Resting in a national park Today was a day off in the sense that I was sleeping in the same hotel for another night and trying to avoid doing any hard exercise. But given my compulsion to exercise and the fact I was in a beautiful national park, I still managed to bike about 25km and hike for 2 hours. The motto of national parks

After the temper tantrum my body threw yesterday morning, I was essentially forced to ride slowly and keep my heart rate down during the day‘s ride. This is called active recovery. Well, it helped. I woke up feeling goooood this morning. Ambitious. My first thoughts were, “oh yeah, I‘m gonna wreck these climbs today“. Was that kind of morning. I want to ride my bicycle

First, a quick guide to the two title idioms for the non-native English speakers: Dragging ass means to move slowly, typically because of low energy levels. Hauling ass is essentially the exact opposite, to move fast. What a drag I woke up what I can only describe as rough this morning. Felt like when you wake up during your deepest sleep, except then the feeling

First, a rant I hate the wind. My cycling buddies will tell you that I‘m generally game mentally and can endure a lot of suffering physically, but none of that applies to the wind. I hate it. I just f%$&ing hate it. No tailwind is worth a headwind. A tailwind is a +3, whereas a headwind is a -30. You do the math, and you

A weird kind of disappointment So after riding a tiny bit of the German Wine Road yesterday, I was looking forward to riding more of it today. Except that I was riding west, and the wine country runs essentially north south. So while I thought I‘d be riding through something like Napa, I actually rode another five minutes in wine country before heading into the

I wanted to get an early start because of the predicted heat, but predictably, I did not, because I am me. Balls. I was sweating by the end of the first 100 meters. It was hard to say goodbye this morning. When I part ways with people dear to me and I know I won’t see them for a long time, it turns my stomach

After an obviously less-than-ideal ride in, I had a two day break in Stuttgart visiting Max, a super close friend from Berlin. He‘s from the area and promises me the locals call it Stuggi boogie benz town, but I‘m pretty sure (100% sure) he‘s full of it. In the time since my buddy moved away, he‘s been productive (in a Biblical sense), which means I

The ride Just one of those days. We have a metaphor for endurance in the US, that efforts cost matches. The more efforts you make, or the harder you work, the more matches you burn, and thus the less you have remaining. The stronger you are, the bigger your matchbook is. Having explained the metaphor, allow me to move on to an analogy. You know

Auf Wiedersehen, mountains and lakes After a few lovely, sunny days in Konstanz with the lady friend, it was time to move on. With the tour, that is. So, having ridden something like 750 zig-zagging km through alps and their lovely valleys, meadows, and lakes, it was now time to bid farewell to those landscapes and say hello something decidedly more agricultural. I also traded

Day 10: the ride to Konstanz What a difference a day makes. I woke up with the knowledge that a very good friend of mine was coincidentally in the neighborhood and that we‘d meet up quickly and that I would soon have a nice long weekend with my girlfriend (have received approval to call her that). And I woke up feeling physically pretty good. So