Euro Training Camp - May 29 to June 15

I had to go to Europe for business and I decided to do some cycling on the side.

I started off with a quick ride across the German-Austrian border near the Plansee and a quick loop around Ulm to Blaubeuren and back along the Donau river.
Next stop was Switzerland: first pass was Col de la Croix de Coeur (2174m). The climb starts in the Rhone valley and goes up for 1700 m. Since I took a wrong turn in the beginning (hoping for a short cut) I added another 500 m to it. The final third was on dirt.

The second pass was: Les Agites (1558 m), starting in Aigle and climbing up 1113 m. From the top, there are beautiful views of the Rhone Valley and the Lac Leman as shown on the left.

This clim and view got me over the fact that the UCI didn't let me ride on their track in Aigle.

Then I was off to the North: I didn't have time for a ride in the Netherlands. Same in Brussels, but I found some interesting traffic signs.

Eventually I got back on the bike myself, spending a weekend in the Ardennes. Saturday I rode around 220 km through clouds and mist following the roads of Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Fleche Wallone, specifically the Mur de Huy. Sunday I was a bid in a rush (and my ass hurt) so I only logged some 60 km.

I met surprisingly few fellow cyclists in the Ardennes. during a weekend at home I would have seen orders of magnitude more cyclists. Oh, and Belgium drivers may brake for frites but hardly for bike riders.


Then I logged a few miles at the Bodensee on a beautiful summer day which was followed by an early morning ride through the rain criss-crossing the Black Forrest.

For my last weekend, I had to go to Italy. On the way, I stopped in Imst, Austria, for a quick climb up the Hahntennjoch before it got dark.

I stayed the night at Prad and the following morning I tackled the Stilfers Joch. During breakfast I had wild plans to go all the way to Bormio and climb both sides. A couples of hours later, reality had gotten me back: there were some snow flurries and the air got pretty thing above 2000 m which mad me stop now and then.

At the top, I put all my cloth on and bought some winter gloves. A fellow Italian hill climber pointed out that the green of his jersey didn't match the green of his wind vest. Well not everybody has the stylish Cyclingcalifornia.Com wool jerseys to wear.

On the way down, I stopped a few days to warm up. At one of the stops, I met a group of three elderly Italian men who did a Giro d'Italia on mopeds. One had a flat. I let them have my pump, but changing the valve with frozen fingers was quite an act.