Andre Watt, Adam Swank, Nikolai Anikin, and non-racing friend Jason Wall have completed our month long bike trip around Europe. It was a great trip. Road biking around Europe is the best. You have a virtually unlimited selection of bike friendly roads to choose from. You can climb all the mountains you want on low traffic roads. The cars don't drive very fast and are considerate of bikers. Additionally, all the cars are tiny. They have to be small to get through the supper narrow old town roads designed for horse and buggy. I could just imagine two hummers meeting up on one of these old narrow city streets. That would be funny to see. Even the semi trucks are smaller so its not very difficult for them to go around a cyclist.
We started our tour in Strasbourg, France. I have to say, there is an inordinately large percentage of beautiful women in that city, and France in general. We met an American named James who gave us a private showing of the city, including the European Parliament, and the start of the 2006 Tour De France. Thank you, James.
. Being prepared for 90F heat, we got a bit cold. Stuffing plastic down our shorts didn't help with the ladies, but it warmed us up in a different way. Our motivation to get south to the Mediterranean increased and we were putting in 130km (70mi) days to get to the heat. On our way south we had to get across the French Alps. We rested a day in Chamonix, France and had a snowball fight under the shadows of Mt Blanc. </p>
<p>The next day, rather than putting on headlamps and biking 11 km through a tunnel, we rode up four huge mountains on our way into Italy. We finished on top of Mt St.Bernard on the Swiss, Italian border. That was something like a 9-10 hr day in the saddle. Seeing as how there is never an incline without a battle to the top (as is always the case with four egos the size of Texas) we were especially tired that day. Therefore we splurged for a hotel on top of the mountain and slept well that night. This is also when I began to reinforce my new found love of stimulants (testosterone is not a stimulant). It's hard to encourage yourself to suffer up the 3rd and 4th mountain without a little chemical help. I have to praise our non-racing friend Jason, who bought his bike a week before the trip. He did great biking long and hard while carrying a load resembling the Leaning Tower of Pisa.</p>
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