Picharffs: Czeching It Out: Biking to the Alps

Caleb's journal entry regarding the Alps biking trip (with Peter's editorial remarks in parentheses):

From 2010-05

"I just got back from a biking trip to the Alps. The first day we took a train to Linz, then Micheldorf in Austria. We biked along a greenish-blue mountain stream. The mountains were amazing, but they felt like they were pressing in on me, almost unpleasantly. The first day we biked 10 km and 800 vertical meters up a mountain (total mileage for the day was some 35+ miles). It was really hard. We were actually up in the clouds at the top. There was still snow on the ground and it was really cold. We biked down a steep mountain trail along the side of a cliff. It just dropped into an abyss, the bottom was clouded so we couldn't see all the way down. We heard and saw a small rock slide behind us on the trail.It was a little unnerving. Finally we made it to a town and found a hotel for the night. Nice hotel and good warm food. We biked 8 hours the first day. (By the time we sat down to eat everyone was a little loopy)."

"The second day started out sunny (and with two navigational errors that cost us lots of time - it's tough biking for two hours and looking down the mountain to see our hotel right below us when we should have been on the next mountain over). We biked into the Kalkalpen National Park full of brutal uphill climbs. At one point it was not bikeable and we had to carry our biked instead of riding. This went on for two hours.

Again we biked through clouds at the tops of crests. Coming down one slippery grassy slope, I crashed and scraped up my elbow. My dad's friend says every proper bike trip includes a little blood. At one point we could only see a hilltop rising out of the clouds. It was surreal. There was a little farm place up on the mountain in the clouds where some nice women let us refill our water bottles. We rode down the mountains on steep, rocky, wet slopes. Part of the way we rode through rock tunnels carved out under the mountains. We finally ended up at a pension at 8:30pm! An older couple fed us soup, sausages and bread for dinner even though we arrived past the regular cooking hours. They had pity on the muddy, tired Americans. That day we biked 10 hours! (This night we were too tired even to be loopy)."

From 2010-05

"On the third day we woke up and had rolls with meat, cheese, and jam for breakfast. Then left the penzion. We biked along the river to Enns. Fifty-for miles in six hours of riding. Exhausting and endless. I was so miserable and sore. We rode through a city (Steyr) - kind of cool. Made it with 10 minutes to spare to catch our train to Linz, then barely caught the connection from Linz to home. We had to keep our bikes in a narrow hallway and at first didn't have a place to sit. Made it to Ceske Budejovice. Rode our bikes home in the rain."

It was a very exhausting trip. I'm still slightly sore. Wednesday night when I closed my eyes I could still see the bike trail we rode that morning and afternoon. I think I dreamed of biking. Pretty sick of biking right now. (But we're all looking forward to our next trip - in the Andes).