Ladislav Kubín

* 1934

  • "When I was racing, I persuaded my neighbour, who was a year younger, Pepa Pelant, to try it too. So he got a bike and we raced together, we were in the Sokol AZNP Mladá Boleslav club, which was renamed Spartak Mladá Boleslav two years later. We went to cycling meetings every Monday after the races. First it was at the summer training ground, then up there in the Sokol hall. A couple of times we also missed the train because the meeting was going on and we had to take the train. So we walked home. I remember it was somewhere near Řepov, we were standing in the middle of the road, there wasn't that much traffic then. And we were arguing about who was better, or who was riding faster, who had what strengths. We agreed that we'd have a contest at the fair. The fair was held at the end of July after St. Anne's Day, so we did [the contest] in 1950. There's one little photograph of it. For two years we did it with peers and friends from the village, whoever had a bike went. We started the ride from the pool up to the crossroads and back. The second year it was already towards Dobrovice and Semčice, it was up to ten of us riding, everzbody on whatever possible. And in 1952 we officially had it registered as a public race. My neighbour won the first year and I won the second, but only because his chain fell off, so I took advantage of it."

  • "In our village in 1935 - when I was a year old, I don't remember it, only from stories or historical records - a procession was walking from the square in Březno to Holé Vrchy, where a Masaryk lime tree was planted on top of Chlum. The procession was walking along the road - Židněves, Plazy, Kolomuty - in each village people joined in. I was a year old, I can't remember it, but from the stories and written records... They tried to maintain the memorial, and during the war, neighbours like Mr. Svárovský, who was mayor at that time, buried the stone with the plaque in the ground during the war and risked their lives. Besides, in the pub, which also had a shop, the pub owner was collecting food in the shop. For example, my mother sent me with a bag to the shop, to buy this and that, I had a note in my bag telling me what to bring. And I was carrying something there, I didn't know what, but it was food for the partisans, which the pub owner was hiding under the floor in the pub hall. At night, in the back of the village through a little bit of woods and gardens, these people would come to get it. So [the pub owner] risked his life. The man who risked this, so in the fifties, even though it doesn't fit in here, our sociey almost destroyed his family. And the pub was outright stolen by force."

  • " We children were playing in the village square, we were looking up and some planes were flying from the east. So we said - Russians, Russians. And they were flying towards Mladá Boleslav. We were looking up and waving at them. And as we were looking and waving, suddenly something was falling from them. Then we found out that it was an air raid on Mladá Boleslav, Rozvoj, barracks and so on, where my mother's brother, my uncle, lived, so we were worried how it would turn out there." "Did they survive?" "Luckily it fell a little further on, there was a corner shop, I remember that. That's where it went off, where now the premises of the mechanization school are."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Mladá Boleslav, 30.01.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 02:20:36
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

His village helped partisans, then he made it famous with bicycle races

Ladislav Kubín during his compulsory military service in Tábor, 1955
Ladislav Kubín during his compulsory military service in Tábor, 1955
zdroj: Witness´s archive

Ladislav Kubín was born on 20 July 1934 in the Central Bohemian village of Holé Vrchy. His family provided food for partisans during the World War II. On 9 May 1945, he experienced the bombing of Mladá Boleslav by the Red Army air force. After completing primary school, he trained as a car mechanic and worked in the Mladá Boleslav car factory AZNP (later Škoda). He devoted a large part of his life to cycling and cyclocross. In addition to racing, he trained young people and organized stages of the Peace Race. He was also a masseur for members of the Czechoslovak cyclocross team, whom he accompanied to races in Western Europe. For more than seventy years he organized cyclocross races at Holé Vrchy, which were attended by the most successful cyclocross racers from the Czech Republic and abroad. He also served as mayor of the village and was living there in 2023.