Year 2018 Archives -

THE IRON SIDE RIDE 2018-Day 03

“WEATHER”

Being alone on an adventure trip is sometimes a risky thing. You have to overthink some decisions twice before making a final choice. Hence, your choice should be a good one, because you have to deal with the consequences on your own.
Most of the time such decisions are related to simple tasks like where to go back on road for the next stop for fuelling up or to buy some food. Often also an estimation is needed regarding if a track is ride able without taking too much peril (slope, dense vegetation, road damage …) for you and your bike.
But none of these listed points is so difficult to calculate in advance like the dynamic factor weather is. On this last riding day of the Iron Side Ride 2018 this unknown factor in the adventure-riding-formula was steadily growing during this day’s riding progress …

THE IRON SIDE RIDE 2018-Day 02-Part 2

“FORMER LINES”
Part 2

The day ride report of the second day continues! More adventurous sights, bunkers, old castles, nice landscapes and deeper insights into the madness of the Cold War was given. Enjoy …

THE IRON SIDE RIDE 2018-Day 02-Part 1

“FORMER LINES”
Part 1

*Scratch*, *scratch*, *scratch*, …, …, *plonnng* *crinkle* *crinkle*
… that are just a few noises which you can hear while lying in a tent, trying to sleep. Often fine needles, leaves or branches from a tree falling down onto the tent sheet, or some insects are rummaging around make this noises.
During the first camping night from the Iron Curtain Ride a mouse or something similar “big” found its way underneath the groundsheet of my tent and caused an uncommon annoying noise. Normally I’m not the person which is paying attention to these noises, but this time that thing had stamina and came back again a few times during the first camping night of this ride. Sadly I wasn’t able to get this little disturber. -_-

But now enough of this, here’s the first part of the ride report of the second day of the Iron Side Ride 2018 …

THE IRON SIDE RIDE 2018-Day 01

“LEAVING HOME”

After a long time of planning this ride along the former Iron Curtain, Чернотa and I finally started our trip. Now the route, which was planned on the PC with open source tools, will show if it stands the test …

THE IRON SIDE RIDE 2018-Day 00

“THE UNDERTAKING”

During one of my day rides in 2017 I was following a short part of the Iron Curtain in eastern Austria. There I got the idea that it would be interesting to plan a ride along this former border, which found its end 1989, when the USSR began to fall apart.
So the plan for the Iron Side Ride 2018 was made, which followed the remnants of this former, continent dividing and human made continental breach. Here’s the story behind this undertaking …

THE LATE SPRING RIDE 2018-Day 04

“BACK”

Plans are always good, but most of the time they didn’t work. This ride showed me that fact well. First the accident of my riding and support buddy, second: due to the heavy winter remaining and route blocking snow in Friuli’s heights and here on the last day of the ride: the real bad weather. But hey! No reason for wailing around –> When things go wrong the adventure starts and each step out of the comfort zone is gaining the riders abilities.

THE LATE SPRING RIDE 2018-Day 03

“RIDE ON”

Despite some things went awry and the loss of about one whole riding day I continued my trip through Slovenia and Italys Alps alone, because my riding buddy had to abort the tour due to his wrist injury.

THE LATE SPRING RIDE 2018-Day 02/2

“THE INCIDENT”
Part 2

As you know from my last report about the first half of the second day of the Late Spring Ride 2018, my buddy had an accident.
Now the story continues … .

THE LATE SPRING RIDE 2018-Day 02/1

“THE INCIDENT”
Part 1

The plan was to ride with a buddy some Slovenian Gravel, the Mangart Pass Road, two Italian high alpine connection trails and parts of the Slovenian Trans Euro Trail aka TET. The thing with plans is that sometimes they aren’t working as estimated.
The Late Spring Ride 2018 showed me well that sometimes a whole plan can go awry … .

THE LATE SPRING RIDE 2018-Day 01

“LATE START”

Normally I start my tours in the early morning and ride the whole day from short after dusk til nearly dawn.
Due to a big birthday party of a family member, a friend of mine and I started this tour just in the late afternoon this day.
So lets start with the ride report no.1 of this short adventure …

THE LATE SPRING RIDE 2018-Day 00

“THE IDEA”

This is the ride report of another short adventure, which a good friend of mine and I undertook in the late spring of the year 2018 with our 690tys.
With the beginning of 2018 I started to plan a new short adventure with its focus within the alpine areas around north-eastern Italy and western Slovenia. Especially the part in Slovenia was interesting due to some parts of the Trans European Trail have been included in this plan. Here’s a short overview of the planned route …

DAY RIDE 2018_06

“THE ZILLERTALER SCENIC ROAD”

September 2018: I was a few days for Holiday in Austria’s most beautiful state Salzburg. There are many opinions about that but for me surely Salzburg is the prettiest one out of nine states in total.
Being in the most western county of Salzburg called “Pinzgau” I had time for a short ride.
So I made a decision and I went off with my black beauty to visit the Zillertaler-Scenic-Road in the neighbor state Tirol. This is a panorama track leading around the top of a mountain near the village “Zell am Ziller” and it provides a few nice views to the northern Alps …

DAY RIDE 2018_05

“THE AFTERNOON GRAVEL RIDE”

In August 2018 I tried a new track in my closer surrounding. The track itself was planned via open source material available online. As always I have to say that the online map material is in the meanwhile grown to a really mighty routing tool set.
With it it’s a pleasure to plan such tracks which is finally also working in the field. You will see it in the great impressions below which I’d taken on this afternoon ride …

DAY RIDE 2018_04

“THE APRIL RIDE”

April 2018:
In Austria we have a saying which means in English something like: “The month April is doing what he will!” That saying is based on the weather in this time of the year. Most of the time it is changing very often in short time. From Sun, rain and snow everything can happen within a few KM of riding. This ride out is a good example for showing how alternating the weather in the month April in Austria could be. So if you plan a trip to Austria, be aware of rude weather conditions until begin/middle of may!
Now, here’s the day ride report:

DAY RIDE 2018_03

“FIRST SIGNS OF SPRING”

A Sunday in April 2018 – The days are longer now and spring is quickly incoming. The fields slowly turned into a fresh looking green and in the mountains was still a good amount of snow left over.
This day ride was a nice spring / winter mix along one of my favorite tarmac house routes. Please feel free to have a look at the attached pictures down below …

DAY RIDE 2018_02

“THE SNOW RIDE”

As mentioned in my last day ride report, despite the calm temperatures the winter wasn’t over in eastern Austria. At the beginning of February 2018 the cold came back and left a bit of snow behind.
Despite that there was a big desire to take my black beauty Чернотa out for a ride. “Let´s give it a try!”, was my thought, and so we did.
Retrospectively it was really exhausting to ride the 690ty with 50/50 tires under these conditions. But overall it also was a great fun and it sharpened the reflexes of the rider. Here are a few impressions which have been taken before the numb fingers refused taking any photos more. ^^

DAY RIDE 2018_01

“JUST RIDING AROUND”

The cold is not over now. Winter will surely take another four or six weeks until it’s finally gone here in eastern Austria.
But as you know that’s no reason for staying at home where the fight against the winter depressions is still ongoing. Not for me!
For this day ride I had no special plan. I just put some warm clothes on, a bottle of water was stowed into the tank bag and I took the camera with me for making some nice photos on the way.
The route itself was a mix up from well known gravel tracks and a few new shortcuts which I’ve chosen randomly along the way.