I'm going to keep this short, because my battery is going to die soon, but today was a rest day in St. Moritz. It was raining in the morning, so we waited until 10 for the rain to stop, then rolled out of bed and ate breakfast. At the campsite headquarters we found maps of the area and found a tram to take up to around 10,800 feet. After much debate, and realization that neither of the maps we picked were oriented with north at the top, we found the bus route we needed to take, and got ready to go.

Just getting the bus was an adventure. There's a bus stop right outside the campground, but we walked 20 minutes in to town so we could buy tickets at a kiosk instead of talking with a bus driver. Unfortunately, the kiosk's credit card reader was broken, and didn't accept credit cards. We tried putting the card in forward, backwards, and upside down. Whoops! The card got stuck in the machine upside, and required Matt to walk back to camp (40 minutes round trip) to get the leatherman while Nate and Mark explained in broken German/French/English that the machine was broken to others trying to use it.

The credit card came out with no issues when Matt came back with the leatherman and we waited for the next bus. Unfortunately, the bus only runs every hour, so we walked back to the campsite, just to eat up time, and waited for the bus there.

After 2 hours in total, we finally just bought our tickets from the bus driver and took the bus to the tram. We bought tickets for 69 CHF (gag) and rode two trams up to 10,800 feet. The tickets included lunch, so we got lunch and beer at the restaurant there, and looked at the beautiful view. (Well, actually the cloud, but every so often we could make out mountains).

After lunch, we met some other Midwestern folk from Iowa and chatted with them for awhile (during which we decided touring through Iowa might have been a better idea) and then took the tram back down and the bus back to the campsite.

In the afternoon we walked through St. Moritz. It's a really nice town. Every single designer brand clothing line you've heard of has a shop here, and some lines you've never heard up. We weren't that interested in spending more money today, so walked back to the grocery store, picked up some more beer, and walked back to the Doner Kebab cart for dinner. Dinner was Doner Kebab again, and afterwards we walked back to camp to drink some beers and relax.

Nate did some excellent repair on his panniers by sewing some patches on them. Matt attempted to repair his brake cable that was getting a little stuck (stuck shut, not stuck open, so that's good at least) and the great combo team of all three of us destroyed the brake cable, so first stop tomorrow is a bike shop. (We have some extra beers, maybe they'll take that?) but after that, we'll be on our way to Chur. Or maybe spend another, cheaper day in St. Moritz.

Anyway, my phone is nearly dead, so I'll let Matt upload photos. We're all having a great time! Nate even seems to be enjoying it, during the trip, which is a rare event. Until tomorrow, or in s few days when I get battery.

Tl;dr Lots of up

Though it did rain a little last night, we woke up to a sunny clearing. After a light breakfast of bread and granola we started the day with a nice 500 meter climb. Thankfully there was a beautiful view and whatever the German word for ice cream parlor at the top.

That was the worst of the climbs but there were more to come. On the way down we set up a picture of all three of us and also found a small castle which we later deemed to be a look out tower.

After two hours we had only gone 20 km, due to all the hills, we had 55 more to go. The next 40km were the same. Unlike the Austrian paths, which were paved and took us along the river, the Switzerland paths take us from mountain town to mountain town along dirt roads. With the sun out, it was sweat city for us. Thankfully all along the paths in both Austria and Switzerland they have these drinking water pumps. It just took us 3 days to figure out they were drinkable.

As we approached St. Moritz the path leveled out, but a strong head wind took over. Even with Nate's bomber lead, we were still averaging 15km/hr on flat dirt roads.

With 10 km to go we were all feeling it, and so bought some Swiss chocolate crackers to cheer us up.

We decided to bike through St. Moritz to get to our campsite instead of staying on the north side. After all the path followed a stream, how hard could it be? Turns out the stream was more of a water falling creek and there was a lot of hard pedaling to insure we made it up. Whoops.

Thankfully we made it though (also, shout out to Mark's superb navigating) and have the tent all set up.

Everything here is extremely expensive but we were able to find some cheaper Donar Kabob (much to Nate's delight) that filled us up for dinner.

It's beginning to rain again so we're off to bed. Thankfully tomorrow is a rest day to prepare for another climb after that.

Before I get started describing the day, Nate would like to make it very clear that it rained all day (again), and he is not happy about it. And he's ready to go home.

That being said, today was a pretty nice day. After dinner last night at a "Gasthof" (where we all order wienerschnetzel and the waitress laughed at us) we went to bed at 8pm and got 11 hours of sleep. We woke up early, had a fast breakfast, and we're on the trail by 7:45am. Today had a lot more elevation then yesterday.

We crossed the border into Switzerland without any issues. (We literally rolled through, we think the guard waved us through but we might not be here legally.) Right after we crossed the border, we took a nice detour up 500 ft into a small town, and didn't realize our mistake until we were at the top.

After that, we went back down, and then up the other side of the valley (yay!). The trail in Switzerland is nowhere near as nice as in Austria. There's a lot less signage, and the trail spends a lot more time on dirt roads.

We're all really enjoying the small towns that we bike through. I don't think we've biked more then 10km between towns. The alps are also beautiful when we can see them, and the towns are very quaint.

We're now in Scoul, Switzerland. Everything here is super expensive (it's 49 Swiss franks to camp where we're camping). But we're setting on a deck, drinking beers, and looking at the mountains. The sun is out, all our stuff is drying, and we're just shooting the bull.

To quote Nate "It's a hard life, but someone has to live it."

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there! Especially Paresh Patel and Jerry Schulte.

View from our campsite:

Town of Scoul

We were supposed to leave by 8 this morning but due to Matt's unpreparedness we weren't out the door till 8:30, at which time the light sprinkle turned into a heavy rain.

We biked east from Innsbruck along the Inn river to the town on Landeck, which we measured to be an 84 km ride. We averaged 20 km/hr which is not breaking any speed records but good enough.

The trail was stupidly well marked. We only needed a map once and even then we really didn't need it. We would ride along the river until hitting a small town, in which we would bike through the small roads before getting back on a path for the next town.

These small Austrian towns are gorgeous, they all have beautiful buildings and great views. The ride would have been spectacular had it not been for the rain and low clouds obscuring our views of the peaks.

We are biking along the same pass the Romans used to build a road through the alps. Which means it's mostly nice and flat, with a couple small climbs. The highlight of the trail was passing a cow. Which was just wandering down the path on its own. It got right out of the way for us. We found her buddies a little later.

Upon are arrival in Landeck we set up camp, went to the store, found some food and gas for the stove, and then crashed for a nap back at the tent.

Now it's off to dinner and then to bed... Did we mention it's still raining.

Today was our last day to explore Innsbruck, so in true bum fashion we didn't get out till 11. This bros place is just too comfy. It didn't help that we broke down our bike boxes at 11 last night into tiny pieces.

The goal today was to get to these things we found online called mountain carts which is basically a tricked out tricycle to ride down the mountain. We tried to navigate public transit to get their but with everything in German, we were struggling. Google Maps was our friend though and after Matt bought the wrong tickets and Mark saved the day with getting half the right ones we got on a bus.

The bus only took us half the way there. We didn't have tickets for the next bus and it wasn't coming for an hour so we hiked through the rain for an hour. Thankfully there was great signage (and Google Maps when there wasn't). The hike had some great views at least.

We got to the place and rode a gondola to the top. It was still drizzling and so the views weren't so great but we did get a preview of what was to come.

When we got to the top, it was pouring rain. But they were still open and so we got our 3 trikes put our rain gear on and got ready to ride. No safety talk, no waiver. Just pointing towards the start.

The video is posted below, but it was nuts. We flew down the hill, probably hitting 30-40 mph. They had a brake on the left and the right wheel so you could skid around corner. It felt like Mario Kart, flying down DK mountain. There was no safety nets either, so it's a good thing we were professional drivers.

We found a train that would take us right back to our place. The train station had the most beautiful view I have ever seen at a train station.

Tomorrow we actually start biking so we'll head up the Inn River and out of Innsbruck. We're currently getting packed, getting food, and then going out for drinks.

We went out for drinks with Nate's friend Rachel and her boyfriend Joe. They were both really great and showed us some great bars in Innsbruck. Joe was hilarious and did a great Austrian impression. We had some great Austrian beer and then mixed drinks. Bed time for an early wake up and bike tomorrow!