2007 Flashback #3

The ride to Lucerne was incredible. I don't remember many specifics but i don't remember having any issues. Here's the route i took, roughly: (https://goo.gl/maps/wZdJG)



Looking back there was a much better easier route i could have taken. If you look at the elevation view of the route i took you'll see a large climb shortly after starting.

It was nice and flat riding around the lake but when i turned towards St. Gallen i was faced with a mountain. I don't think i had much trouble riding up it, and after that first hill everything else seemed pleasant. However, if i had just stayed along the lake a few miles further i could have gone around the mountain instead of over it.







It might not look like much in the graphs, but notice that the scale is different. i could have saved 500ft of elevation and all those crazy looking hills in the second half of the bottom image are the same ones i'd have to go over anyway after Zurich. Regardless, i made it to Lucerne just fine. The bit after Zurich was particularly beautiful with clear mountain streams and amazing scenery. It's a shame Go Pro didn't exist back then!

My plan (what little there was) was to meet up with the family and hopefully crash with them for the night. They had given me their phone number but i had no idea where they were staying or what their plans were. When i got to Lucerne i tried calling but got no answer. I wandered around the town a bit, calling every once in a while but never having any luck. Eventually i must have realized that if i didn't find them i'd have to sleep on a park bench or something. I had just ridden all day and i certainly wasn't going to get much further to find a place to camp. I was so desperate to find them that i started going to hotels and asking if they were staying there. Of course, no one could tell me what guests they had.

Sometime around dark i finally managed to get hold of them. turns out they were on some tour on top of a mountain and had no cell phone service. They were nice enough to let me sleep on their floor that night and the next morning i toured the city with them. It's quite a beautiful city with a crazy old bridge across the river. And i saw some old men playing bocce along the lakefront.

The city is situated on a lake and is guarded by mountains in every direction i would want to go.

 

Looking out over the lake at those crazy mountains made it a pretty easy decision to forget about cycling and hop on a train to get out of there. I'm not sure why, but i decided to take a train to Innsbruck, Austria. It could have been because i had heard of a gummi bear factory in the city and it seemed like as good a place as any to go visit on my way back to Munich.