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
Rolling hills are so much fun The ride Technically, this is day 5, as day 4 was a rest and a hike. Anyway. I spent the last day with one of my best buddies in Germany and his family. Was lovely. The hike was lovely, but it was also just nice to be in a family environment. I miss family dinners. Anyway, I rolled out in
More than I hoped for The ride Today was the day circled on the calendar, so to say, mostly because it had the most climbing. On that point, it delivered. But it exceeded expectations pretty much everywhere else. The flats Before doing any climbing (at all), I had a nice 50km or so warm up following the Rhone. The same direction as the day before,
Thank god for other riders The ride To be clear, I don‘t mean it was torture socially. I mean it was torture suffered socially. Conversation distracts from pain (unless you‘re my buddy, in which case when I try to talk going up long climbs, he tells me to shut the F up). Misery loves company. Etc. Anyway, today was brutal. It started with about 14km
In the land of Dante, I felt the inferno First, the ride I‘m a fair weather rider (a princess), I‘ll admit it. So I check weather forecasts religiously and usually base my departure times on weather windows. It looked like it‘d be a pleasant 24° (75F for you non-metric heathens) around 9am when I wanted to roll out, with the temp rising to about 28
Here we go again! First…welcome back. Or something like that. Been a while since I‘ve used this medium of communications. Apologies to those of you who‘ve forgotten I exist and who will rightly be confused when this pops up in your inboxes. So it goes. The last year has been, well, I don‘t have to tell you. Still, some folks are luckier than others, have
It's funny, you know. I've thought on numerous occasions over the past month about how incredible it was that something as simple as two steel triangles and two wheels could carry me almost all the way around an entire country with such ease. Then my rear wheel exploded, and with it the illusion of "ease". But still. Bikes are incredible machines. Since moving to Europe,
My tour is over. I‘m not sure when exactly it happened, but I managed to absolutely trash my rear rim: (in case it isn't obvious at first glance, look at where the spokes join the rims...not good) I have a guess how it happened. Some of the cycle paths are on raised curbs, and thus at intersections and such have the traditional curb cutouts which
I think most cyclists will tell you that there‘s something pure, something zen about rolling along with good legs on quiet roads, hearing nothing but the whirr of a well-oiled chain and the hum of your tires on the pavement. It‘s beautiful. It doesn‘t happen too often to me, partially because riding around Berlin tends to be pretty loud, and partially because I don‘t oil
Visiting friends I left the national park feeling great, having had the rest day and two easier cycling days before that. Legs were great and spirits were high, especially as I was headed to Wuppertal to visit friends. The ride started off gorgeous, not surprisingly. But, as expected, it gave a taste of what‘s to come, transitioning from forest to agricultural land... ...to this suburban
