Riding to places such as Landshut, Passau, and the Starnberger See--and even "racing" in a triathlon

Bavaria at its best

Austria was fun--but it lasted only for a week or so. But luckily, the weather in Europe kept holding for weeks on end, and I made the best of my time while Sabine had to slave away in the mines of the City of Munich. Actually, I did get to see her in action when she met with a team of Kampfmittelspezialisten at one of her projects where the tiny threat of WW2 bombs is on par with the tiny number of lizards, which are protected by European law (and are thus under her tutelage).

Easy now on that shovel, Felix, we don't wanna get blown up by a yet-undetected bomb!

On that particular day, after watching her in action, I used her trusty Skoda (which currently is in the shop with four blown shock absorbers after just 100,000 kilometers--WTF, Volkswagen???) down to the Ammersee and went for a 50-miler that included another two minor lakes. Really, riding my bike beats the heck out of having to work, especially with lizards and sweaty dudes. All these six pics are from the Ammersee Runde, including the one of the gravel section that I had to traverse.

Artwork in the middle of the forest

During my remaining three weeks in Germany I went on daily rides in the immediate vicinity of Freising as well as longer excursions, made possible in part by a cool mapping app that I had downloaded (and paid for). One day I rode down to Landshut and its beautiful castle (as always, up on top of a damn steep hill) and old town, both of which were reminiscent of Burghausen. Great ride!

Another good trip was my overnighter down to the Starnberger See where my old friend Jutta lives. We (and that includes her late husband Gerhard) go back to the early 2000s when the two of them participated in Lubbock's Buffalo Springs Triathlon and Judy and I adopted them. Nothing like friends, even if they now, thanks to progressing age, rip it up on eBikes! This roundtrip yielded more than 115 miles over two days. (The pic of Jutta and me was taken during a torrential 10-minute downpour while we walked down to the Starnberger See from her home. The cows? Don't ask me why they were in the middle of the road in Oberpfaffenhofen.)

Every day (except one rainy one) yielded a different ride. Some were longer than others, and some ended up with a final stop at the "nekkid" lake where people like to stop on their way home from work--you know, no clothes makes it easier to just cool off for a quickie. Others included a lunch stop in some biergarten a couple dozen miles from home. And some took us to a new brew-pub or even the Hallertauer Bierfestival in Allershofen.

On one Friday, when Sabine didn't have to work, we took the train to the tiny town of Plattling, about an hour east of Freising. There, we got on the bikes, rode to the Danube, took the pedestrian-and-bike ferry across the rain-swollen river, and then rode down to Passau, a city at the confluence of three rivers. Dude, that was one cool day with lots of sights (and here I'm not chronicling the planned encounter with her old boss, Hubert, a Bavarian original). Did you know that you can ride the bike path along the Danube all the way from its spring down to the Black Sea? And did I mention that the Danube is the second-longest river in Europe?

So, my time in Europe was spent riding my bike, when I didn't cook, went shopping, or did other chores around Sabine's place. Retirement is not such a bad thing. And if you're a mega-stud like am (ahem....) you get invited to race with one of this year's 19 City of Munich teams in the world-renowned (so the announcer) Erdinger Stadttriathlon, as the fill-in cyclist for a team that lost its rider thanks to an injury. You even get invited to the post-event Bar-B-Q cum cake-eating extravaganza at Familie Brunner's compound. All this is true, except the mega-stud part: Holy Moses, how can one lose so much speed over just a few years? I'm too ashamed to tell you how pathetic I was. No wonder only one of about two hundred million sizzling-hot babes is still interested in me...

Just this Tuesday I returned, and since then I've been adjusting back to the dry heat and generous breezes of West Texas. Why? Shit, I don't know. I really don't. I really like it here (and I love my place, which is my home), but there must be a good reason why I'm about to leave in about 24 hours for the California wine country....

Last view of Freising and Sabine's place somewhere

Jürgen