Deadline 2026

In the current, meme now, it's Wednesday 9:00 and that means that the fourth edition has just officially ended Montane Jibe Jaha. But the real honor of finishing was on his shoulders 29 hours earlier Tomas Brabec. He came under Winning Arch of Havířov shortly after 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning, becoming the only runner and walker to complete the royal 600 km route this year. Along with Honza Kopka, who had passed the finish line 6 days earlier on his fat bike, were the only ones with a photo under the arch. And we have a feeling there will be a lot more of those photos next year.

Tomas had his own interesting style. We wondered how he could keep it up. Sleeping in the morning, getting out late and staying up till the wee hours of the morning. But he admitted that this was actually his lifestyle and what he was used to. When he set off from CP 300km out, things weren't exactly looking rosy, a crater in his heel, everything sore, light rain, but a positive mind. He didn't say he was going to run out, he didn't say he was going to quit, he just focused on going forward and getting somewhere, here and now, and that's all he was concerned with. And that's often the key to success, not to be scared of what's ahead because it may or may not be yet, so why dwell on it and consciously be scared. It's important to have a plan and to be prepared, but even more important to be able to adapt to the actual and unexpected situation when that plan doesn't work out.

He left the Jeseníky Mountains, wandered through the Poodrie Mountains and looked towards the Beskydy Mountains, where he knew that the agro march would end and the fun would begin again. The road from Odry to Beskydy was quite difficult after the thunderstorm - mud and ice everywhere. I met Tomáš after Jeseník nad Odra, and when I walked along the track, my boots were covered with mud in no time. On top of that there was a constant drizzle and fog, slightly depressing weather. Tomas said at the finish that he had been looking for the sun the whole race, but hadn't managed to spot it once. It was there, but above the clouds. And that's good to know, too. Tomas didn't arrive at the 470km CP, which has a slightly stricter limit than the other CPs, until 6am and was physically completely KO'd. But who would blame him. At 2 pm at the latest, it was necessary to leave the CP. But Maderova was on her way, so we bent the rules a bit.

Fresh snow fell in the Beskydy Mountains, covering the rocks and ice, so it was not free again. But those who leave the CP in Roznov will almost certainly reach the finish. The given weather caused people to disappear from the mountains. And so it happened to Tomas that he didn't meet even a living person in the last days, which is quite a rare situation in the Czech mountains. He said he even started to seriously wonder if some nuclear or other disaster had happened and he was the only one who didn't know about it. The fact that he kept a fresh and positive mind was evident every day, or rather in the morning, when he would send the so-called “Brabec compositions” - photographs in which Tomáš and his close friend Tempo (for the pragmatists it was a backpack wearing a jacket, for the others it was company on the road) were talking in various dialogues. Humour, and especially humour of the self, is another thing that can ensure the survival not only of the individual within Jibe, but also of the whole of humanity, which of course is losing its humour.

According to the timekeeper, Tomas reached the finish in 03:49:51 on Tuesday. Which is a good time for Eva and Zdenda, panímámu and pantáta, because they were just getting up and could also greet him in the style of Havířov. So Tomas, after a few cigarettes and shots, went to bed at 8:00 in the morning. And for those of you who don't know, Eva and Zdenda are our destination icons because they live above the Arc de Triomphe and in the apartment where my wife, yes their daughter, was born. Last year it was a “March to my mother-in-law” from Jablonec, where I come from, to Havířov for coffee and strudel, to see Eva and Zdenda. And what the Czech countryside offered needed to be shared further, hence Jizerky Beskydy Jablonec Havířov.

Usually after Jibe is over we don't feel like organizing another edition, but this year was different. We are looking forward to the fifth edition. Because once again the atmosphere created among the participants and the people around was recharging and we enjoyed it very much. So you who read the articles to the end have an advantage and you can put January 29, 2027 on your calendar when the next portion of the Montane Jibe Jaha trail experience will kick off. And we'd like to once again thank everyone who lined up to start, because it takes guts to do it, which takes preparation, planning, stress, training. Regardless of the outcome or the length of time they dragged their packs, we tip our hats to all of them because as the cliché goes - the journey is the destination and the experience is the reward. We respectfully thank all of our parents for their help at the CP, at the finish line, and for helping with babysitting. Lence Zemínová for your help on CP. And also St. John's, who makes volunteer trips to the route to bring the racers a piece of that grub and moral support. And a huge thank you to the company Vertone, which has everything you need to equip yourself for Jibe and other trips. Vertone and its distributed Montane has been keeping a protective wing over us since the first year, lending equipment, preparing start packages, providing expedition food and much more, but most of all they are good people.

I hereby declare the fourth year MONTANE JIBE JAHA is closed and entries for the next one open on April.