Made it to Innsbruck

I'm spending my second day in Innsbruck right now. I can't believe I have not blogged. 

It was approximately 550km from Vienna to here. I had two zero days where I sat out rain and a couple of half days.

Bt my calculations I averaged around 42 miles a day. The last 3 days were all low 50s and I could feel my legs getting stronger. 

Here's the route thus far. Yellow is first leg Kranj to Vienna, second leg is red: Vienna to Innsbruck via the Alps. 


I've lost between 10 and 15 pounds. If anyone knows a ghost writer I have a book idea. Its a simple 3-step weighloss plan:

1) fly to Europe 
2) cycle 80km a day for 60 days with a 120# bicycle
3) eat mostly fruit and yogurt

Pretty simple. 

My biggest goal during this trip was to live as inexpensively as possible. I have a budget of $40 a day. Once I got the music festival and Vienna behind me I really was able to get into a rhythm and this wasn't too hard.

The big thing I cut out is lodging. Right now is day 22 (I didn't count the music festival) of the Journey and I've spent $0 on lodging. I've spent 8 of those days at host's houses through WarmShowers, a network of cyclists who host each other for free. One night was spent on the couch at a firehouse. The other 13 I was wild camping.

A wild)stealth camping is tricky l, because you want to be respectful. You must, be discreet, I am very careful to not be seen, and I leave no trace. No one ever got offended or upset by the thing they never knew happened.

This continual stealth camping can make it difficult becuse I'm often getting to bed after dark and departing at sunrise. I DO NOT handle sleep deprivation well, ask Becky or any Solidarity member who has me at 5 or 6AM. This has set back my mileage a ton, riding all day on 5 or so hours of sleep.

It's nice to have a challenge on a tour. Most cyclists it seems to me make this challenge about hitting big mileage. For me it's about frugality and cooking my own meals. And I'm crushing it thanks.

It took me over 2 weeks to find a solid rhythm. That's the thing about bicycle touring-- most people's 's tours are shorter than it takes to really figure your shit out. I'm getting faster at setting up and I'm getting better sleep the longer I'm out..

I do like to hit my minimum number miles and feel good when I do that. And it feels great to do over 50. But I have no desire to push that limit up to 100 or 150 km a day like a lot of people do.

My challenges on this tour are:

1) spend as close to $0 on lodging as possible 
2) stay within my budget goal
3) cook most of my own meals

And so far I've been doing that. And I am having a fabulous time!

I'm going to do a a couple short blog posts in the next couple days with some simple themes; 

1) places Ive slept / camp pics

2) things I've eaten

3) my new route ... WHICH I STILL HAVEN'T DECIDED!!!! I don't know if I'm going northwest to lake Constance and Switzerland and then France... Work. I want to head straight south into the Brenner pass and go to Italy

4) Things I'm learning about myself

Any thoughts?





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