Kolem Lipna

Kolem Lipna is the cycling race of the Lipno Sport Festival, a summer week of sport on the shores of Lipno lake in the Šumava region of South Bohemia. The festival, led by Olympic champion Kateřina Neumannová, began some fifteen years ago as a small gathering for families with children and the bike race has been part of it ever since.

The course runs mostly on gravel and forest tracks through the quiet Šumava woods on the lake's less busy bank, with a route shaped with input from former Tour de France rider Roman Kreuziger. Gravel bikes and mountain bikes race side by side with their own categories, and the finish comes at Frýdava, from where riders cross the water by ferry to Frymburk before a short spin back to the festival area.

The mood is relaxed rather than cutthroat: the organisers say everyone who reaches the finish is a winner, and a shorter companion race lets newer riders and families share the same day out.