September 22, 2010
No more messing around with finding internet or a decent breakfast place. I had a cheese sandwich from some groceries I was carrying and packed some clif bars for my ride. I had planned to take the train to Lucerne rather than bike in order to try some Mountain biking in the Alps. I had a little trouble finding a place that rented decent bikes (a place I had previously contacted didn't respond with their address nor availability). I did ended getting a good deal once I rode to the North end of the Valley Interlaken is in. I found out most of the accessible trails were actually double-track with some pavement so I opted for a hard tail to save 20 Franks and make the ride more efficient. The ride was quite scenic, and roughly 20Km each way. I pushed to get all the way to Grindelwald (I'll have to double-check maps later to confirm this was the place) and return in time to catch my train to Lucerne. About halfway there I saw a sign with 10km, 346m (or something like that), and Grindelwald all together. Without understanding the rest of the words I realized I was going to have to climb over 900 feet in elevation to make it to my turnaround point. Let me just say I was glad to have the MTB granny gear and glad to not have my extra 50lbs of Adam gear.
I made it in 2hrs, and raced back in 1hr. As you'll see from the picture, it was worth pushing to Grindelwald. I grabbed a sandwich and Fanta at a train station café and ate fast. I flew down the valley, returned the rental, biked back to the hostel, installed my panniers, and rode to the train station with 30min to spare. Then found out on the train I had to buy a bike ticket that ended up costing about the same as I had paid for my own ticket two weeks earlier. Definitely going to need to hit an ATM for a second time before getting out of the country...
And made it to Lucerne by 6pm! That's two days in a row with daylight to spare.
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