8:43am – I made it! I set off half an hour earlier than usual. What helped most was a conversation with a couple at the neighbouring breakfast table.
The lady asked asked me out of the blue:
”Are you already retired?”
“Oh, no” I replied with the best possible concealing smile… and left the room soon… Such an impertinence!

“Who owns the hotel?”
“The Abbey Admont, but we run it” tells me a young German manager in a blue suit
“We?”
“A Hamburg based hotel management company”
Hm, if it comes to money even the church has a very secularized point of view

Two Munich cyclists stop and put on more clothes. I do the same.
“It was a terrible wind yesterday,” says one.
“And we did 130km and 1300 altimeters” adds the other one.
I swallow empty since this is more than I did.
“Guys, may I ask how young you are?”
“76 and 68”
“Then you are my role models” I frankly confess.

A US Patent Officer contended in 1899: “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” We all know, he was not quite right. After today’s experience, I would suggest one more idea: “A weather adaptive biking dress” Me and many other bikers were today permanently stopping to put something on or off. Heat in the sun and really chilly in the shade. Yes, first-world problems but still if someone would like to tackle this inventive challenge…

“It is a container but very neatly arranged” tells me a lady on the phone when I am, depleted of power, looking for a room.
When I arrive at this horse farm, I meet a lady speaking in an intellectual Viennese German, completely untypical for this rural area. She makes clear she scorns the technocratic world. With the results that her farm is the definition of “entirely dilapidated”. And the “neatly arranged container”  a challenge to brag about bravery in front of the grandchildren one day.
“No dinner, no breakfast, it would be additional paperwork” she adds.
Being in the middle of nowhere, I have no strength to object.
“Can I at least buy a bottle of beer from you?”
“No one drinks it here” is her reply

Anyway, I did 130 km, partially against strong headwinds, and 1300 altimeters. Oh, it sounds like I matched the challenge of elderly Munich bikers 🙂