So I have just finished up a fantastic weekend at the KitzAlp Bike Festival in Austria. I performed in downtown Kitzbuhel on Thursday evening, taught a youth skills clinic on Friday, then another performance on Saturday at the Race. It was so much fun to ride a variety of obstacles for a change; I basically built a demo course out of spools, pallets, and beams and had a blast.

The Marathon race was 55 and 88km long, with over 1000 competitors, wow! The youth races on Sunday consisted of a technical trials style challenge in the morning, which determined their starting position. Check out the images for a taste of the challenges they had to negotiate. Love it!

Picked up my buddy Mark Bakker, former Norco web guru, in Kitzbuhel today, he’s busy back-packing around Europe and our paths crossed. We’ll travel for the next couple day with him.

Well, I’m going to Buggerhof until the next post….

Caryn and I quickly overcame jetlag, and have settled in to our home for the next five nights in Kirchberg, Austria. By the way, the trick for dealing with jetlag is as follows: Lets say you arrive at 10am in the morning, in Munich, after traveling for about 16 hours, and dealing with an 8 hour time change. The trick is to keep your eyes open during the remaining first day and refrain from taking a nap (which surely would last a number of hours). Once it’s evening time, say 9pm, then go to sleep, and you’ll sleep beautifully for at least 8 or 9 hours and be good to go the next day….on with the story….

So we spent our first two nights in downtown Munich, exploring the city, drinking tea, eating ice-cream (the temperature was about 26 Celsius), and randomly meandered the walking only streets in the city center (much like Whistler Village only way bigger).

The first thing that struck me about Munich (much like many European cities) was the huge number of cyclists. It’s an official stat that 25% of the residents of Munich commute to work by bicycle, incredible!! My question is whether the positive effects of riding so much counter-balance the negative effects of all the heavy drinking and smoking going on?! I was psyched that there is no smoking allowed inside restaurants anymore, and that goes for all public indoor spaces, including Backstage Werk, the venue for the Xavier Rudd concert we went to last night; it was AWESOME! Perhaps this uber talented Australian is not as famous in Germany as back home in BC (where his wife is from) judging by the size of venue, but the fans attending sure were genuine and psyched. The real beauty this intimate venue was to see up close details and facial expressions during the performance. I love Xavier, what can I say.

I’ll be setting up for my first show tomorrow in Kitzbuhel for the KitzAlp Bike Festival, and look forward to riding with Thomas Ohler again. We explored this adorable mountain village today, and are excited to spend the next four days in the area.  Hopefully the weather holds strong, it was over 30 degrees Celsius today, and the heat was beat by swimming in a lake surrounded by views of the Alps, NICE!!

The dinnertime show was a thunderstorm where the rumble didn’t stop for over ten minutes, not even a breather, much like Xaviers didgeridoo skills; perhaps the amphitheater of mountains surrounding us was the reason.

Here’s an amusing photo that Caryn took today in Kitzbhuel, no disrespect, just a bit of a language thing I guess! (look to the writing on the wheelbarrow)

Hope you’re all well, peace…

Ryan Leech