Before leaving Sterzing, Jackie decided that she didn’t like the look of a gouge in her front tyre so we went off to buy one. Her bike now resembles Trigger’s broom. We were going to head for the town of Merano. There was a rather large mountain in the way. Consequently, there were two ways of getting there, 1. Up and over - 32km 2. Around the mountain (if the mountain was a clockface: we were starting at 12 o’clock and going clockwise, via Bolzano to 8)...

There was a violent electrical storm over Innsbruck last night. Luckily it cleared up before we ventured out to look for a curry. It turned out that there were plenty of curry houses here and we chose to eat at the one which was top on TripAdvisor, Himal Nepal Kitchen. Quite passable. Left Innsbruck at around 9am and headed south. Immediately hit with a brutal climb that saw us gain 400m in height in just a few kilometres. On ‘cold legs’, it was really tough...

Totally in the mountains now and will remain so for the next week. I’ve, long ago, booked a room in a place called Trafoi for this coming Friday (26th), which is the night before Stelvio Bike Day. Between then and now, our route will be determined with that in mind. Not much to say about today save that the scenery is amazing. The cycle paths in The Tyrol are very good and well signposted. I did get stung by a wasp though. It landed on my right hand while I ...

We left Burghausen at about 9am, after having first strolled around the, supposedly, longest castle in the world. We headed south, along the Inn river, in the direction of Salzburg. The cycle track had a good surface in part but then, increasingly, was comprised more of loose shingle. This really effects the speed. For the same effort that, say, maintains around 18mgh on the smooth tarmac, this drops to more like 11mph on the shingle. That makes a big difference...

Passsau to Burghausen The earliest train departure this morning was supposed to be at 0419hrs however a very long freight train rattled through at 0216hrs that really shook the building to the core. Not that Jackie noticed. From around 5am the station was quite busy with both trains, silly jingles and tannoy announcements. An enforced late start at the bike shop gave us the chance to look around the city of Passau. It’s an impressive place the centre of whic...