What's the essence of cycling?
A lot of pain for marginal gains.
A lot of pain for marginal gains.
May is coming to an end - so it's time to undertake a stag weekend for a good friend who's going to get married soon. A nice routine stag weekend: full of pain and suffering, some fleeting thrills here and there, perhaps even a measured ration of exciting visual stimuli. And the bad taste of partying till the bitter end...
So let's load our bars and frames and set off to find some suitable gravel paradise, shall we? Encumbered, perhaps, but ignorant, oh so gloriously ignorant of the agonizing game of gradients, perhaps brave, perhaps lacking consolation (and wisdom, but, well... it's a stag party, isn't it?).
Let's storm up those alpine foothills like a bunch of unbuttoned Poulidors, Pantanis and Pogačars... when they were about four years old.
There's a river... and a road.
And Mr. Jones... and Mr. ... Smith?
All the ingre(a)dients for a nice story. With a bit of good old Germanic pünktlichkeit.
I mean... really?
And so, we dive into Reichraminger Hintergebirge, the Limestone Alps National Park, an Austrian version of a World balancing between Sartre's vision of hell and cyclist's vision of heaven. (Especially on Sunday, when endless herds of really pleasant and polite people riding e-bikes flood the surrounding landscape and suffocate every attempt of immersing oneself into - well, anything, other than the absence of Exit.)
We dive straight in, confronting our lack of shape with double digit gradients guarding the entrance to green pastures of plenty sitting on those ridges above.
So we climb, each on our own, immersed in doubt and hurt by weakness, in the silence of beechwood pierced by raucous birdsong harmony. So we climb, closer to despair with each pedalstroke, closer and closer to the top of the hill redemption, climbing in perfect solitude.
Welcome to Ebenforstalm. Originaly we planned to pedal further to a camp site some ten miles away. But the hospitality of a nice chalet is hard to snub while battling phantoms of more climbing, night climbing even. (And don't even mention the view of those grandiose rocks above the pasture.)
So we stay, gladly enjoying the fruits of the surrounding land.
The morning came, and with the morning a new day promising new horizons. Now the proper adventure begins, with the Kalkapen due to reveal their true face. Hurry up!
Now we are talking!
And after reaching the wooded saddle, at last, the path goes down the hill!
Suddenly glorious views of the Sengsengebirge ridge on the other side of the valley open up, offering the first taste of surrounding mountain landscape.
Let's dive in!
There is something about descending gravel roads. They are softer, milder, more organic. The urcentainty gradually leaves us, and with it our fear of leaning into a corner. We begin to trust the tyres.
Excited to learn every ascent leads to a descent, revarded by a dose of endorphines, adrenaline even, we whizz to the Krumme Steyrling valley bellow.
Once reaching the valley floor the road rises again, following the river into the depths of the National Park, rising gently towards an old timber rafting dam and the hamlet of Bodinggraben where lumberjacks and charcoal burners used to prepare the ground for shepherds and farmers from Molln. A manor house, a hunting cabin and a chapel remain here as a reminder of the days of old.
Behind Bodinggraben river rapids grow stronger making the road steeper and steeper accordingly. It becames a mere path, rising towards Steyrsteg gorge and then the Haslersgattel pass, where ridges of Sengsengebirge and Reichraminger Hintergebirge meet. We have no choice but to battle the gradient and rough surface of the path, climbing higher than yesterday while admiring the wild gorge carved by the union of water and time.
Climbing hurts. It hurts your legs, your knees in boiling pain. It hurts your pride. Your diminished ego. It feels you're but a subject of the hill, beaten by the relentless gradient, humbled, abject, despairing while you reach the next turn and your path keeps climbing; agonized, forlorn, but not broken.
You carry on. With every step, with each and every pedal stroke, you are closer and closer to the top, to the elation of relief. You know your heart will sing up there, and so you keep up going at any cost, without regard to pain, out of breath, out of determination, but still, you keep on going. Ten meters after ten meters, hundred after hundred, every turn of the pedals hangs by a thread - but it hangs, your legs somehow still turning, each pedal stroke followed by another.
You carry on. With every step, with each and every pedal stroke, you are closer and closer to the top, to the elation of relief. You know your heart will sing up there, and so you keep up going at any cost, without regard to pain, out of breath, out of determination, but still, you keep on going. Ten meters after ten meters, hundred after hundred, every turn of the pedals hangs by a thread - but it hangs, your legs somehow still turning, each pedal stroke followed by another.
And then, after all, you reach the top.
A top with a view. The wood on the southern side of the ridge opens, offering a panoramic view of northern limestone Alps: from Totes Gebirge to Gesäuse. We admire the Haller Mauern right in front of us, from Pyhrgas on the right to Hexenturm.
Speeding down the winding path, the agony of ascent forgotten at once, we are diving into the colorful palette of alpine landscape all around. Tired and starving we forget the hardship of the journey and embrace the fleeeting sense of rambler's freedom and hapiness.
Arriving to the Hengstpass from above, we take the road east towards the Laussabach valley and Unterlaussa through the beautifuly carved gorge surrounded by wooded crags. Here we meet the world of drivers a moto riders, claiming the road for ourselves.
The late afternoon turns into a quite evening. There is one more hill to be tackled, a saddle to climb. With gradients up to fifteen percent, those three and a half kms to Mooshöhe are pretty punishing. But soon we'll be bathing in the last rays of the setting sun, in truce with all climbs, all those gradients.
But it's time für Echte Männer to find a lodging for the night; a campsite, perhaps.
A strange sound wakes us up, a cacophony of blows. It's Mr Smith, who decides to learn how to chop wood at dawn, waking the whole Biwakplatz Weisswasser during the process.
Let's tackle one more climb, before riding down along the river to Reichraming. Hurry up! Go suffer!
The climb to Anlaufalm is a beauty... but the gravel descent promises a lot a of fun. And it delivers.
So, let's take the last stage, the procession, the victory parade. Let's ride the route of an old abandoned forest railway which tunnels it's way through the narrow gorge towards Reichraming.
The river acts like a Chekhov's gun. Mentioned on the beginning, not only it defines the surrounding landscape, carving the statuesque crags out of the uplifted landscape, battling orogeny... it brings a concluding chapter to the story, offering catharsis - at least in a literal sense. After three days of climbing and riding through the dust we eagerly await a bathing spot to wash off the physical remnants of excitement and suffering; to keep pure memories.
So long, Kalkalpen! It was great fun, with the pain almost forgotten already. And good luck, Mr Jones, in your new life of a married man. ;)
(M-Rokkor 40mm f/2
+ Ricoh GR II)
+ Ricoh GR II)