Austrian Mt. Biking

I think I now know why hiking seems to be more popular in Austria than Mt biking. The "mountain bike" trail we rode today was a gravel road. It would have been nice if it had been even double track, but no, it was just a gravel road. Parts of it even had access by motorized vehicles. It was suspiciously similar to riding up a regular old forest road in the US. The difference was the fantastic views.
I started out with Winter and Jessica, but the initial climb was a death march and Winter soon was unable to continue so Jessica generously offered to take her back to the house while I continued on. Thus the photos are all self-photographed except for the last ones at the lake (where a nice Austrian lady served as photographer.)
By the way, I just about killed myself today - I am not as young as I once was and I was really sucking wind today. I could make excuses all day long about how the air is thinner and whatnot, but in reality, the mountain just kicked my butt (and so did the saddle on the rental bike). Tomorrow is going to be painful. Lovely views though!

Hoge Bergse Bos (Rotterdam)

Today I hit the trail at Hoge Bergse Bos (translates to "high mountain forest" and I would say that all three of those words are probably hyperbole in terms of the extent of the height of the "mountain" and depth of the "forest") just to the North of Rotterdam for a bit of a mt bike ride.

The trailhead is here: Google Maps of Parking lot

The trail is surprisingly nice, but it has the same "feel" as a Texas trail in that they wind the trail around so much (in order to fit a longer trail in a smaller place) that you are often riding within just a few feet of where you just rode a few minutes earlier. I rode a couple loops on the trail and took pictures the second time through:


This is the lookout point at the top of the "mountain":
Some old ladies were nice enough to take a picture for me (although it took about 7 times for the lady to figure out how to get the camera on the iphone to work)
The view of Northeast of Rotterdam and the zevenhuisplas lake:
Looking over the top of the "ski resort" towards downtown Rotterdam:
And looking a little off to the west of Rotterdam:
And looking back towards Zoetermeer:
There was a lot of really nice singletrack and quite a few short (but fairly intense) downhill sections where they have installed stair steps to prevent erosion. So you have to keep on your toes.
They even have some modern art (if you can call it that) mounted out along the trail:
This is (apparently) a replica of the top of the Matterhorn. Apparently it can be climbed inside or out. Below it is some sort of ropes course base camp:


And my ride for the day - my father in law's Cannondale. I really appreciated the fact that he loaned it to me (since I left my Ellsworth in Texas) but I should have approached the trail with a bit more caution. My Ellsworth descends like a (insert analogy to something that is very stable and very very fast and very very reliable) and so I attacked a downhill section too aggressively way too soon (before I was really "tuned" in to the new bike) and I cased it something fierce - I mean I did a full on faceplant where I was picking weeds out of my teeth, nearly broke my nose, trashed the visor on the helmet, and scratched up my forehead. It could have been really really bad if it weren't for the fact that the spot of earth that I attacked with my face was nicely covered in grass, stinging nettle and thistles. If it had been a rock garden, I would almost certainly be in the hospital doing reconstructive facial surgery right now. My neck is majorly tweaked and I feel like a major idiot for going at that downhill like I was on my own bike. Oh well, live and learn right?