I think it’s the rainy season here right now. It rains everyday, for most of the day. Oh well.

We found some cool links to our presentation from this weekend. There’s a little write-up on the University of New Orleans website, and the American Corner Innsbruck site as well. Check em out. Call it proof that we actually did it.

I’m going to try and get back to biking this week. It has been a super hectic for the last little while. I just want to settle down and get into a routine of biking. Ashley will be stuck in the American Corner office everyday next week, but after that, she’s all done with her internship…pretty much. I’ll be in there most of the time with her, as always. We have a good time. Maybe I can get another excuse to work on three computers at once.

The UNO Summer School arrives this week. Our quiet little apartment building is about to be overwhelmed by 250 crazy people. I’m sure we’ll have some good stories to come of it.

More soon.

We gave our presentation yesterday evening, and I think it went really well. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and if they weren’t into the biking so much, the pictures were hopefully at least entertaining. We met some really cool people afterwards, enjoyed a lot of good conversation, ate some delicious dip, then went home…and got back to work.

I wrote my first article for the Australian magazine RIDE Cycling Review last night. I’m pretty happy to have gotten that done, and even happier to get my foot a little further in the journalisting door.

I also am in the process of catching up with a ton of pictures that have managed to evade my editing sprees. Check out Flickr for a bunch of new pictures including Hannelore’s visit!

Alright, I guess I should try and wake Ashley up…it’s not raining for the first time in many days, so I figure it’s a good time to start bike riding again.

I just posted a ton of new pictures from our weekend in Switzerland to Flickr. Have a gander if you have a few minutes.

Ashley and I are sitting in our big ol office at the American Corner working. Ashley seems to think that one computer is enough. I don’t agree. I am working on three different computers at the moment. I feel like that’s 21st century redneck style. It used to be having tons of cars in your driveway, now it’s multiple computers.

We have our big presentation tomorrow. We aren’t very far in the whole thing, but I’m not too terribly concerned. The pictures are all edited, just waiting to be placed into PowerPoint.

Well, it is 6 o clock here, so it’s about time to change office venues…from our lovely spot in the Altstadt to the kitchen table about a kilometer away.

More soon!

Ashley and I had been working on a plan to follow the Tour de Suisse for a little while now. It had fluctuated between following the race for a day to following it for most of the week. We settled with the weekend. We were supposed to leave at 6am on Saturday, but instead left around 11. Close enough by our standards.

We of course missed the stage start, but it was ok, we made it to Sion, Switzerland, the base of the climb to Crans-Montana, in plenty of time. We had something like an hour to spare. Right as we started climbing, we noticed something was awry…those were the cars the precede the race by a couple of minutes. Oh no!

Sure enough, the race was way ahead of schedule, and we were way behind schedule, so we met somewhere about 1k into the 20k climb. Oh well. It was still pretty cool. The climb to Crans Montana is, however, not very cool, unless you like riding on a mountain version of the highway. We aren’t too big into that.

To celebrate our unfortunate timing, we drove back down the valley to go preview the Tour de France’s Stage 15 summit finish at Verbier. As we arrived, we decided it might be better to drive it first, then ride it. So we drove it, got to the top, and decided it would be best to leave the climb for the morning. We found a hotel in Verbier, and called it a day.

The next morning, we were supposed to get up early again, so of course, we got up about 3 hours late. We did, however, manage to ride the climb (gorgeous – look for pics soon), get to Bern in time to see the latter part of the TT, and get home in one piece…before Midnight! All in all, a great success for our late selves.

Lots of other stories to tell, but that’s enough for the moment. I am going to try and do a little bike riding this week. We will see how that goes.

k bye.

I just got done watching Stage 5 of the Tour de Suisse a little bit ago. I took the train to Landeck, and rode the rest of the way to the mountaintop finish at Serfaus. It was good fun. I took some decent pictures I think. Will look more closely in a little while.

I have been killing time for a while now waiting on the train. I was done with the race around 6, but the train doesn’t leave till 830…now it’s 5 minutes late. I guess I could have just ridden my bike home. It’s only like 60k. It would have been faster.

I raced over the weekend. That didn’t go so well. It was the Halltal Express – 5.2k, 600m of climbing? I can’t remember exactly, but just after the 1k mark, it gets horrific with a section of 32%. I went way too hard into that section, barely made it over it, and never recovered. It was a seriously rookie mistake. By the time I got to the final 800m of 20% dirt, I had had enough. I turned around with about 400m to go. That was way too much pain and suffering for my taste. It’s not like 400m was close either. That was going to take me like three days at the pace I was riding. Oh that was awful.

We had a great visit with Hannelore. My train is here! Bye!

I just got done with one of my more solid rides in a long, long while. I rode with my new friend, Christoph Kluge. I emailed Christoph earlier this week, he replied, and just like that we were riding this morning at 9. He took me up some cool new climbs. I had an awesome time. We rode a solid tempo for most of the day, which was just right for me, but I can tell I have a long, long way to go still. I can’t wait to keep seeing improvements over the next few weeks. I can’t wait to be showed some new roads as well!

It looks like Ashley and I will be registering to get an amateur license through Christoph’s uncle’s shop, Radstudio. I really would like to do some races before heading back home, and I think Radstudio would be a good avenue for that…not to mention great fun. I might even be doing the Tirol Mountain Championship this weekend…maybe. We will see.

A lot of that depends on my little sister, Hannelore. Hannelore just embarked on her first BIG plane flight from Denver to Zürich. I am picking her up bright and early tomorrow morning at 7ish. I am a little apprehensive about that…I get to leave at 240 in the morning to get there on time. haha. It should be a good time though. Hannelore and I will get the chance to see Zürich with some of my family who live in the area, Onkel Edy and Lillian. I am pretty excited.

After that? Who knows. We are planning on some hiking for sure. Either way it will be good fun.

Ashley is hard at work next to me on her online Political Science course. I think she’s taking to it. She just asked for a different color pen to take notes with. That has to be a good sign.

That’s all for now.

k bye.

And it was a great one. I think this past week was our first real week where we finally started to find a happy medium between goofing off incessantly, playing, riding, hiking, and working. I am really content with the work we got done last week, and I think it will only get better.

We went hiking twice with Edith – the first pictures have a link below from our hike in Arztal, and then Saturday we hiked up into Halltal, which I had climbed on my bike for the first time only two days before. I took the opportunity to remind Ashley and Edith of this fact at least 17 times as we walked up the 32% grade. I am not kidding. It is crazy steep! There is a bike race up the climb this coming Sunday. Anyhow, the hike we did in Halltal was great, and I took a whole bunch more pictures. Hopefully, I will get the pictures edited in the next day or so.

The day got even better after the hike – we went to Edith’s and had gumbo and salad (awesome), then we went and picked strawberries (even more awesome), then we went home and covered said strawberries in chocolate (the most awesome).

This week might be a bit tougher to do lots of outdoor fun, as Hannelore is flying into Zürich on Wednesday, and Ashley has a schooltrip Friday and Saturday, but it shouldn’t be too bad. Actually, it should be lots of fun. We are really excited about hanging out with Hannelore some.

…with Edith. We drove up Wipptal (I learned that that’s the Brenner Valley today) to Ellboegen, then started our hike a little ways up from there. It was a great way to spend the morning. The weather was a bit iffy at points, but the rain held off…and I took lots and lots of pictures. Check them out HERE.

The Giro is finally over. Hallelujah. I’ve had enough Giro d’Italia to last me another 49 weeks.

Tomorrow, we’re going to look for some hiking boots for Ashley, try and get my bike fixed, and spend some time in the American Corner. Should be grand. I hope my bike is easily reparable. 

Anyhow, sorry for the missingness here…will hopefully be back now that the Giro is in the books.