Three towns within 30 kilometers of Innsbruck start with a T, have an f in the middle and finish with an s. I’m not kidding.

We’ll start with Tulfes first, as it is the closest, at only 16.6k from Innsbruck.

Moving along to #2 in the TFS sweepstakes, there’s Terfens at 24.2k from Innsbruck.

And finally the largest town in TFS-ville, Telfs, comes in at 28.1k from Innsbruck.

Am I crazy? Is this not weird? Once I realized the oddity, I haven’t been able to get the three names out of my head. I don’t think I can list another town that meets these credentials and yet there are three oh so close to Innsbruck…it’s not like they’re German-sounding town names either. I’ve been wondering why I have a hard time keeping my town names straight sometimes in the valley…maybe because they’re all so similar.

Ah well, that’s about the only thing on my mind at the moment. Ashley is touring the Altstadt (Old Town) with her class this morning. She left around 830 and two minutes later I got a text from her that read: Snow! Sure enough, I look out the window and it’s snowing. Oh wait, I’m looking out the window and suddenly the sun is shining. No, scratch that, it’s gone again.

I rode 2.5 hours yesterday, I’m shooting for 3 today. I updated the Training section…check it out if you want.

We’re thinking about going skiing this weekend, but I need to find some boots first. It’s supposed to snow most of Saturday and Sunday. Who knows though, the weather report changes by the hour here in the lovely Inn Valley.

This is my first post. I feel like I should state some sort of goals. Well, I’d like to get pet rocks from all corners of the globe (which means traveling there first), and speak the languages where the rocks came from, and write about the journeys here so I don’t forget the minute feelings of day to day life. Also to give a small picture to my friends or family who care to know about what I’m up to.

We got back from Nice, France last night around midnight. Every time I travel somewhere I feel like I get a “country update” with new perspectives of what daily life is like there, how awesome or not the food is, etc. In the case of Nice, the food was great and the area I saw was beautiful. We stayed at a great hostel and met 2 girls from New Zealand. They are traveling across Europe for a year and working at hostels in exchange for a place to stay (and I would guess a little money). That was thought provoking.. and it certainly sounds like an adventure and a cool way to see new places cheaply. I can’t say I did that much in Nice except for watch 2 incredible sunsets, 1 sunrise, eat some good food, sun bathed a bit, went “jellyfishing”, and swimming. That pretty much sums it up.

What can I say? Crappy fall colors says Jered.

Jered and I had such a great time, especially putting the “frightening reds” in their place. We named the species of jellyfish that we were hunting that, as we didn’t know their real name, and this was more fun. We think we do a better job naming critters anyway… who says Adam gets to have all the fun? Not us! We even incorporated teamwork with the locals (ranging age 5-9) and gave them our probing devices when we called it a day. It was lots of fun.

This jellyfish is known as a ‘frightening red.’

It’s been so amazing to have so many different landscapes within a few hours of the Alps, and we’ve certainly been taking advantage of it. Since May I’ve been to China, Thailand, Cambodia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Scotland, France, Italy, Monaco, and the Vatican. Wow. I can’t say at this point how it has changed me, but I’m sure that this is leaving a mark on me. I expect that after I’ve been living in the States for a while again I’ll be able to tell the difference. The internet makes such a difference as far as keeping in touch with everyone, and facebook allows me to actually see what they are up to. I’m happy for that.

We are having a Thanksgiving dinner with the “Austro-American Society” that will be potluck. I’m glad I still get turkey and all the dressings even if I’m not at home. School is going well, and there is always something to study. My German is improving, but not as quickly as I would like it to. Over the next two weeks I’d like to use my “german intensive trainer” to get me up to speed. I would like to start running again too, but the cold has proven a successful deterrent in the past (when it was warmer), so I’ll really have to make an effort for that to happen. That’s all for now. Next time Jered will show me how to put pictures up, and they can tell the story for me..

edit* he just showed me! (how to add pictures)

Nice was absolutely amazing. I want to live there. I did two rides - the first one was along the Mediterranean and took in the final 50k of Milano-San Remo, and then on Saturday I rode to Menton and up the Col de la Madone. That was a long climb. 15k and 925m of elevation gain. I know that because the climb starts at sea level and the elevation at the top is 925. I’m good with simple arithmetic. I got bored about 20 minutes in and started taking lots of pictures. I think my attention span for climbing is around 20 minutes. So I guess I should climb faster.

Yep, I made it. So did my Seigler.

In long climb news, the stage race that I’m going to do in Montenegro - the Paths of King Nikola - has a climb that goes from sea level to 1200 meters. That sounds fantastic and by fantastic I mean horrible.

Yesterday, we checked out some markets in Nice and then drove down the coast toward Monaco to a little town called Cap d’Ail…the town has an awesome little beach and we hung out there all afternoon before heading back up to the Madone in the car to watch the sunset. It was pretty crappy.

We had a nice lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Orangina. What more could you ask for?

I of course have lots of pictures and will try to get to some of those soon.

It’s truly unfortunate that we had to leave Nice though…it was 70 something and perfect in Nice yesterday whilst it’s low 40s and getting to rain here in Innsbruck. The highs by the weekend? Low 30s. Here comes winter. I’m not ready.

The view of Monaco as we started our drive home to Innsbruck last night.

In summary, go to Nice, it’s awesome.

It is 643 in the a.m. and I’m up. I like it. I’m going to go riding soon, but just wanted to check in with a few words from yesterday…

We left Innsbruck around Midnight, drove over a very snowy Brenner Pass, and then from that point forward it just got warmer and warmer. By the time we made it to Genova around 5 or 6 in the morning, the temperature was a solid 20 degrees warmer.

We pulled into Alassio right about sunrise, crawled into the backseat (kicked the bike out) and took a nap. I got up around 10 to go ride and headed up the coast for first San Remo, and then Nice.

I rode the last 50k of Milano-San Remo yesterday. It was incredible. The riding on the coast is nothing less than amazing, it’s hilly, it’s fast, and the Cipressa and Poggio are fantastic. They’re not too hard, but I can’t even fathom how fast they climb em…actually I can. I rode with Michael Rogers for a little while yesterday and at one point we were climb at around 20kph and he said they’d be doing that same section at around 35-40kph. Unbelievable. Not to mention that’s after a solid six hours of racing.

Anyhow, the ride was awesome, I have lots of pictures, I’ll post some soon, and Ashley and I are having an amazing time. We still get two more full days here, the hostel is fantastic, and I’m sitting in bed with internet. All is very,very excellent in the world.

Alright, so against my better judgment I’m going to start keeping my training log on my site…I don’t know why, I definitely have nothing to brag about and lots to be embarrassed about. Ha.

Basically, I’d like to document a big time improvement. I don’t think I’ve been this bad off since maybe 2005? Maybe earlier? I’ve ridden perhaps 20-30 times since the end of June. I’ve started a number of ‘comebacks’ in that time, but they haven’t lasted for more than a few days.

Climbing the godawful steep road to Halltal…I only do the first part though and it’s ok - dead straight, maybe six feet wide, and steep, but ok.

I want to be a bike rider, so I’m going to ride my bike now. The only really good part of all of this is that I’ve gotten so bad, that I have a ton of room to improve…and get back to where I was previously, which kinda sucks, cuz normally I try to get better over previous years and not make up lost ground. So it goes.

I’ll post some stuff on the front end of the site, but for the most part, I’m going to keep it hidden to the TRAINING section so it can sit there and be quiet and no one will be bored senseless with numbers and stuff that doesn’t really matter. I don’t want to drive anyone away. So yeah, that’s my plan…

The start of my new favorite climb - to the town above Innsbruck, Hungerburg.

Oh, and we’re going to Nice. We’ve got the car rented, found an awesome place to stay, and we’re leaving super early Friday morning. I’m going to ride the last part of Milano-Sanremo (from Alassio to Nice - so more than just the finale) Friday afternoon! Saturday I’ll do a short-ish tough-ish ride and climb the Col de la Madone! Yahoo! Bike riding is fun when you go to awesome places that aren’t freezing cold.

I’m going to work it out though so that I get my bike work taken care of so we can enjoy being in what I’m guessing will be an incredible place.

We are pondering where to go this weekend, since it’s going to be bad news here in Austria.

1. Pula, Croatia on the Istrian Peninsula

or

2. Nice, France…

Pula has the significant benefit of being a lot closer mileage-wise, but the driving time should be about the same.

The weather looks about the same for both areas, though Nice will be a couple of degrees warmer at around 60 for the highs each day. Ha.

Nice has a number of positives for sure: two new countries with Ashley (Monaco and France) and what I’m guessing will be a gorgeous drive along the Mediterranean, but wait, Pula has that too. Nice will probably be a fair bit more expensive than Croatia though…

It’s such a hard choice, it really is (tongue firmly in cheek), so if you think you might be able to help with the decision, share some experiences, or something like that - have at it…please!

I just signed a contract this week with DLP Racing for 2009. Not long after signing, team manager Jonathan Kane shows up in CyclingNews talking about how few pro teams there are in America this year. I honestly had no intention of racing in America this year, but he’s willing to work with me and allow me to come back around midseason so I can stay here as long as possible before the big races really start up in America. I’m pretty happy with that.

I’ve started a new game as well…I’m emailing all of the UCI 1.2s and 2.2s in Europe-ish to see if they’d be interested in having me race their event, but cover it as a journalist as well. Sounds nuts, I know, but I’m getting replies. There’s a four day stage race at the end of March in Serbia/Montenegro called the Paths of King Nikola that wants to have me. Pretty cool. I think it could be a pretty unique journalistic opportunity, not to mention a great chance to see and race in some cool places.

It’s 630 in the morning now…I can’t decide if I should go back to bed or just stay up…

Real bike practice starts Monday. I’m pondering the idea of keeping a little log of my training on my site as well. I figure if Ivan Basso does it, I should do it too. Or something like that. Or maybe I won’t.

Seems our next door neighbors are having a good ol time this Saturday night/Sunday morning. I’ve heard some quality renditions of some Meatloaf, Rolling Stones, even some Britney Spears. I am truly fortunate to be serenaded. I wish they would have tried this song.

Ashley and I have been playing around on the internet a fair bit the last few days and we found a couple of funny things. The first one might be my favorite animal in the whole world now: the fainting goat. And then the other is one of my favorite commercials ever. I think Duncan and I watched that commercial no less than 50 times last year.

More productive news to come… I just wanted to share a few funnies and my plight this morning.

Nothing too much going on around here today…the weather was amazing again and I went for a run. I thought about going longer, but my body started to fall to pieces after about 20 minutes. My knees and hips hurts so bad after 25 minutes I had to limp home. I feel better now. I’ll give it a go again tomorrow.

In other news, I want to take full credit for getting Liz Jurey to think about studying abroad soon. I know that means nothing to pretty much everybody, but it was pretty cool. I was talking to her yesterday on Facebook and mentioned that she should study abroad…I pretty much think it’s the best reason to go to college - spend a year abroad. Ok, there were a number of other redeeming qualities and I still would love to study some more, but my year in Heidelberg was priceless. Even better, I got a bonus year abroad with Ashley. She’s swell. I don’t care what Jacob Fetty says about her. I think she’s pretty ok.

Ok, that’s all for now. Tomorrow I’m dragging Ashley out for a run.

I somehow ended up looking through some of the PEZ archives today and ran into one of my few product reviews from the site…my review of the Easton Tempest II wheels.

The pictures brought back some memories from that long, hard winter training with Jacob back in, jeez I can’t even remember the year anymore, ah yes, 2005/2006. To this day I still don’t know how I made it through that winter. I went from kinda sorta thinking I was a bike racer to being shown just what it actually meant. It took me another full season before the hard work started to pay off, but I’ll always be content looking back at that time. I’m not saying I ever quite reached that mythical level of fairly good bike racer, but somewhere in a long string of 25-36 hour weeks, I really started laying a foundation.

I dunno, it doesn’t even have that much to do with bike racing, I think that it was more that I started to see what it meant to really give myself to something 100%. It was hard, but damn it was fun. I do feel fortunate though that Jacob didn’t end up strangling me somewhere back on the dirt roads near Maxeys. I’ll be forever indebted to him for that. I must have been really painful to deal with. Not to say that that has changed or anything. Ha.

Anyhow, in other news, I am going to race my bike next year, and I’m really excited. More on that later.