Austria

After we finished in the Dolomites, we decided to head into Austria for a day, just for a laugh. So we had to climb a virtual wall of switchbacks up to the Pickenpass (I think) into Austria in raging heat. Oh and it was my birthday that day too.

The Pickenpass - a virtual wall of switchbacks to the border between Italy and Austria.

After we got into Austria, a long fast descent followed. The road was smooth but had the occasional smooth edged pot hole, one of which was a monster and claimed Jen´s back wheel. This was to pose some problems further down the track, which you´ve all probably heard about anyway.

The next section was a flat ride along the foothills... ¨boring¨ we thought so we jumped on a train and landed in a town called Albertstein where there were no swimming pools. A swimming pool was what we were craving for, and because it was my birthday we had agreed to go to a nice hotel with a pool to chill out for the rest of the evening in the balmy 38 degree heat. But no matter how hard we tried, it was to no avail and we were swimming pool-less for the day.

The next day we headed into Slovenia which meant a climb over the Wurzenpass. This didn´t seem very high, but when we got to the foot of the pass, we saw this (much to our chagrin):

Yes, that´s correct. 18%.

Luckily it wasn´t really 3.5km of 18%. But it was probably 2.5km of 13-14% and then one horrendous km of truly epic 18%. There were signs on the road telling drivers to slow and change to first gear. We were kinda already in granny gear, so this didn´t help us. We rounded the corner after said sign and both of us swore like pirates at the veritable wall of bitumen in front of us. This time it wasn´t a wall of switchbacks, it was just a wall of black tarmac and we had no where to go but straight up.

Both of us managed to get up without falling off our bikes, which is a huge achievement I reckon. We were stoked.