It's now almost 10pm and I'm slurping on an ovaltine after my first real road ride. It was bloody marvellous!
Using my broken German and a stranger I was able to get a bus to a place that rented bikes. I got kitted-up and headed out to a probably 40-50degree day with clear blue skies. I'll upload some photies but the pictures will not do this place justice - I took 'em with my phone just so that I could upload them more quickly.
If I believe my gps then I did 57miles, just over 3.5 hours and 5700ft of climbing. But it wasn't just that, there was no wind, bright sun, little traffic, perfectly smooth roads, fantastic scenery and practically everyone I passed, be it walkers, cars, busses or other riders, all waved or said hello. It was just fantastic!
Of course I stopped lots. At the top of a couple of the brutal climbs, when I came across a cafe at the bottom of a ski lift, when I was on the bridge looking at the view and contemplating hand-love at just the sight of the place. For a first real road ride it was pretty unforgetable...
I got back to a slap-up dinner and I'm just tidying up some loose ends before I head in to some meetings tomorrow. Then it's Zurich tomorrow night and the flight home on Wednesday. I'll upload the ride stats when I get back to the bat cave but they don't really matter quite frankly. It was just the perfect day!