June 6, 2024
Day 11 - Matrei am Brenner to Kiefersfelden
First a word about Gasthof Lamm in Matrei where I slept last night. What a fascinating Gasthof. Crammed full of old traditional furniture, delicious food, nice breakfast with 5 rolls of various types, all of which I ate. Super nice staff and a very quiet night minus the aforementioned guy who got the wrong room key. A place I would gladly recommend. I don’t anticipate ever passing by that way again sadly. I think once over the Brenner is enough for one lifetime for me.
When I left off my descent last night, I was in the midst of a lovely long descent on the main road. In Matrei there is another smaller road with hardly any traffic that is the official bike route. Given the volume of traffic this morning on the main road, I decided the signed bike route would be a good idea. Well, it was signed, and there were a surprising number of cyclists on it, but it bizarrely climbs instead of descends. Up into the hills it takes you. So up, that nearly all of my elevation gain for the day happened in the first 7 miles as I wound my way up into the hills. Sure, the scenery was nice, but after yesterday, I was strangely not as enthusiastic about climbing more hills. Presumably the main road does not do this silly climbing, but I really don’t want to descend with a bunch of cars and small trucks.
Right around the 7 mile mark the actual descending happened. There were some incredibly steep bits taking tight turns through a tiny village. That required constant brake use. Then there was the unexpected gravel stretch that made me really glad I keep my speed down when descending. Finally there was the stretch on a busier road with an invisible turnoff that should have taken me over a cycle/pedestrian bridge over the autobahn. I have no idea where that spot was. I never found it and I wasn’t about to cycle back uphill a bit to locate it. Instead I took the main road into Innsbruck.
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The only thing I cared to see in Innsbruck was the golden roof. But before I could get to that, I was distracted by an ice cream place. Actually, several. I picked one that had an attractive looking menu of ice cream Sundays. I also had a couple conversations of the usual nature about my unusual bike. When I finally reached the golden roof, they had my view blocked with a bunch of ugly signs advertising that they are replacing the cobbles. One would think you don’t need a sign to say you are replacing the cobbles. I would think most people can infer that….
After Innsbruck it was 50+ miles of flat riding. It was so flat and monotonous that I actually was quite bored. I’m sorry to say I had no inspiring thoughts during this 50+ miles of cycling. Nothing interesting happened. I did not pass any appealing bakeries. I just rode my bike. I did stop for a little bit along the river in a shady spot in Schwaz to eat a roll and some chips and answer some messages. Then I went back to riding. The mountains all looked the same, mostly because they were the same mountains. Most of the path was out in the full sun and it was pretty toasty. And I rode some more. Then some clouds came and I kept riding. Then a few rain drops fell and I kept riding. And then finally I came to Kufstein and I stopped riding briefly to take some photos of the castle. Then I rode the last few miles to my hotel. Oh, and there were a few short sections of gravel. I didn’t like those as well. I had to ride slower.
I had a lovely dish of fried breaded mushrooms for dinner tonight. We also got some brief heavy rain when a quick system moved through. Unfortunately that system also dumped more rain on the Augsburg area which is still reeling from rain a few days ago. The weather has been wild here of late. My tally remains at rai every day except one this trip.
Tomorrow I head back to the airport. I’ll stay overnight and then offload all but the essentials to ride the Urban back to HoVelo where the next owner will be waiting for it. It will need a bit of cleaning first though. We’ve been through some mud.
Today's ride: 69 miles (111 km)
Total: 641 miles (1,032 km)
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