Woke up on the wrong side of the bed

The ride

I woke up this morning and felt blah. Not surprising, considering I had gone hard the day before, and had four hard rides in the past five days (over 23 hours of riding). It was like I woke up bonked. My body was giving me the middle finger. Understandable.

Thankfully, having gone through this on my last bike tour, I knew I‘d probably ride the doldrums away. Eventually enough sugar from breakfast would get into my system and I‘d perk up. Thing is, that didn‘t happen in the 15km before I hit the first climb, and the first climb was a doozy. I swear this trip has been a magnet for soul- and leg-sucking steep stretches. Greeting my general funk this morning was a climb with gradients over 22% (at least from what I saw on my GPS and what I can verify online).  There were two things to note about this: First, something is seriously wrong with me, because getting abused by the climb actually made me feel BETTER. Second, it‘s incredible how quickly everything becomes relative. Ten percent is brutal until you hit 22 percent, and then it becomes a relief. And all it takes is about 50 meters. Which, granted, at 22% takes an eternity.

By now you know the drill. The view at the top is the reward. And on this trip, it has always been pretty rewarding.

A spontaneous social visit

A little while later, after meandering slowly down through a valley, I met up with friends of Vera, having spontaneously agreed with them the night before that I would visit, considering their place was only a few km off my original route. (That’s like four sentences in one without any transitions, but I’m too lazy to fix it.) I had never met them before, but unsurprisingly, they were super nice, and didn‘t remark once about my stinky cycling kit. Thank god. My gloves are rancid haha. Should I be worried that they smell like apple vinegar?

Schwarzwald, but no cake (yet)

The rest of the ride was short, thankfully, and just lovely.

I spent most of it slithering my way up a river valley. I noted, heading gently upstream for the first time, that I had the wind at my back. Which means that this entire trip, regardless of which direction I‘ve been headed in, the wind has always blown upstream. Is that a thing? Hot air rises or something?

Anyway, it was a very idyllic setting on the river Wiese. I‘m gonna go on a short side track here, because I like complaining about the German language, and this is a good opportunity to do so.

Wiese means ‘meadow‘. That was confusing when Vera‘s friends were giving me directions. In German, nouns are capitalized (dumb, right? I think so too), so the „Meadow river“ is „Fluss Wiese“, which just looks like two nouns together, as if describing A river meadow, not THE river Meadow. And when there are multiple trails on the multiple Wiese on either side of the Wiese, following directions to follow the Wiese becomes a little more complicated. You follow?

Still, I managed. I do have GPS after all. And after a comparably short but adequate 4.5 hours in the sattle, I arrived, not feeling particularly fresh, but not feeling devastated either. One more day before the tour ends. Let‘s see what it holds in store.