Month: June 2013
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The riddle of the grumpy hiker
Picture the day. It’s warm. The alpine breeze is gentle, coming over the top of the exposed peaks above you; cooling your skin. It feels good after the climb up the dirt road to the treeline. You’re stopped on an exposed rocky bend; a 180 degree view of the valley opens up before you. You […]
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Messing about in the woods
I spent a little time messing about in the woods today. I’ve been getting over my weekend cold quickly, but I still wasn’t ready to do any kind of proper ride . Instead I pedalled up to the LanserKopfl – the little forested chunk of land right on the southern edge of town – and […]
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The Grand Round
I went for a longer road ride the other day. After a couple of rides on the Mountain Bike, I’d been getting a bit bored with the stop start of finding new trails, post-holing through snow, and getting turned around by Thunderstorms appearing out of nowhere. It’s absolutely certain that road biking will never produce […]
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The minor problems with paradise
Beautiful places have problems. Even the most exotic of paradises suffer from their popularity in some way; in Innsbruck its the smog. Its not that bad; it’s hardly even noticeable most of the time. The problem is that Innsbruck, or the Inn valley to be precise, is one of the busiest corridors in Europe. The […]
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View from the window
Summer evenings in Innsbruck draw the daylight on until 10pm. My evening routine has developed as such; cold beverage, comfortable chair and some good reading material. I sit back, engrossed in the view over the tops of the high buildings, just as much as the literature in front of my nose.
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Scharnitzer Tal
When you look at a map of Innsbruck (something I seem to spend a lot of time doing) you notice immediately the huge chain of mountains running along the northern edge of the valley. The Nordkette (literally “north chain”) is a run of peaks reaching to 2500m, almost 2000 metres (6600 feet) from the valley […]
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Up a random hillside
I had the good fortune to ‘virtually’ bump into an American recently. Virtually in its cyber-sense that is. Tracy is a friend of Christoph, my only other riding partner here in Austria, and after an online introduction, we quickly agreed to saddle up and ride some trails.
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Tiroler Alpen Bike Challenge
Race time. It’s a familiar feeling; one that my body has been craving for too long. I have neglected the competitive addiction, one that must be sated for everything to seem right in the world. The internal feelings are unmistakable; restless legs, concern for every unit of energy spent, and food constantly consumed. The external […]
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Val Di Sole
The drive from Garda to Val di Sole was immensely beautiful. The road from the lake quickly darted up a side valley, and we found ourselves in the surrounds of huge forested slopes. Big clouds again aided the definition of the contours, and it wasn’t long until we’d climbed up through Madonna di Campiglio and […]