It hurts!

Well, shit. There was a fair bit of deep knee bending coming down the mountain on my hike yesterday, which unfortunately meant that I woke up with sore quads today. Uh oh. I also mentioned yesterday that I don‘t have enough gears or muscles to power through long stretches over 15%. Comically unintentional foreshadowing. Today I had one stretch 400m long that averaged over 20%, and another just a tad shorter that averaged 18%. I managed the 18% pitch ok, but holy hell, the first pitch included sections that are recorded at over 30%. Jesus. I am not even ashamed to admit that I had to get off and walk, and I really don‘t think it‘s because of the hike yesterday either. It was so steep, I had to change out of my road cycling shoes and in to running shoes in order to get traction. Sonofabitch. Still, I loved it. The entire climb was on basically brand-new asphalt on a road forbidden to cars through scenery like this:

And the view from the top was also spectacular, though admittedly made less-so with the inclusion of my face:

The descent must have been equally steep, because I rode the hell out of my brakes for what felt like an eternity. I am a strange person…or a masochist. I prefer going up a thousand times over to going down; going down terrifies me. But anyway, I was on my brakes so long that when I finally stopped, I touched my rotors to see how hot they were. Which is doubly stupid, because I burnt my finger, and because skin has oil on it, and oil makes disc brakes squeaky.

Side note: Germans have a saying „luck in misfortune (un-luck in a more direct translation)“. Certainly applies here. As I mentioned earlier, I had about €1200 worth of components stolen from my bike while I was gone. Not the brakes actually, but because the shop was going to be redoing pretty much everything else including the cabling, I had them switch out the mechanical disc brakes for hydraulic. Fantastic decision, which has come in verrrrry handy on some of these steeper and windier descents. The extra stopping power is a huge comfort.

And the rest was beautiful, too

I will sound like a broken record by the time this trip is done, but it really is just stunning countryside. Over every pass or around every corner into a new valley, the view changes, but the beauty of it doesn‘t.

Lakes…

(swam in this one – Pillersee)

…meadows…

…quaint villages…

…and everywhere mountains, obviously.

I think I said this, too, last time, but I love all of this. I get to exhaust myself traveling from one glorious place to another. I get to swim in alpine lakes. I get to feel the awe of 2000 meter tall slabs of stone. I get to stop for coffee whenever I choose. I get to taste fresh mountain air. I get to have interactions with locals in which they tell me my German is excellent while I simultaneously and ironically understand very little of what they say with their crazy accents/dialects. I get to eat what I want and still lose weight, haha. I get to mentally recharge in no small part because I get to physically discharge. What can I say. It‘s just marvelous.