A year later he already had plans for a handbike expedition, but kept training for another 5, before he was ready to tell his friends about it.
“I imagined riding a handbike was a very easy thing to do but the first time I actually did it… I had to go to sleep after just 5-kilometre journey. I was that exhausted,” says Jirka.
He didn’t give up though and kept training for another 5-6 years before he was able to ride 50 kilometres per day. He then told his friends about the idea of a handbike expedition and immediately found a couple of them to accompany him on trips through Iceland and Israel.
Last year Jirka took it up a notch and went with a couple of guys to Morocco. Their 1100-kilometre journey lead through deserts and sandstorms and in the Atlas Mountains, frost and snowstorms awaited them as well.
“The snow and frost was the absolute worst. We were all decimated and the situation fell hard on our morale,” admitted Martin Matěj, one of Jirka’s companions. All three handbikes pulled through in the end and finished the journey without any kind of support.
The guys shot a documentary film about the trip, which should be released in a couple of months, bearing a black humoured title “Break a leg”. Jirka hopes it will give hope and courage to all people with disabilities. “If there’s will, there is also a way,” believes Čeloud.
If you think such a trip would be enough for Jirka, you’d be very wrong.
“We are planning a trip to Iran in April,” said Jirka for WeLoveCycling.
The route looks, if possible, like an even more demanding one. We’ll be sure to follow Jirka’s endeavours and post more updates in the near future.
