Posts
The fabled Austrian alps, slightly more exotic than those of France or Switzerland, have pretty much remained off my radar due to the extra driving distance from BE. And let's face it, sun sets in the west so why head east, right?
Luckily for the country of Austria we were in the nearby Bodensee region of Germany, which meant our international rag-tag group was able to make the relatively short drive to...where? The randomly selected location turned out to be a small town called Bad Ischl, which would prove to be fortunate for Jack.
In typical fashion, already late upon leaving Germany, Wes insisted on eating dinner at a German truck stop. In typical fashion, I was able to keep a cool head and we rolled in a bit late into Bad Ischl. Bad Ischl in the dark at midnight looks like a lot of other towns in the dark at midnight (although in the daylight it was quite charming). Our hotel was the Goldenes Schiff, and the 5 of us packed into 2 rooms after 1am and crashed.
Having only selected the destination 2 hours before departure, and having no idea what exactly happened in Austria, we were a little in the dark on riding locations the next morning. A trail map from the tourist information center helped that, though, and by mid-morning we had bikes sorted, gear donned, and were pedaling. First issue - the front brake on Jack's bike was dead. We gave the bike with better tires and functioning brakes to Jack and made Wes ride the disabled one with dutch tires.
Pristine sub-alpine valleys and picturesque farm houses resulted in over-abundant photo taking, plus we got lost already in town. When we finally found the trail it was....steep as hell. Walking. Jack's stomach was still hurting..... We got to the top of the singletrack climb and Jack was in a bit of pain so he wisely decided to head back a bit early to town, taking the fire road down to the main highway. Wes gets the good bike again.
From there we climbed fire road for another 30 minutes or so before taking a trail that would normally be fun with big tires and suspension, but was outright dangerous on belgian carbon hardtails and skinny rubber. Mark demonstrated this for us beautifully with a pretty damn good crash over the bars.
This dropped us on the Ewige Wand, a trail cut into a cliff face which looked much more daunting in literature than in real life. But it was fun, from there we (after fixing two flats) found some singletrack heading down the mountain and back to town along the river, not epic but a fun ride in a beautiful area.
The adventure began in earnest later that night when Jack thought his stomach pain was in fact not a lack of toilet activity, but in fact something a bit more serious. Greg and I navigated around Bad Ischl until we came to the hospital around 1am, where the night doctor told us it was most likely appendicitis and Jack would need to stay. For a week.
Greg had to leave at 5 in the morning; since it was 2:30 when we got back to the hotel he decided to leave directly for Munich. Or so he thought; I got a call around 2:45 (deep in sleep); GG was still in the parking lot and could find his way out of town (to his credit, there were a lot of one-way streets).
So Jack was drugged up and passed out. Mark and Wes and I tried to find a chair lift and do a couple DH runs on the XC bikes. The chair lift in Ischl would not take bikes in the summer, so we went to Obertraun where they had a big gondola. They, too, did not want mtbers so we were left to our own for riding. We found what looked like a good route on the map, only to find unrideably steep fire road, filled with rocks the size of first generation ipods. We went up for one hour and down for about 6 minutes. But it was pretty.
The last day Wes and I, Mark having left for australia, hit some singletrack right out of town. Janzerberg was the small mountain overlooking Ischl and the map showed trails. After a bit of hike-n-bike we found a nice viewpoint and some fun single track, potential for a fun loop if you lived in town.
So not epic. No huge alpine descents. No cows with bells around their necks. No Von Trapp family or alpen damels singing "guten tag". But some fun riding, minus one appendix, beautiful scenery. On the day I left the check-out girl let us know that she herself was an avid mountain biker and knew ALL the good secret routes...damn....
Important Bad Ischl facts:
Nicest damn hospital i ever did see
Not a lot of exotic food unless you consider pizza exotic
Beautiful area
Real estate is cheap!!
Farmer's market is Friday morning
