It was my intention, once upon a time, to update the blog semi-regularly. Of course, I forgot a few key things...

A) Time (you don't have time...the Olympics are in 3 months) - with all this riding, 6:30 am wakeup calls, and sunset dinners, I didn't really have much the ability to type something up. I think I figured that the biking would take up less of my life...wrong, evidently.

2) Computer - It's quite difficult to type without one. I don't know what I was thinking; a big faux pas on my part.

D) Internet - turns out that Europe hasn't connected their forests to the network. Next year I guess.

Anyhow, I have a little bit of all three of the above. I've been on the road now for 60 days and nearly 4000 miles. It's been a lot of things. If you happen to see me sometime in the future, here are some conversation starters.

- Morocco and Islamic culture

- Hanouts, mint tea, and chicken

- The Mediterranean ride

- Spanish Siestas and the Sunday Shutdown

- Running with those bulls

- Ski lodge hamburgers

- Camping in cornfields, apple orchards, lake sides, goat pastures, forests, train platforms, construction sites, etc.

- The Andorra climb (and the Pyrenees)

- The Andorran/French 23 mile downhill

- Navigation errors

- Carrefour!

- Boulangeries

- Ones and Zeroes

- The Mega Choc diet and its many imitators

- Lac Leman, Geneva, Lausanne, Bern, and the rest of Switzerland

- The on-off language switch (and English - the global language)

- Morning Bavarian beer festivals

- Austrian hospitality (and steaks!)

- Czech culture shock

- Sandwiches, pasta, meusli, chocolate

- The McDonald's project

- Tanlines, guts, and tree-trunk quads

- Tailwinds

- Brutal climbs and 47mph downhills

- The 140 mile day along the Danube

- Polish flatlands (and heat)

So what lies ahead? Latvia, Russia, Mongolia, and China...and more?!

While there have been a bunch of days that I want to throw the bike into a tar pit, there've been other days when I'm stoked to be on the roads. It's been a remarkable and memorable journey, one spent with great riding buddies and awesome travel partners.

Also, birthday shoutouts to Harry Potter.