“Follow me to a place, where the sky is high and blue and where the white clouds travel faster than anywhere else. Can you hear the song in the crowns of pines? Can you hear the song of places very far away? Quietly and solemnly whisper the crowns of trees. The reddish glare stream down their cracked trunks and the smell of resin will daze you. And when the evening comes, the campfire will blaze into the night and will arouse feelings in you that might shake your soul.”
- Jaroslav Foglar
PROLOGUE
It was July 2013, we stood under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and we had just finished Tour de France. On scooters. A project that somehow in those days cemented the people that had something to do with scooters. This wonderful general feeling inspired Zdeněk Černý, Vašek Jun (who had visited us during the TdF on the Mont Ventoux stage) and Zdeněk Beneš to organize an event that thanks to its uniqueness and unrepeatable vibes will forever be an inseparable part of the scooter history. Etapák. The stage race on scooters. All those who were so lucky to participate in any of the three races remember them almost with tears in their eyes. Races, where the best scooter riders from all around the world, led by Alpo Kuusisto from Finland, who managed to win three times, clashed in battles that became a part of scooter riding history.
However, Etapák was not an event for the chosen ones only. All the scooter world champions and legends were joined by average scooter riders of all ages and levels of performance, and they all, together, sat in the evenings under the stars around campfires.
In May 2016, Etapák was organized for the last time. And in October2021 it returned. The campfire blazed in late afternoons after all those mighty guys and girls returned from tough journey across forrests and fields of the Czech Republic.
In 2022 it returned in combination of fast flats and brutal hills and in May 2023 with high mountain edition.
In 2024 it is coming back again to the unknown place hidden in nowhere. As usual. As ever. With a quote we was given by the 21 edition of the race:
"... and following trails again, they are looking for normal world..."