Distance: 30-35 km
Ascent: 1800 metres
Descent: 850 metres
Time: 8.5 hours
And tomorrow's plan is 60 km with 2300 metres ascent. I wonder how we'll fare, as we are both a bit tired after today's exertions, summarised by Markus (we are sharing a room and he needs my light to go off in order to sleep so this has to be brief) as "The English mountain biker who went up a hill and came down a mountain."
In truth, after a 12km warm up on the gently rising cycle path from Bludenz to Schruns, it was quite a long, unrelentingly steep apart from one short but memorable section through some woods, gravel track up to 2000 metres. About 10 cars and 5 mountain bikers were encountered, all except one car were on their way down.
Above 2000 metres the (heavy) bikes had to be pushed and carried a further 200-300 metres to Grubenpass. A fine viewpoint with brightly lit mountains. I should have mentioned that it's been a day of high heat and unrelenting sunshine. Lesser mortals may have succumbed to heat exhaustion but we are made of sterner stuff!
The pushing and carrying continued for much of the way down, from which you may correctly surmise that the path was undulating and rough. Markus hadn't been here before. It was an experiment.
My damaged knee was painful but held out, but the 'sting in the tail' 50 metre ascent to our guest house was not really appreciated.
We do have a nice view from our room though (pictured above as I forgot to take any other blog photos today).
Right. Markus needs sleep. Goodnight.
PS Now proof read by The Boss.
"You missed the Highland Cattle, Ibex and Marmots we saw, and the fact that we have drunk gallons of liquid and you are at least as tired as I am."
Next Posting - Day 2
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1 comment:
Crumbs Martin - how will you sleep at 8.30pm when your normal 'lights out' is between 11 and 12? Good luck for tomorrow! S xx
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