So I spent the weekend riding my little butt off… I’m sure you’re thinking, “what else is new?!” but I went on some great rides this weekend and I thought I’d write about them.

Joe went to Brussels, Belguim for the weekend with some co-workers, and I opted to stay home since there would be a bike fee of around 80 dollars there and back. For a two day weekend, that gets kinda pricey. I am getting ready to race the Nuernberg World Cup and the Giro Toscana, so I wanted to get some good mountain training in beforehand. Boy did I get what I wanted…

To give you an idea of what I’m actually talking about when I say the names of towns and all, check out the overview map. Every day that I ride I take either the s5 train to Holzkirchen. Then, I either come back on the s5 or I end my ride in Wolfratshausen and take the s7 train back into town. I live right in center city Munich, so by taking these trains I get about 30k south of the city before I start riding. …Quite nice so there’s no traffic!

On Friday I went on a nice loop starting in Holzkirchen to Kufstein, Austria. It had a 23km climb in it, along with other gradual climbs. It was a nice ride, 85 miles in 5hrs I think. It drizzled on me a little bit when I first hit the mountains in Austria, but it stopped after a short bit. That short rain period was enough to totally trash my bike and get me really dirty with road grime… oh well. I’m sure the people on the train thought I was disgusting, but that’s life!

So on Saturday I opted for a shorter recovery ride of about 3 hrs. I ended up doing a “u” shaped loop starting in Holzkirchen and ending in Wolfratshausen. It was a beautiful day, and I just took in the sights. As always, I got turned around in Bad Tolz… and I ended up somewhere I wasn’t sure if I was east or south, so I stopped at a gas station and bought a map with the change I had on me. Now I won’t have that problem anymore if I miss a turn! (hopefully! )

Sunday was the big day. I bought a Bayern Ticket on the absoutely wonderful train system they have here in Germany, the Deutsche Bahn. My train left Munich Hauptbahnhof (Central Station) at 8:32am, and I arrived in Mittenwald around 11:30am. The train ride to Mittenwald is usually only 2 hours, but since the floods we had here in the Alps a few weeks ago the train has been out from Murnau to Garmisch. They’re working on getting it fixed and it should be up and running again in the next couple weeks. SO- I had to take a bus from Murnau to Garmisch, then get on the train there to Mittenwald. It was funny because on the bus ride I actually recognized the roads we were on… they were some of the same places that Joe and I had ridden during our weekend trip to Garmisch.

This loop is special because the infamous “Kuhtai Climb” was part of the Tour of Germany… it was the stage that American Levi Leipheimer won. The climb starts down in the valley where hwy A12 is on the map. I went and watched the tour stage in Sellrain when it came through here.

The climb is labeled as “hors category,” or “beyond category,” by the International Cycling Union (UCI). Ever since I didn’t have time to ride the climb all the way up to Kuhtai when I went to watch the Tour I have wanted to go back and ride the whole thing. The climb is around 25km long… and it really wasn’t too bad until towards the end. But it was comfortable, I only had a 11-23 cassette and made it up with no problems. I was actually sitting most of the time. During only a few sections did I need to stand to push. *sidenote: I finally got my 12-25 cassette in the mail yesterday so now I will be much more suited for training in the Alps.

Once I reached Kuhtai it was straight down all the way to Oetz. Then I kept descending, but there was a huge headwind so I was only going 15mph pedaling as hard as I could. I turned up off the highway at Motz towards Mieming. I climbed pretty much from Motz all the way back to Mittenwald.

Not being prepared for another climb that I am sure would have been categoriezed as “hors category,” I was saying some pretty choice words to myself. Like, “you idiot… yeap, guess you’re getting all that climbing out of the way that you’ve been wanting… got what you asked for, didn’t you…”

So I thought back to the wonderful sports psychology lesson that Carrie Cheadle held with our team during Sea Otter back in APRIL… yes, I was thinking all the way back to then… remembering how you have to be postitive and use key words to empower yourself mentally to get you through a tough spot. Like, “this climb is short… I’ve trained for this… I’m flying…” ect. Yeah, so I started telling myself “short, this climb is short” over and over in my head. Hmm… I don’t think it made the climb any shorter. But it did make me look around at the mountains and appreciate how freakin’ high I had just climbed. You could look over your shoulder to the right and see wwwaaayyyyy down to the valley where the highway was (that I had turned off of earlier).

I finally made it back to the train station in Mittenwald, smelly and hungry. I didn’t get back to Munich until 9:30pm… long day in the saddle. But it was well worth it, and YES I do plan on going back and doing that ride again soon. Call me crazy.

Today I spent the morning with Joe. He took a late arrival into work since his flight from Brussels got in late last night and we didn’t really get to see eachother over the weekend. We spent time talking about our adventures over the weekend and then went to none other than Starbucks for some coffee. We had breakfast and then ran some errands.

Now I need to get out and get my workout for the day overwith, as I’ve spent the rest of the day cleaning and working on my website. Until next time!