Thunersee und Oberhofen Schloss

Yesterday Susanna, Abigail, Shannon and I journeyed to the Thunersee to go to the city of Thun and to the Oberhofen Castle just outside the city. The area there is so beautiful with huge mountains surrounding the lake made from the snow from the mountain tops. We ventured to the Oberhofen Schloss (castle) which is famous for having many of the rooms still furnished as if the owners would come back at any time. The castle is right on the shore of the lake so the view was astonishing. We ended up roaming around the castle for hours.

Thun

Thun

Wooden bridge and dam

Fairytale castle

Oberhofen Schloss

Turkish smoking room

Beautiful view

Me, Abigail, and Shannon

In a rose garden, overlooking the harbor

Sunshine peeking through the rainclouds.

Ebringen

The race Sunday was in Ebringen, Germany. It was an easy two hour drive from Zurich, where I spent the night before. I was very disappointed when we went over the border and I didn’t even get a passport stamp L. The race wound through a vineyard, a neighborhood, and a sports center.Sunday we got in around 30 minutes or so of riding around- on the course and around the area before the race which was good for me.

The course was pretty hilly and technical. There was a steep hill every lap maybe 75m long, and then you turned right and had a lesser grade hill that hurt even worse for another 75m, then downhill with two turns, then another 100m of a false flat, a steep downhill, right-hand turn, good decent until a right turn back up the steep hill. Not quite the flat kriterium Shannon and I expected. I don’t even know what you’d call the thing, except maybe an American crit. We did 24, 2-kilometer laps and there was just the sprint at the end and no other points.

We raced with junior boys and I started in the back where ~3 people missed their pedals in front of me so I was dodging and of course the boys were full throttle up the climb (started halfway up the steep part) and it was all out. I was sorta hanging on to the back or just off the back for the first few laps until I just couldn’t but kept going at the same intensity. I kept going and went by person after person. I caught teammate Stephanie and another girl and we worked together (Stephanie and I did, the other girl only tried to attack-she was a local favorite). Stephanie and I closed the gap between Shannon/Sereina and I from two to less than a minute from doing that. Stephanie popped off pretty bad so that girl attacked and I just sat there for the next maybe 5 laps and waited. Once I saw Shannon ahead and alone, I attacked the girl on the steep part of the climb where she was struggling the most and caught Shannon with two juniors and pretty much tried to keep the pace as high as I could the last two laps since that girl was close behind and if she caught us, I wouldn’t be able to do anything and I didn’t think Shannon was feeling so hot. Shannon just sprinted the boys at the end and I just went as hard as a could to the finish. Sereina was able to stay ahead alone for the win, Shannon was second, and I was third. I think Stephanie was fifth.

It was a good race, all-in-all, although a very hard one with the very painful course.

Extended Stay

So not too much has been going on activity-wise the past few days, but my schedule is more finalized for the rest of my stay. I'll be racing every weekend from now until I leave starting this weekend with a 46k Kriterium in Germany. I'm extending my stay by about a week because Shannon and I have been asked by the team to do the UCI race in Albstadt from August 21st-23rd. That means I'll be flying back the 24th or 25th, just in time for class on the 26th! Talk about a full summer. Shannon will return here Sunday after the race. We have some fun trips/training trips being planned too and I have a special visitor visitng Zollbruck this week- Peter! Today is laid back but I'll be riding with Marco this evening so he can "motorpace" me with his TT bike since it's a bad idea for normal motorpacing in my area.

Swiss Nationals Road Race + Bern

Saturday Shannon and I departed for the Swiss Nationals Road Race in Nyon at 7:40am. An early morning compared to recently. The drive was quite uneventful as I slept through the entire thing. Once we got there, there was a bit confusion. Eventually things were sorted out and we found that we had arrived at the race just under four hours early. Shannon and I opted to fit in our ride before the race so that we could attend the race. The countryside there was very nice with the lake on one side and the mountains on the other. Lots of sonnebloomen (sunflowers) were in bloom as well!

I love Sonnebloomen

The beautiful lake

I love the whole requirement the Swiss have that all races must have showers because I definitely enjoyed being clean for the rest of the day. We got dropped off in the feed zone and waited. The thirty women at nationals were mostly Team Bike-Import, Cevelo, Bigla, and this Giant team that wasn’t pro. Their race was only 98k for their nationals! They did 6 laps that were half uphill and half downhill. It seemed like an odd course to me, more of a circuit race than anything else. Anyways, the group stayed together until the end. Bike-Import ended up getting third through fifth, so not too shabby results. They were bested only by two Bigla gals.

The field

Andrea Wolfer, right, on the podium

Shannon went home with Fabienne after the race and is staying there for the week and I went back to Zollbruck. It was only on this ride home, that I fully realized the language thing. I didn’t understand one word of what was said on the ride home in the car even though people were talking the whole way. It was kinda lonely! Of course I did what I did best though, and went to sleep.

Sunday my day started with a 10am ride with Marco who helps out the team. I looked up the word “thirty” and “minute” and tried to find up or uphill or something like that but couldn’t find it. I ended up getting my thirty minutes of climbing up some nice mountain a whole ten minutes from here (we passed quite a few other options, but he preferred this one). The few from the top was astonishing as always. On the way down, my tire started making these weird thumping noises. I thought I had a flat but I didn’t. At the bottom I got off and found my sidewall was busted. Crap. We sorted fixed it and went on our way. The ride ended up being faster than I was expecting, averaging just under 30K an hour which included a total of 40 minutes of climbing. It was good to go fast again though- seems like I haven’t done a lot of racing lately, but I guess that is about to change.

In the afternoon, the parents, Susanna, Abigail, and I left for Bern to take this train up to the top of a mountain. There, there was a park with hiking, grass, a really cool playground for kids, a restaurant, and an amazing view of Bern. You won’t believe me, but I forgot my camera in the car! No pictures. After walking around for what felt like ages, we stopped at the restaurant for a coffee. They had these cool machines that made cappuccinos with the proper ratios of everything- foam, milk, and espresso. It was neat. There cappuccinos are served in bowls- weird huh?

Today was my first ride all by myself here. It was actually kinda nice to change it up. I realized I haven’t ridden by myself since I was in Austin almost two months ago. Later this afternoon, I’m going with the mother to the strawberry fields to pick some of the last strawberries of the season and to get some strawberry wine. Plans have changed again and I'll be staying here all week and then Shannon will be returning here and Peter will visit!

Breakfast, Ballet & Bloomen

Today started off early with a safari breakfast at Abigail’s Swiss elementary school in a teepeee, well we thought we were going to get to eat in the teepee, but instead we had breakfast inside her classroom. The school was cool- lots and lots of art and even trampolines in the classroom! Sounds like the kids had a good safari- they learned all about tigers and lions and other ferocious cats, made masks, and decorated pots, looked for cats in the forest, and camped out in a teepee, among other things. It was pretty cool.

Unfortunately, the weather today was bad- it was thunderstorming and pouring buckets the whole day. If we had trainers, it wouldn’t be a problem, really, but since we do not, we kissed our workout goodbye in favor of staying healthy and not sick. Instead we joined Abigail and her mom, Susanna, to Abigail’s ballet practice in Langnau. While she was at ballet, Shannon and I walked around the town and window shopped.

Das Ballet

Chocolate hippos

Afterwards, we went to a garden where you can cut your own flowers for a bouquet and pay by the flower. It was really cool! You can support the local farmers and know you are getting the freshest flowers possible! Check it out:

Yay flowers for the host family

Abigails cuts a fresh flower

Swiss Nationals Time Trial & Stockhorn

The past two days have been pretty busy for Shannonand me. Wednesday was an early wake-up and a nice 2-hour ride out past Bergdorf and through beautiful, forested valleys and back to Zöllbruck. As soon as we got back, we had a lunch of another traditional Swiss meal called Raclette. This involved a small “oven” that is put on the table and personal-sized square pans with mini spatulas. You put a slice of cheese in the pan and put it in the oven. When it is completely melted you pour it over hot boiled potatoes, scraping out every last bit of cheese out with the spatula. We also dined on the ever amazing salad we have with every lunch, made with lettuce from the mom’s garden. Amazing. Here is a picture of the oven with the pans with cheese:

After the meal, we met up with the team car and journeyed to Nyon, in the French region of country to help out and watch the girls’ national’s time trial. The region looked much less lush than Zöllbruck, more arid, and full of more gentle mountains in comparison to the sharp ones here. During the time trial, we were lucky enough to get to go in the follow car for Sereina. Yep, riders here are allowed a follow car and each has a lead motorcycle so no wrong turns here! That was fun. The course was super windy by U.S. standards and mostly on one-lane roads through farmland. There were a couple short climbs, too to mix it up. The total course was only 18K, quite a bit shorter than last year’s 40K TT in the U.S.! The team did pretty well, getting most of the spots from 5^th to 10^th, bested only by some Cevelo gals. I definitely wish I was able to compete- the course looked awesome!

Early Thursday morning we journeyed with Bruno's parents to his business, Bike-Imports, his online bike shop. It was pretty neat. Think of hundreds upon hundreds of shelves of bike parts.

We somehow were somehow convinced to go Stockhorn, a rather large mountain that we would take a tiny cable car up. I don't like heights like that and neither does Shannon, so I'm not quite sure how we got convinced to go do this. We pretty muched squealed the whole way up. The view was absolutely breathtaking. The mountain flowers, the vast mountains, the clouds! At the tip-top we had a picnic with Susanna's parents. After playing in the tiny bit of snow at the top and a hot kaffee, we headed back to the middle station for a "short" hike around the lake. I guess from not walking and just riding, I got pretty tired from this 40-minute hike. It was very beautiful, which made up for the soreness I'd later feel in my calves. Eventually we left and headed back to our town in the car. Shannon and I were so worn out we ended up sleeping the whole way home and our ride ended up just being to the post-office. Oops.

You can't even see the first stop for the cable car...

The stairway to heaven?

Amazing...hard to believe a lake is below these clouds

Thunersee (Lake Thun) is below these clouds and the Alps are behind the other ones

The amazing view from the top

Salt Bath for Your Cheese?

Well the Käse (cheese) tour was neat. If only I had been feeling better, I would have enjoyed it more. We saw how they bring in all these jugs milk and put them in this huge, warm container that combs through the milk until a soft solid form is made. Then the cheese goes into a salt bath a few times. Each cheese round weighs 95 kilos! After that it is aged in a humid but cold room. It will occasionally get additional salt baths. It’s a hard process to describe and I definitely didn’t get all of it. I guess the cheese from the Emmental is exceptionally salty and you can even see salt crystals attached to the cheese. Man, even though we were looking at the cheese through glass walls, the aging cheese stunk so bad!

Cheese aging

Where all the cheesy magic happens

After, we went to this old farmhouse that was made in 1741. Those people were so short! I had to duck to go through the doorway, so just imagine Shannon! I have pictures so I’ll have to show you. We got to see the old process for making cheese…they made it in these huge vats and just stirred and stirred. They also had these stone benches that were attached to the room where they made the cheese and would take the warmth from that fire to heat the benches in winter for a nice warm place to sit. The benches in turn were hallow so bread could be bakes inside and the benches also heated the house. Talk about efficient!

Shannon showing off her height

Stone bench to heat your buns and bread

Shannon is a natural cheese-maker

We then went to a tourist shop and they had some interesting things. For example, they make these wooden farm animals for kids that apparently grandparents buy for their grandkids for special occasions to put in the kids’ wooden farmhouses (apparently, every kid has a wooden farmhouse as well).Also, they sold traditional farmer’s shirts with this common flower print of the flowers that grow all over the land.

More Cow Bell?

I guess the grandfather refuses to leave the factory without getting dessert so we went to the restaurant so that he could do that. I was so sick by then (stomach pain and nausea), so I didn’t try anything, but what they got looked good. The factory makes the ice cream in house, so I bet it is very good. Shannon got this good looking dessert of warmed berries with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.

Shannon's dessert

We look a long way back with lots of scenic views of the Emmental and took a whole bunch of pictures as well. Even though the day was very cold and rainy, the landscape was so lush and colorful. It is so beautiful here, in a way unlike anything I’ve seen. Unfortunately, the combo of me not feeling well and the very curvy roads made me very carsick.

Typical Road

Garden Dragons

Today we have an easy ride, but unfortunately, it looks like it'll be a wet one with the rain and the cold. It is still freezing here at 16*C (in the 50s in F), but it looks like that will leave us later this week.