Activ Sunny Hotel Sonne Kirchberg

Stayed at a beautiful spot in Austria (Saalbach) with Hilly, Stu's old friend and new Father..actually felt sorry for him, the poor sod was knee deep in relatives, in laws, newly purchased crib and nappies, etc.....we stayed for afew days and it was neatly timed with the arrival home of new born Frankie. Hilly's place is 3 feet from a field of horses so Lauren was easily kept busy with feeding duties.

Stu tried ...

En route to the airport, Keith needed to do a bit of shopping for next week's guests so we paid a visit to Kufstein while he shopped there. Kufstein is a town with big history, owned by Bavaria in the middle ages but long one of Tirol's most northerly towns. The historical centre is hard to miss: an ancient castle perched atop a hill.

The lower Altstadt is cute but consists ...

... legs began to whimper and ask whether it wasn't time to gently ride back to base for a nice, cold beer. However, they quickly came to their senses and marshalled themselves for the coming onslaught: a long, hard fire road climb up 9 long switchbacks. Bigger than anything in South East England, for sure. The reward was worth it: a long singletrack descent with lots to offer in ...

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Back up for another run at Flying Gangster without falling off, but by now the weather was closing in and it looked as though I was pushing my luck to try another run.

On the way home, we stopped off and did some shopping. We stayed in and cooked Krapfern, slow-roast tomatoes and roast sausage, which was excellent, and yoghurt for dessert, all locally-produced except the toms.

... technical singletrack which was much more of a challenge for me and I had to work on shifting my balance on the bike, keeping the weight much further back, and trying to take a more balanced approach to braking, as I was heavily favouring the back brake (to such an extent that the rear tyre showed significantly more wear at the end of the week). Mountaintop lunch was a "Strammel Max" (ham, eggs ...

... bakery where they served a nice Gulaschsuppe.

Some more fun trails, then we descended toward Ellmau but this is where it went awry. Katie had a spill on a fire road descent. It wasn't anything particularly technical, just one of those unlucky moments when a drainage gully snags a front wheel that's going too slow. The kitty-litter gravel that covers these fire roads is unforgiving and Katie left behind quite a bit of skin from her right knee, with some minor ...

... carbon bars, stem and seatpost, very light and brisk, great for climbing, but quite different in feel from my Orange Five Pro. Brake levers are on the opposite side on the continent, adding to the task of adjusting my riding style. Our downward return was interrupted by a break to pick wild bilberries by the side of the path. I decided to ride to Ellmau afterwards to pick up some tyres that were ...

... the hotel wouldn't be able to give us a lift into town. Okay, we thought, but would we be able to book the glacier trip? I resolved there and then to find our own way into town. How hard could it be?

Anyway, they taxied us out to our hotel after dropping the Kitzbuehel contingent as our hotel was out by the lake. First impressions - very beautiful setting and they gave us a room with an enormous balcony - even though we hadn't paid extra for ...

Nope - it wasn't me running but I went to watch the Luxembourg Marathon. You can run the full marathon, half marathon or team races and they all start at 6pm on the Saturday. This means spectators can make the most of the only day in the weekend when things are open(!) and the runners don't have to run at the hottest part of the day. Saturday So first, what did I do for the rest of the day? The sun was out and it was beautiful so I decided to go into Luxembourg centre for a ...

... I was really here, walking the streets in Kitzbuhel, Austria…one of the most famous skiing venues in the world. We stopped at a market to pick up something to eat…look at us! Here only a couple of hours and already we're in the grocery store!

There was a get together dinner tonight at 7:00. Dinner consisted of turkey cordon bleu, fries and strudel. At 8:00 pm, we decided to call it a day. We went to bed.


August 25-Sunday ...