CTW Cycling Team - Austrian Road Hard Loop

You start out gently from Lipno, rolling along the reservoir shore – enjoy it, because the calm ends the moment you cross the border at Aigen. A descent into the Mühl valley drops you down to Haslach, the lowest point of the whole ride. But everything you coast down, Austria charges back with interest: from 500 metres you grind your way up to 880, the high point of the day.

From there the Mühlviertel just keeps rolling – gentle waves of farmland and tidy homesteads. Around Bad Leonfelden you share a short stretch of main road before turning back onto quiet Austrian lanes, then via Reichenthal and Rainbach you cross back home at Český Heršlák. Don't call it a day in Vyšší Brod just yet – one last climb up to Studánky earns you a beer at the local brewery. After that it's all downhill along the Vltava, past the Čertova stěna rock face, where a calm cycle path finally lets you catch your breath. And we ride it with the CTW Cycling pro team – so this is how the pros take it on