable Extreme). I longed for the Author Magic for a long time, until the universe quite literally showered me with them. I later reconsidered and reduced the haul. Forays abroad became more and more frequent. A long-sought 1993 GT Karakoram in Ferrari Red, with a suspension fork and the patina of a machine long left idle. A greasy, dusty aluminum Thin Air frame from the cult Canadian brand Rocky Mountain, sadly hanging on a hook in the now-defunct Liberec bike shop Wide Bike. A period oddity—the titanal Hercules California Star with a complete Campagnolo MTB group. A treasure hidden under a layer of powder coating on a classifieds site, from the garage of Franta Mrázek, and a collector’s icon in one: the Fat Chance Yo Eddy… I have enough work in the workshop for several lifetimes 🙂
In closing, I’ll let the pages of Velo magazine speak—my story found its way there in the autumn of 2021. The idea was born on the social network Facebook, in the group Urbanvelo Unlimited. We turned it into reality over a beer with Karel Kuchler in the legendary Liberec bar Vokno. To this day, I recall the memory of summer heat followed by a sudden cloudburst that drove a crowd of lightly dressed, soaking-wet girls into the bar. The two of us didn’t even blink and kept talking about our shared passion—old bikes 🙂
