For ease the next day, we decided that we would do another cycle from the campsite, rather than having to move the van. So instead of heading east down to Lienz, we headed in the opposite direction with the plan of cycling around 60km. Again the route was excellent with mostly very good surfaces and almost no cycling on roads.
After wild parking in a beautiful location on the first night, and enjoying a wonderful pizza nearby, we definitely wanted to be in a campsite for the next night given the heat. Therefore we decided to head to near Sillian where there was a nice campsite which was still reasonably priced. Unfortunately we could not check in until the afternoon, so we parked next to the campsite and started our cycle straight from there. The plan was to cycle along the Pustertal cycle path down to Lienz, which was all on an excellent surface and all either car free or on very quiet roads. The cycle was really beautiful, the only downside being that it was down all the way out, and up all the way back!
We decided to make the most of the sunny and hot weather by heading to the Chiemsee, with the plan of cycling around it. Unfortunately it turned out that in my route planning I had looked at one route which was entirely on asphalt and then managed to download an alternative route which contained a lot of gravel. The cycle was very nice, other than the gravel, with lots of excellent cycle path, nice views over the lake and towards the mountains. On the first half of the route we ended up doing the majority of the gravel, but by the middle of the cycle we started to manage to avoid most (but still not all) of the gravel with some deviations.
It seems hard to believe that another year has passed by, but having just had another overindulgent Christmas and new year it is somehow already time to summarise the year in another 100 photos. It was a very busy year with both free time activities and work with many more business trips for me than usual. Winter The year started off with the ski season, we did a lot of alpine skiing and certainly made the most of our Tirol cards, I think I did around 25 days overall! Becky’s skiing has continued to improve and this led us todo our first ski tour on the Kleiner Gamsstein. Unfortunately the snow over the winter was difficult for ski touring, especially for beginners so there was limited ski touring for both Becky and me. I managed one ski mountaineering weekend, but we suffered with terrible snow conditions as well as weather. It was nonetheless enjoyable to spend a weekend high in the mountains. Spring It soon turned to spring, which was unfortunately a bit of a washout along with the start of the summer. This resulted in us not spending that. Read the full article…
Having ridden my mountain bike once in the last 4 years, I was persuaded to go to a bike testival at Regensburg by a friend. This was a fairly harsh re-introduction to mountain biking as it was all technical trail riding, with the brakes the wrong way around! We did three bike tests from the test centre, two of which were with lightweight e-bikes and the third with normal bikes. The lightweight e-bikes were barely heaver than my normal mountain bike! I now certainly understand e-bikes for this type of riding, as my heart rate average was very similar for all three outings, just with the e-bikes we covered an awful lot more ground and there was much less anaerobic use of the legs, which meant less time recovering at the top before the descents. Unfortunately lightweight e-bikes are somewhat out of my price range at the moment, but the day out certainly made me want to repair my mountain bike so that I can actually use it.
Thankfully 2022 was a more normal year than the previous two years, and our first full year with our new lifestyle living an hour from the Alps. A high point of the year was the number of visitors we were able to host, for skiing, walking, paragliding and climbing. We certainly made the most of living near the alps, with most weekends spend in the mountains one way or another. Winter Our winter was fairly dominated with piste skiing, where Becky progressed from tentatively skiing easy blue runs to confidently skiing red runs with the odd short black run as well! This was great to see and I am looking forward to her continued progression this year. Despite the focus on piste skiing we also squeezed some paragliding in and I managed to get 4 days of ski touring as well. General Through the winter we managed to squeeze in some paragliding, and on one of our final days of skiing of the year, I am managed to combine a morning skiing with my first proper cross country flight on my paraglider which was a very memorable experience, as I. Read the full article…
After two days of climbing our feet were certainly starting to feel uncomfortable, so we decided to take a break for climbing and headed off on a cycle around Lake Garda. The route itself was around 89km of cycling, which was split up by a ferry across Lake Garda in the middle. We set off in the morning sun from the campsite and had a very pleasurable cycle down to Lake Garda on cycle paths with wonderful scenery. We then soon joined the road down the east side of Lake Garda which was very scenic but unfortunately not in the sun for most of the ride down the lake, although this did prevent us from getting too hot! The road was really enjoyable without much ascent, not too much traffic and excellent views over Lake Garda. All too soon we were at Torri del Benaco, where we caught the boat from. We arrived perfectly timed 10mins before a ferry left, so after quickly buying a ticket and carefully walking onto the boat in cycling shoes, we were soon off across the lake on a very smooth crossing. After we crossed. Read the full article…
Another year has passed and what a year it was with some outstanding high points due to living so close to the alps, but also with plenty of covid induced low points in the first half of the year. The year started with the first variant and a full on lockdown in the UK, which resulted in Becky being unable to travel backwards and forwards as required for her job and me staying in the UK until mid February. It was my first full year living in Munich and I certainly made the most of living an hour from the alps and regularly had my mind blown about what I could achieve without even taking any annual leave! I am not sure I have ever had a year in which I have spent so much time in the mountains, and I am really looking forward to Becky also discovering this properly this year! Winter After heading back to Germany in mid February winter was looking pretty bleak, with most of the snow in Bavaria having melted and no travel possibilities to the higher mountains in Austria. However, the lack of. Read the full article…