Drizzly day in Corvara

Its looking a lot like Portland outside today so Im taking a day off the bike. Misty, foggy and fir trees is my view at the moment.  Yes indeed very much like home.

 The Posta Zirm Hotel where we are staying has an extensive "Wellness Farm" with various saunas and pools.  Im getting my bod a much needed massage this afternoon.  For now Im enjoying a leisurely morning; usually its breakfast at 7:30 and on bikes by 9, today folks sauntered down to breakfast after 8 and lingered over coffee while we waited to see what the weather was doing.

We have been pretty lucky with weather so far (fingers crossed!) and we are now half way through the tour. I think Ive ridden myself into fitness where my body is feeling pretty good and strong.  Im still figuring out how to avoid getting chilled on mountain passes.  There are refugios at the top and a lot of times the support van is there too so its easy to spend too much time snapping pics, grabbing a bite and some souvenirs.  We stopped for lunch at one yesterday after a 30km climb from Brixen (good morning legs!)

Im taking tons of pics. The vistas are incredible and the towns are quaint.  We rode through the Landin valley yesterday on our descent off the passo Erbe.  They speak a different language there than the rest of the region

After a 20k section of highway riding we arrived in the heart of the Dolomites.

The great thing about touring on bike is that you are going slow enough to really take in the scenery.  Like this milk shed I saw when I stopped on the climb yesterday

I love riding in the morning, and watching farm sprinklers.  It was very hot a few days ago and I giggled as we got sprayed while riding past a field, refreshed by the cool breeze

On our approach to Stelvio (climbing over to Bormio, first time) we rode past Lake Awesome for several km on a lovely bike path

The beautiful vistas unfold slowly on the bike and come with some feeling of accomplishment, whether its riding just a short, flat distance or up a huge mountain.  I brought myself here with my own body to experience something truly unique and special.

A little bit about Stelvio

Going to bed real soon but have a few minutes

Climbing Stelvio was truly epic.  If  you have a chance to do it on a blue-bird day absolutely go for it. If its cloudy or raining forget it.  It is a slog.

The traffic was pretty terrible, even on a Monday. One of our tour members went down trying to avoid a headon collision with some moron trying to pass blindly.  Fortunately our colleague seems to be OK except for scrapes and bruises.

It is a beautiful climb.  Ill post more pics to my facebook when I can sync my camera (the ones there are just from my phone)  The numbered switchbacks begin at 47 but there are 49+ some climbing out of Prato allo Stelvio.  The climb faces incredible glaciated peaks and ascends through a forest before toping out on the exposed top 24 switchbacks.

The wild flowers were beautiful.  There were mountain streams everywhere.  One cascading several hundred feet into the canyon.

There were tons of motos and cyclists.  Few of us spoke the same languages so we just kind of smiled and waived.  I was encouraged by an italian couple.  A german woman said 'you have done well' as I was completing the last 10 switchbacks.

I turned on my gopro to film switchback 1 and cried.  I almost gave the finger to switchback 3 that kicked up to about 12% for a short pitch

I was surprised at how easy 9% began to feel after 15k.  My average speed was somewhere between 6-7km/hr .   Yes kmh.

I dont think I got any pics at the top really, I was completely disoriented and trying to buy souveniers and eat before i froze.  I ended up not descending because I was simply fried. The descent was beautiful from the van.

Happy Hour!

Its been a busy 2 days here in Innsbruck!

We have the most amazing breakfast at our hotel.  I have been warned not to get used to this level of luxury ;)  I dont know what several of these fruits are called, even in english!

After our awesome breakfast we headed into the garage to assemble bikes.  They had music piped into the garage. We listened to the Pointer Sisters as we wrenched

Checking out everyones bikes was fun.  For instance, here we have the wheels of Alejandro, "The Mexican" and Dan, world champion in masters cyclocross.  34 vs 23.  Can you guess whos is whos? ;)

I have a feeling I will be offering one of them a very large sum of money to ride their bike once we hit the climbs

We went out for a really nice mellow ride around the valley to spin the legs out.  There are a ton of bikeways around Innsbruck.  Some how cars, street cars (tracks!), bikes and pedestrians all comingle here.  The 2 lane roads here are narrower than our 1 lane roads in the states yet we didnt get harassed by any motorists.  There was some pondering about why people in the US have a problem sharing space on the road when we have so much.

Heres our ride: http://app.strava.com/rides/13280839

After our ride we headed to a local pub for beers and watching the Tour. The Tour is broadcast from 2-5.  Its exciting being in Europe to watch live, but it would be a bummer to be living here, since Id probably be at work while it is on.  So I guess we dont have such a bad deal in the PacNW watching it in the morning before work!

While we were trying to decode the menu and read the beer list our very cheery waiter dropped by.  Our tour leader Larry was the only one who could really communicate at all, but we did hear him say "happy hour" We told him we wanted some bier, "happy hour!" and promptly 7 glasses of the house bier arrived.  We couldnt quite figure out what to eat either, Larry got bratwurst and we all decided that sounded good too. Happy hour!  Oh, and then little stands with pretzles (bretzels) arrived! I dont know why I have yet to move permanently to the land of bier, sausage, cheese, chocolate and pretzels.

We all were cat napping during the tour and I was beat by the time I got to bed around 10:30.  I slept till 5 and tossed and turned before falling back asleep.  I woke up later and found out it was 12:15!

Crap! I had missed amazing breakfast!

And its 12:15... i wonder if I also missed the ride too? Double crap!

As Im collecting my groggy self there is a knock at my door.  Jim and Claire tell me they are riding in 15min do I want to come? I mumble a yes and try and get myself together.  Claire gives me a mojo bar so Im not riding on a totally empty stomach and I grabbed an apple in the lobby.  Feeling thoroughly disoriented and groggy I roll out for our first little hill climb ride. Forgot the garmin. Cant find one of my arm warmers or my camera. Yes I just woke up.

We again wove through little towns around Innsbruck, mid day today was a little greyer than yesterday but the roads and vistas are pretty incredible

A lot of these types of scenes rolling into little towns

Figuring out which way to go next

A canyon along the road

The ski jump from the olympics! It was all lit up in green the first night we rolled into town, pretty incredible.

I hobbled along in my groggy state with the help of more food from Claire and the kind assistance of Dan who stayed with me OTB.  The stats on todays ride was around 32miles and 2500ft I think.

The sun had come out while we were riding and we got to see the mountains when we left the pub!!!

These are the mountains we will hopefully be climbing over when we depart on Sunday. I say "hopefully" because if the weather is bad we will go around. And because I really havent thought about what it will be like to climb 1500m in 24km (thats about 4500ft in 14miles)  Ive been fighting off a cold for the last 2 weeks, hopefully my little sleep in this morning helped.

I havent been online nearly as much as usual and Im really enjoying my social media diet. Ill still continue to share but really the only thing Im keeping up with is my twitter feed (Tour gossip, mostly).

Mein blog, en Deutsche!

Blogger is too  smart for its own good. It knows Im in Austria so it changed my interface to German. 

I cant speak German but I can try if you like.

Im very tired and disoriented. My computer says its 2pm but my phone says its 11pm and my body is not sure what on earth is going on. I just ate a large pizza and some schwarze bier.  Im now noshing on some ritter sport and (oregon) hazlenuts. I do so love this part of the world.

We're staying at the posh Penz Hotel in Innsbruck for the next few days and I will take advantage of their FREE WIFI (score!) to make some updates and share pics.  Apparently we will be visiting some very remote places later in the tour so I have to take advantage of modern conveniences like interwebs and ATMs while I can.

The flight was long but turns out I didnt need to be entertained.  I sat next to an older gentleman, Manny, from the bay area who works in airplane manufacturing.  His background is chemistry which he has been using to produce some good wines in San Diego. He talked of leaving the corporate world to pursue wine making and food/wine pairing with his wife.  It made me think of my sister.  I told him that sounded like a great idea.  Also the flight had Hunger Games on the on-demand movies. Score again!

6 of the 10 riders are here.  Im rooming with Claire and I also met Greg, Dan and Alejandro tonight. Tomorrow will be bike building after breakfast, fingers crossed again that everything is functional after its flight across the world.

Weather is rainy and 15C  Afternoon showers have been common lately, hoping for some good rides between now and when our tour starts on Sunday to get the legs warmed up.  Alejandro is rocking a 34 in the back.  Makes me feel pretty nervous about my 28, but its what i got!

And so it begins!

After 8 months of physical preparation I sit in the San Francisco airport awaiting my departure to Munich Germany.  After an 11hr flight I will hopefully arrive to find my smiling tour guides, bag and bike all without hassle.  Fingers crossed!  My flight here was pretty uneventful except for the kid screaming like they were possessed. Yikes!

In chatting with some friends about racing a comment was made about how fun it is just to push yourself and see how you can do in a race. The competition aspect is "fun" and not a yardstick to stress yourself out over.  Competition has been hard for me as long as I can remember.  Usually Ive been totally focused on winning.  I would train so hard and put a ton of pressure on myself to hit that one small mark. I rarely if ever enjoyed the journey.  This started in the same way.  I took on a grueling training schedule that made me cranky and irritable.  The trip became a millstone around my neck.  Then I changed my thinking a few months ago, when I was telling a friend what I wanted to do next summer and he said 'why wait? what about this summer?'  Indeed, why wait?  So I let go.  I decided I didnt have to climb every mountain or ride with the big boys on my trip.  I wanted to have fun.  My body has come a long way and Im sure it will do amazing things, but instead of being stressed about performing to a certain expectation Im trying to just focus on enjoying the entire experience.  I knew my body was going to change in the last 8 months. What I didnt expect was how my mind changed as well. As crazy as things have been there has been a settling of sorts around what Im really wanting out of life right now.

Ive brought along several amusements for the flight.  A book my sister gave me, some geek magazines. I also brought my GoPro manual thinking I might actually read it and play with the camera a bit.  And Im making playlists.  I figured these climbs are going to be LONG so I may need some inspiration.  Heres a peak at my "climbing 1" playlist.  haha! a peak! :)

Incubus - Megalomaniac
NIN - Perfect Drug
Pearl Jam - Leash
TVoTR - Red Dress
Linkin Park - Bleed it out
STP - Naked Sunday
Lady Gaga - Scheisse
Ozzy - I dont wanna Stop (my theme song)
Rick Astley - Never gonna give you up
Wang Chung - Everybody Have Fun Tonight

So here I sit at the threshold of my big adventure.  Heading off alone to a foreign land where I have no comprehension of the language or customs, to ride what professional cyclists call the most difficult climbs in the world 3 years after I started cycling. I am at moments excited but right now mostly nervous. My thumbs are in danger of being picked raw.  I have completely overpacked like an obsessive mother with 5 kids. This is going to be awesome, terrifying, upsetting, thrilling, new and exciting... a real bonafide adventure.