The Brick Wall

Riding through most of Bavaria is kind of like riding on a Disney World ride. The terrain is flat so pedaling doesn’t require much exertion, and as you round each bend of the valley, a picturesque Bavarian village pops up with it’s onion-domed church, stripe blue-white pole, a Gasthaus and a bunch of farm buildings—it’s all very quaint. And then you approach the River Inn, the border of Austria. On the other side is the brick wall. It’s almost unnatural how on the other side of the river, the mountains instantaneous jut up thousands of feet towards the sky. There is no gentle introduction; you just slam into the Alps. My general strategy is to follow river valleys as much as possible to keep the grades under 10% as much as possible. Very quickly, perhaps within 20 miles of entering Austria the horizon disappears and is replaced by V-shaped slices of sky in all directions. At first, it is just awesome to see the snow-capped peaks and the tree line hovering high above. I take hundreds of photos for no other reason than to capture every peak and vista I come cross. After five days, my northern-midwestern brain starts to go into horizon withdrawal and I experience a sort of claustrophobia in these mountain valleys. It’s as if the peaks are collapsing slowly on top of me when I am not looking.

The third day in Austria, I start in Zell am See, an alpine lake village popular with the summer tourists that have not yet arrived. I stay in a youth hostel along with 13 Frenchmen and 50 Dutch high schoolers all here to ski. And I am the crazy one biking around! I learn from the Frenchmen that the highest mountain pass in Austria, the Grossglockner, and my intended route into Italy is still closed for the season—buried under six meters of snow. I’m not exactly despondent about not having to climb up the beast an decide to head further east—if I can’t go over it, I’ll go around it!