Saturday, September 26

From	To	Distance (km)	Average Speed (km/hr)	Max Speed (km/hr)	Odometer (km)	Riding Time (hr:min:sec)	Push-Ups
Bezau, Austria	Pflach, Austria	100.16	17.7	63.4	1098	5:38:59	200

(2398 words)

Uphill to Hochtannberpaß

This morning we got up at 7:30 and went downstairs to breakfast at 8:00. I enjoyed my breakfast of a slice of Ementaler cheese, one brötchen smeared with a great jam, a glass of orange juice, a cup of coffee with milk, and a small cup of cherry yogurt. Before leaving the table, I wrapped two uneaten brötchen in napkins and stuffed them surreptitiously in my handle bar bag. After breakfast we went back upstairs to pack, carried our luggage downstairs, retrieved our bicycles from storage, and loaded them. Having learned my lesson the previous day, I left the card that served as our room key in the room. We did our first 50 push-ups and were on the road by 9:00 AM.

We headed up the #200 road towards Reuthe and beyond. The road was a gentle uphill for a while, then near Schoppernau began to get steep. The temperature was cool, good for blue windbreaker climbing. I climbed slowly and steadily, watching the mountains around me. We passed many grazing cows, who serenaded us with the gentle clanking of the bells hanging from their necks.

The views of the Alps were stunning. The sun was shining and the air was crystal clear. You could see all the way up to the tips of the mountains, which towered above us on both sides as we climbed. Many of the trees on the sides of the mountains were turning yellow and red. The rocky peaks were lightly dusted with snow. Occasionally we'd see a slender stream of water making its way down the side of a rock cliff or between the trees. I stopped often to take pictures.

On the way up we passed through many tunnels. In one long tunnel that had good acoustics, I sang the Star Spangled Banner, waiting after each phrase for the echo to subside. Because we were riding uphill through the tunnel, I had time to make it through the entire first verse. I was lucky enough that no car entered the tunnel during my performance, so the tunnel was filled only with my voice and its echo. The long-lasting echo made me imagine I was singing at the start of a baseball game.

By 11:00AM, we reached the town of Schröcken. I pulled up behind Matt, who had stopped on the side of the road to take a picture of some interesting bridge-like infrastructure supporting the road above us. While Matt was taking his picture, I reached down to extract a Prinz Rolle cookie from my front-left pannier. Prinz Rolles, which are made of chocolate cream pressed between two butter cookies, are a regular grocery purchase when Matt and I bike through Germany. They aren't too sweet and make a nice energy boost snack while riding. As it took me a while to retrieve the cookie and repack my pannier, I fell a bit behind Matt. As I rode up and around the next bend, I saw Matt had gotten off his bike and was taking a picture of me coming up the hill, with some amazing Alps behind me. I held up what was left of the Prinz Rolle that I had been slowly eating so that that I could later explain why I was so far behind Matt in that picture.

Matt had stopped at that point because he wanted a restroom break. We sat down at a small restaurant on the side of the road and ordered soft drinks, because, as Matt explained, it is rude to just go in and use someone's bathroom without ordering anything. I ordered a Spezi, which is half Coke and half Fanta. We sat on a table outside so we could enjoy the mountains. A small church sat on a hill across the street, its tall pyramid-shaped steeple projecting up into the sky and complementing well the jagged edges of the mountains behind it. In front of the church a few cows were grazing, the bells hanging from their necks clanking softly.

We rode on and before long reached the bridge-like infrastructure. Here, the hill was too steep to build the road into the hill, so they put the road up on supports. The road basically just climbs out into the air, then twists around and climbs back towards the mountain. Matt and I stopped to look off the edge of this road in the air, and to take some more pictures.

We continued climbing. Shortly before the entrance to another tunnel, we heard voices below us. We pulled over on the side of the road, grabbed the railing to keep from rolling backwards, and peeked over the rail. We were on a bridge high above a steep, rocky ravine. An strong current of white water crashed loudly down the rocks. About 30 meters below us, we saw a group of about a dozen people, both men and women, repelling down the ravine. Each of them wore a blue jumper and a yellow helmet except for one individualist, who wore a blue jumper and an orange helmet. Seven people stood on a fairly level rock directly below us, just above a waterfall that was about five meters high. Four others had already repelled down the waterfall and were waiting at its base. All of them seemed to be yelling encouragement and instructions to one man who was repelling down the waterfall as we watched. While holding onto some ropes, the man was walking backwards down the face of the waterfall. At one point he slipped, his whole body falling into the waterfall, but he held onto the ropes, got back onto his feet, and continued his descent. Matt and I commented to each other that the water must be very cold today.

We continued riding uphill until we reached Hochtanbergpaß, a grassy mountain pass above the tree line. I paused here to take some more pictures, including one with my bike leaning against a sign giving the altitude at 1675 meters. This altitude was the highest we achieved on the bike trip. After riding through the pass, we began rolling downhill -- an enjoyable no-brakes-needed smooth-road descent.

Downhill to Pflach

It was already well past noon when we started rolling downhill, so we stopped in the first town we came to, Warth, to look for some food. The road through Warth was a fairly steep downhill grade. After riding a fair distance through the town without seeing a grocery store, we pulled over to the side of the road and, after some discussion, decided to eat lunch in a restaurant. I suggested a restaurant about twenty meters behind us, but Matt didn't like the looks of the restaurant, which, he observed, was too "touristy." I countered that at least this restaurant had a terrace where we could sit outside and eat under the sun and the mountains. Looking downhill, we didn't see any other restaurants with a terrace, so I prevailed and Matt and I turned around and pulled into the touristy restaurant with a terrace.

Matt and I sat at a table at the end of the terrace. The views of the mountains were splendid, but the service was slow and the spaghetti mediocre. It was, Matt reminded me, a restaurant that he hadn't wanted to eat at.

After eating, I spread the maps out on the table and we planned our next move. We had hoped to ride to Innsbruck, but I had become concerned that we wouldn't have enough time. This was Saturday and we wanted to be in Rothenburg ob der Tauber by Thursday. Not knowing what weather we might encounter, we decided to skip Innsbruck and give ourselves a day or two extra margin of error.

After lunch we climbed back on our bikes. It was basically downhill the rest of the day. Some of the early downhill was quite steep, and we got going fast by just coasting. After a while, though, the grade leveled off and just gave us an extra 10 or 15 km/hr boost as we pedaled. I didn't take many pictures on the way down, in part because the lighting wasn't as good as in the morning (the sun had disappeared behind clouds), but also because I don't feel like stopping for a photo when I'm going 30 to 50 km/hr.

We followed the 200 road all the way to Pflach, Austria, where we found a Gasthoff and stopped for the night. Actually, before I stopped, I rode on up the road a couple hundred meters, then turned around and came back. This I did because my cyclometer didn't quite register 100 kilometers, which was our daily goal on this trip. Matt's cyclometer, on the other hand, already gave him credit for a 100 kilometers day. Matt and I had discovered early on that our cyclometers were not recording distance consistently. I suspected that I had been inaccurate when I measured the circumference of my wheel and entered it into my cyclometer. (I had been in a hurry.) What we did know was that Matt's cyclometer gave us about 1% more credit than my cyclometer for the same distance. At the end of the day, for example, Matt's cyclometer would read 100 kilometers when mine still only read 99 kilometers. At the Gasthoff in Pflach, in fact, Matt's cyclometer read over 100 kilometers, but mine was still 150 meters short. So before I put my bike into the garage at the Gasthoff, I rode on up the road a bit and came back to make sure I got my 100 kilometers for the day.

Being Accomodating

Once we got settled into the room, we sat down to eat our dinner. On a riding day, we usually have breakfast in the Gasthoff, buy our lunch at a grocery store, and eat dinner (often spaghetti) in a restaurant. Because we hadn't been able to find a grocery store at lunch time today (we had opted instead for a mediocre spaghetti in the touristy restaurant with a view), we had decided to buy groceries for dinner. While still on the road, we had stopped at a grocery store.

The sign on the door of grocery store said it would close at 5:00 PM. I looked at my watch. 4:57 PM. In Germany, a 5:00 closing time doesn't mean you have to be inside the grocery store at 5:00, it means they want to close the register at 5:00. So while Matt waited outside, I dashed in and quickly rounded up two yogurts and two bananas and brought them to the register.

The nice thing about sending one person in to buy groceries is that you needn't spend time locking bikes. The other person can simply stand outside the grocery store and guard them. The bad thing is that one person has to make spot decisions about the other person's meal. In our case, I usually did the shopping because my German was stronger. Thus, I usually got to play the more stressful role of decision maker while Matt got to play the more satisfying role of complainer about decisions.

Actually, in general Matt and I both try to be accommodating to the other person. Being accommodating and flexible is an important ingredient in getting along on a trip like this, where you are together most of the time. For example, Matt and I sat down tonight at a small table in the corner of our hotel room, where I had placed two bananas, two yogurts, a jar of peanut butter, and the two brötchen I had stolen from the Gasthof this morning. We decided to split each brötchen, because I had stolen two different varieties: one bun-shaped and one crescent-shaped. As I cut one of the brötchen with my plastic knife, I asked Matt, "Which yogurt would you like?"

At the grocery store, I had made a spot decision about yogurt flavors, and bought one blueberry and one peach/raspberry. I had hoped Matt would want the blueberry, because I preferred the peach/raspberry, but to be accommodating, I would let Matt have his preference.

"It doesn't matter to me," was Matt's reply, "either one is okay. I want to be accommodating."

"It doesn't matter to me either," I said. "Take your pick."

Matt reached out and grabbed the peach/raspberry yogurt, and pulled it towards his side of the table. Bummer, I thought to myself. But I would let him have the peach/raspberry. I wanted to be accommodating.

I finished cutting the brötchen in half. Because I didn't want to lay his portion on the possibly unhygienic table, I placed it on top of the nearby cup of blueberry yogurt. "Here, that's yours," I said.

"Why'd you put it on top of the blueberry yogurt?" Matt questioned.

"No reason," I replied, "I just didn't want to set it on the table. Do you want the blueberry yogurt?"

"No, no. This is fine," Matt said.

I began cutting into the other brötchen with my plastic knife. Matt picked up his peach/raspberry yogurt. I heard the lid pop and watched as Matt began peeling the lid back.

"You know," I said, "I'll be happy to eat either yogurt, because I want to be accommodating. But if I had my choice, I'd take the peach/raspberry."

"Really," Matt said, holding the half open peach/raspberry yogurt in his hands, "I'd rather have the blueberry."

Matt set the peach/raspberry back down on the table, grabbed the blueberry and slid it decisively over to his side of the table. I reached out and slid the peach/raspberry over to my side. Our dinner divided to the satisfaction of both parties, we proceeded to eat.

Today turned out to be the "day in the Alps" that I had wanted to get on this trip. I had wanted to go to the Alps because I love riding in the mountains. Cycling uphill is great exercise and a good physical challenge. You are by definition in hilly country when riding uphill, so the scenery is usually good. And since you are riding slowly, you have time to admire the scenery as you pedal. Rolling downhill is also fun. It puts the wind in your hair, and if the road conditions are right, it can feel a bit like skiing. Today's ride was great, because not only did we have the mountains about us, we also had great weather in which to enjoy them.