A Return to Mountain Biking

I gave up mountain biking for several years. Part of it was my move to Munich (and subsequent move back) drove me to simplify the bike load and reduce me to one single bike and one tandem.The other thing was that I really enjoyed doing road cycling a lot more: there's nothing like being able to ride out your front door and being able to roll for 4-7 hours and come back without getting into a car.

But I could feel myself getting stale. While I could still easily ride unpaved fire roads and my road bike still had more off-road miles than most mountain bikes, I had reached a plateau, not being able to pick off the more technical sections of dirt Alpine, for instance. Between that and the grin on my face from the Santa Cruz factory demo, I decided to look into getting a mountain bike.

When I first bought my MB-3 in 1994, Pardo's advice was, "Mountain Biking is the process of throwing your bike off a cliff very slowly, with you on it, so there's no point getting a bike that's too good." With that in mind, I set my budget low, and went to see what I could get. Disappointingly enough, most bikes in the sub-thousand dollar range weighed in the same as my 1993 Bridgestone MB-3. Apparently all the weight savings from aluminum frames, etc., had gone into bigger wheels, disc brakes, and suspension.

The one brand that stood out for value was Airborne Bicycles. Their $830 Seeker had components that looked to be very well thought out, and weighed in around 28 pounds (the same as my 1993 Bridgestone). I tried to buy one from the catory, but they were out of stock, and didn't expect to have any back until Spring. If I lived anywhere but California, that would be acceptable. But I live in Silicon Valley, and even in winter (maybe even especially in winter), mountain biking here is still good. In winter, sometimes the temperature drops enough that road biking is annoying, while mountain biking with its lower speeds is a good substitute.

I looked on eBay, and found a Seeker my size that was in decent condition for about $200 less than what I would have paid for new (which after tax would have been around $900), and proceeded to buy it. The bike came with the deraileur hanger bent during shipping, courtesy of Fedex ground, but it was a relatively cheap fix. As a precaution, I sent e-mail to Airborne Bicycles asking to buy a spare deraileur hanger, and they sent me a new one --- for free, despite my not being the original owner of the bike. This is customer service well beyond what I expect from a cut-rate mail order shop, so I think I can whole-heartedly recommend Airborne's bikes.

The first ride I took it was up Charcoal road (which isn't a paved road at all, but is single track for much of it).
The ride confirmed my worst fears: I was woefully out of mountain biking shape. Stuff that I used to just ride over or through with aplomb I now felt nervous about, even occasionally just giving up and walking my bike. Nevertheless, stream crossings, acing a difficult section on the trail and climbing hard put a big smile on my face. The bike was clearly capable of far more than I was capable of. What blew my mind was how fast the descents were: bigger wheels and a capable front fork suspension definitely make descending fast dirt paths a quick and satisfying experience. The disc brakes were more of a mixed bag: they always stopped me even after a stream crossing, which wasn't always the case with rim brakes, but like any other disc brakes I'd ever encountered, the rotor would warp, though not badly enough to make any annoying noises, just enough to annoy me whenever I looked at it closely. I have no idea whether it's because the bike has the lowest end hydraulic brakes available, or whether it doesn't matter what I get, those brake rotors are just going to warp no matter what. What I'm rediscovering is that mountain biking requires much more anaerobic capacity than road biking (especially road touring) does. There are many sections where you just need a big spurt of power to get over the obstacle, but when combined with the necessary technical handling skills required I would just fall over at a critical section. As they say, "If you ain't hiking, you ain't mountain biking." For my next ride, I decided that I'd drive to the start instead of biking over. El Corte Madera State Park is a mountain biker's haven, and I remember several technical sections that featured multiple steep drops that scared me back when I was on an MB-3.  With some experience under me and equipment that was technically advanced by about 20 years, the technical stuff was actually comparatively easier than I remembered. What I was surprised by was that the park had been renovated in several places, and there were now trails that I didn't recognize any more. And once again, the climbs did me in, which I don't remember being that difficult when I was riding the MB-3 oh so many years ago. What's really cool about doing this in late fall/early winter is that you run into practically nobody on the trails. No trail conflict, no shouting "10 behind me", just the rustle of the leaves under your tires and perhaps the sound of your heart pounding in your ears. One thing that I quickly realized was that what works for other mountain bikers definitely won't work for me: riding with my Geiger-rig backpack placed too much of a load on my shoulders and back for long rides, and made me feel slow and heavy. Unfortunately, water bottles tend to get their nozzles filled with mud on off-road rides (or worse, horse poo if you ride on trails shared with equestrains). I'll experiment with some capped water bottles to see how that goes. It's going to take a while to get good at this, but whatever else I can say about it, it's definitely going to banish any staleness I'd been starting to feel on the bike.

Rest in Peace Frank Spychalski

My last photo with Frank in it, taken in July 2011 (Left to right: Phil Sung, Alan Wissenberg, Dan Vogelheim, Frank Spychalski, Me)

When I was assigned to the Munich office in 2008, Frank Spychalski was the first person to take me out for a beer and asked me to join his project. As an Asian who couldn't hold his beer, I couldn't do much drinking, but Frank overlooked that, and  I gladly joined his project and tried my best to help him as well as the rest of the Munich office. We became office-mates and good friends. When I found an apartment, Frank helped me find, buy and then organized a party to move my washing machine. When I moved out, he bought that machine off me.

Frank was an outdoors enthusiast in every sense of the word. He was a runner, a hiker (he'd done the West Highland Way twice!), and cyclist. In the office, he was always up for a quick run, and was always full of energy, frequently biking to work. Others in the office sometimes called him "super-humanly strong", but I knew that he was relentless in his pursuit of fitness. While we'd rode together a few times, we never did manage to sync up on my long trips, including the Tour of the Alps. We nevertheless became good friends and we always managed to squeeze in a quick meeting at least whenever I visited the Munich office.

I was shocked when I received e-mail from a mutual friend that Frank had gone missing. I knew Frank was very experienced and participated in many challenging hiking events. While I knew he frequently did these trips solo, he'd come through every one of his treks without a scratch, which is more than I can say for myself. I was horrified therefore, to hear that his body had been recovered from the Cascade Saddle track in Mt. Aspiring National Park. (Update: Sara Adams provides more background on what happened) (Update: the news reports provide further detail)

I'm very sorry that Frank and I never got to do a substantial trip together, and that we'll never get a chance to do so. I did not expect that I would spend Christmas this year writing his obituary. It stuns me that I will never see his quick smile, laugh at his eagerness to do so much in so little time whenever he was travelling, and hear his frequently sarcastic comments again. I lost a good friend, and the world lost a great engineer, hiker, cyclist, and backpacker. I will miss you, Frank!

July 19, 20, 21: Epilogue

It turned out that Chris wasn't out of town, as we thought. He had moved his departure date and came back late at night after we were asleep. He was gracious about us breaking into his apartment, as it was, and I made Weisswurst breakfast for him in the morning.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

I spent the 19th at the Google Munich office chatting up former colleagues. Then Lisa and I shopped for maps, tracking down and finding a copy of the Motorrad ReiseKarten Alpen that we had first seen in Austria, and picking up a few others as well for future travel. We paid a visit to my former landlady in Pullach, reminding her that I'll be back tomorrow to collect cash. We shopped for chocolate as well, and as usual discovered after we got home that what we thought was a lot of chocolate wasn't actually enough.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

On the 20th, we moved back to Hotel Vi Vadi, and repacked for the flight home. I took the deraileur off the bike, the pedals, removed the seat post and stoker bars and stuck them in the luggage. I made yet another visit to Pullach, and this time came back with much of my security deposit. She had made huge deductions for various apartment charges, but still had given me more than half of it, my threshold for deciding whether or not I should just hand my receipt and paperwork to one of my colleagues in Munich who knew good lawyers in exchange for half of anything he could get back from her. I deposited all that cash into my German bank savings account so as to avoid paying the currency exchange fees. My bank was happy to change my address as well since I had moved.

On the way back to the hotel after buying some vacuum packed Weisswurst, I dropped by the train station and saw Alan Wissenberg. He was in the middle of dealing with customers (and had a long line waiting for him), but he interrupted his transaction to shake hands and say hi. Upon hearing that it was my last night in Munich, he said, "I'll be back at the Euraide office at 10:45pm. Join me then and we'll grab a beer."

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Sure enough, at 10:45pm he was there. We had sat down and had a beer. We talked about our trials with bikes on trains, places we would never tell Rick Steves about (or at least, if we did tell Rick Steves we would ask him never to put in his book or show on TV), and of course, how nice the German-speaking countries were about putting bikes on trains. "I now have to distinguish between the people who are carrying a copy of Steves' book, and the people who actually read it. I had a woman who was fined several hundred Euros because she didn't read her train tickets! Her excuse: I had no idea that it was in English, since the cover letter was in German, so I didn't bother reading it!" We laughed and I was flattered when Alan told me, "I never learned as much about trains and bicycles as I did when I helped you put together that trip in 2008." Alan had been working with the Deutsche Bahn for 20 years, and was the most knowledgeable person I could nominate about European trains, but he was still learning after all these years. An hour passed rapidly and it was time for both of us to get some sleep.

On the 21st, we woke up at 4:30am, ate a quick breakfast, and tried to take the Lufthansa bus to the airport. The driver refused to take the tandem, so we reverted to our backup plan, which was to take the S-Bahn. A Partner Tageskarte and bike ticket cost nearly 22 EUR, but we offset the cost by reselling the ticket at the airport to an incoming British couple for 10EUR. It was a long wait for the Air Canada ticket counter to open, and we were charged for an extra bag because all the equipment and chocolate made our big bag overweight, causing us to have to check in one of the panniers separately. The flight delivered everything safely (including the unboxed and stripped bike), and all went well.

Next
Previous

Day 32: Schliersee to Munich

 

We woke up to overcast skies and still a threat of rain. As we left the bed and breakfast, it was still drizzling. I usually used an alternate route to get back to Holzkirchen/Munich, but with the threat of rain decided it was better to forgo that and find the most direct route there. Never having ever taken the direct route, I was pleased to discover that from Schliersee to Miesbach was a fast descent along a well marked bike path.

Once in Miesbach, however, we lost the bike path and circled around a few times in vain before a kindly street sweeper told us to make a left just before the railroad tracks at what appeared to be a walking trail. There was no way we would have found this without help: the "bike path" was up on a berm, without a ramp to hop the curb!

We were now following the Mangfall, the tributary of the Inn that came out of Tergensee. The bike path soon became the Wasserweg, the water way path that goes all the way to Munich. We followed signs to Holzkirchen, however, as I wanted to use the paved roads to Pullach and follow to Isar downtown instead, revisiting the commute I had for so many months while I was in Munich.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

The climb up to Holzkirchen was steep and unpaved, though not steeper than the 20+% grades we would climb if I was on what I considered my "normal" route back from the Schliersee.

It was too cool in Holzkirchen for ice cream at my favorite place, so we elected to ride on. This section was unfamiliar with me until we made a left turn from highway 13 onto Oberhaching. At that point, things started looking familiar to me even though I had never ridden on that road before. I was puzzled until I realized that I had navigated this stretch with Phil from our 2008 trip to Rosenlaui.

We had a miserable time at first on the road to Grunwald. Traffic was somewhat heavy and the road was narrow. Upon approaching a tunnel that was closed to bikes, however, we were redirected to a parking lot where the bike path into Grunwald began, and from there on it was smooth going. In Grunwald, we took the descent to the bridge over the Isar, but just before the bridge proper turned right onto the Isar bike path. I had never commuted on this side of the river, and it was wild, undulating greatly. This was now the province of the casual biker, and we found ourselves over-taking unloaded cyclists with regularity.

At the first bridge across the Isar I was once again into familiar territory, and from then on the ride into downtown Munich was routine for a cool summer day. Lisa wanted to visit the soup kitchen at the viktualienmarkt but it was closed on Sundays, so we ate at one of the local restaurants instead.

Arriving at Chris's place, we could not gain access to his apartment because the common entry way was locked! We waited until someone exited, whereupon Lisa went in and picked up his key from the hiding spot. We rolled the bike in, parked the tandem, and sighed. The longest tour (in terms of the number of days) we had ever done was over.

Next
Previous

Munich Trips Index

Now that I'm back in the US and mostly over my jet-lag, I can put together a list of trips out of Munich that I did this year (also, folks at work keep asking about it, so this is a good summary page). I have a bunch of Munich-related posts all labeled, but some of them capture more than just weekend trips or visits.

• Tergensee Loop
  
• Garmisch/Bad Tolz
  
• Erding Radmarathon
  
• Holzkirchen Loop
  
• Walchensee
• Ebersberg/Salzburg/Traunstein
• The Black Forest
  
• The Romantic Road
  
• Lauterbrunnen
  
• Salzkammergut Bike Route
  
• Rosenlaui
  
• Assling/Chiemsee/Grafing
  
• Garmisch Partnach + bike ride
  
• My Fall Commute
  
• Zugspitz
  
• Hollriegelskreuth to Wolfrathausen
  
• Wolfrathausen/Stanberg/Holzkirchen
  
• Radstadt to Salzburg Tour
  
• Stanberg Loop
  
• Lofer Hike

Then there were the big trips, like the Tour Across France and sailing the Mediterranean and the Aegan Sea. So I did quite a bit of travel. The three highlights for me (outside of the two big trips of course) were the Commute (because a little bit off heaven every day adds up a lot), the Salzkammergut Bike Route, and the trip to Rosenlaui. But each one of these trips was really pretty and worth the effort of planning and the cost of executing it. I definitely enjoyed all of them, and am very glad I got the chance to live in Germany for the time I was there, but if you had limited time, Salzkammergut only takes 3-4 days, and so does Rosenlaui, and both are very much tops!

Snow in Munich

Munich Snow

It was cold, but I had to go to town for supplies and do some other random activities anyway. When I came out of the S-Bahn in town it was sunny, and on the spur of the moment I decided to climb the stairs to the top of the tower on Peters Kirche. The top here is much better looking than from Frauen Kirche, because you're exposed out in the open, and have a great 360 degree view. It can get crowded, however, since the staircases were narrow, and so was the top of the tower. Fortunately, I hit a quiet period:

From Munich Snow

Then I had to find the toy museum. Turned out to be not at all where I expected it --- I had ridden my bike and walked past it countless times without registering what it was! It's a tiny museum, but had a nice collection of stuffed animals and even a Barbie collection.

While the weather was nice, I decided to take a quick walk in the English garden, where I found crepuscular beams coming through a hole in the clouds:

From Munich Snow

But it was still so cold that after just half an hour of walking I had to turn and head towards the U-Bahn, where my fingers could at least get warm (yes, I was wearing gloves!).

Snow!

That's right. The night brought snow to my part of Munich. Flurries are still falling. I guess that's it, no more hanging up clothing on the balcony to dry.

Hofer Hike

 

Lofer Hike

The forecast was supposed to be clear today, with a chance of showers at night, so I decided to join the Wayfarers group from Toytown Germany on a hike. Driving to the trail-head, it looked like it was going to be really foggy, as we could not see the peaks around us. At 9am, the hike started and it was pretty obvious from the start that I was going to be suffering --- these folks were fast!

I had decided that given my general lack of conditioning (this was my first serious hike since July), I should go for something less than the 2500m summit the rest of the folks were doing --- so I opted to visit the 1977m hut (which was closed for the season). After about an hour, we broke out into clear air and got gorgeous views of the surroundings:

From Lofer Hike

We had hiked above the fog. Another half hour later, I had to swap out the running shoes for the hiking boots on account of snow. Not being used to hiking in snow, I went slowly despite having two hiking sticks. At the trail junction, Angus gave me his car keys so I wouldn't have to freeze while waiting for everyone at the car --- the others were expecting to have to hike down in the dark.

I hung out at the hut for about 15 minutes, admiring the view, and the pristine snow on the terrace. Then I hiked down slowly. The snow was slippery and it took me about as much time to descend as it took to climb. At the snowline, I breathed a sigh of relief, but quickly discovered that things didn't improve --- the thick layer of leaves from the fall was just as slippery!

Nevertheless, I made it back to the cars at 3:30pm with trembling knees, and sat and read until everyone showed up at about 5:30pm. A good hike, and I guess with snow predicted for this weekend I won't be doing much more before I have to leave Germany.

My last weekend ride in Germany

Another Stanberg Loop

I had to take care of things in the morning, including shopping for groceries, cleaning the house, and lifting weights. I was amazed by how cold it was in the morning at 11am when I went out to buy stuff! Winter, if it is not quite here yet, is coming!

After lunch, however, the sun came out, so I quickly laid down a route. It had occured to me that I had not done a ride from my house without getting on a train somewhere, or coming back by the train, so I decided to do a short ride --- just 25 miles and see what I could see. I picked Starnberg Lake, since it was surprisingly close, and then proceeded down the bike path.

There's quite a number of hills between my place and Starnberg lake, but nothing really bad (though I did see an 11% grade marker). When I got to Starnberg Lake I rode down to the shores for a few pictures, and then rode along the lake for a while. Then I followed my GPS route back, around rolling hills and ended up through some picturesque little towns near where I lived that I had never visited before.

The movers show up on Thursday to pick up my bike (and all the other stuff that needs to get shipped back to the US), and the weather's going to be iffy between now and there. I guess that's how it ends, with a wimpy little ride.

Beautiful Moonlight Commute

I just had one of those beautiful moonlight commutes. Full moon, clear skies, and an uncrowded bike path along the Isar river. In fact, it was so clear once I crossed the river and out of tree cover that I turned off my battery powered light and relied on my generator light even though I was on a dirt path.

Yes, it was cold (so cold that I noticed it through my gloves and winter wear), but the haunting image of the moon rising over the river valley and reflected in the ripples of the Isar will be one I treasure forever.

Radstadt/Salzburg Tour

 

Radstadt

The weather forecast looked good for Saturday and Sunday, so I found myself in the Euraide office on Friday morning talking to Alan Wissenberg about a trip to Radstadt. (Alan by the way was tickled pink when he found this blog ranked highly for a search for Euraide during the summer --- undoubtedly due to a ranking glitch) Why Radstadt? On one of my first bike tours in Germany, I ran into an English lorry driver in Seeham, who when asked to tell me a place that was pretty, said Radstadt. "I'd recommend Radstadt to anyone," he said, holding up his beer. (English lorry drivers, by the way, don't conform to the beer gut stereotypes that American lorry drivers seem to have done) Unlike other tours, I also booked my lodging --- during the late season, it's very likely that most hotels are closed, along with the tourist information office, so I figured I would make the booking in Radstadt, dump my lugguage there, and do a day trip.

So I found myself hustling aboard the 7:26am train to Bischohofen on Saturday morning. The train was late, but fortunately my connection was for 20 minutes, so I had plenty of time. It was cold and overcast while I waited for the train, and I started wondering if I had made a mistake in believing the forecast. My doubts grew when I arrived in Radstadt to find wet roads, though it wasn't raining. Having set my GPS for my hotel, I rode to the hotel and found it without incident, and discovered that I was the only guest! The hotel owner was very nice, however, and let me check in and leave my stuff --- there's even a locked bicycle closet! I immediately set out to ride the loop I had planned so many months ago (this was one of the trips that I had waiting to go but never could find the weather to do so), albeit cut short since I was starting late, and really, didn't want to push it in the winter.

The loop first took me through Radstadt proper, where I bought some fruits for lunch, and then headed West to Eben, and then North and back East through the mountains. The hills rolled around a bit, but soon I was flat smack in the middle of what had to be an access highway for skiiers. It not being skiing season, the traffic was light and I could enjoy the scenery. I could see that the sun was trying to come out, and low and behold around the bend I saw mountains shrouded with clouds. They even had snow on them!

I rode past Ubermoos, which had a shack serving a hot lunch, but decided that I'd rather not bogmyself down with food. Soon, I was riding past the ski resort towns of Hachau. It's a bit spooky riding past a ski resort town during the dead season --- nothing is open, all the ski lifts aren't moving and neither are the cable cars used for moving hikers during the summer. Together with the very light traffic --- I was seeing a car every 15 minutes at most --- I felt like I was riding through a post-holocaust scenario, except it was so pretty. I took a break every so often, not being in shape, but also to eat. Then swept past a minor ridge, and past Schildehen, started my climb up to Vorberg.

Up to now the road had been marked scenic, but really, was nothing to write home about. I had taken a few pictures, but looking at them now, my equipment, technique, and the weather didn't make it worth writing home about. Vorberg changed all that. Now I was on a high ridge looking down across the valley and into the valley. The scenery was spectacular --- I stopped often for pictures, and had great views everywhere I turned. Even the weather started to coperate as the sun started to peek out through the clouds. I rode past gorgeous houses, with men in lederhosen pounding fenceposts down. I rode past horses and horsefields, and a children's playground that had a few cows assigned to mow down the grass. The mood, the lighting, and the scenery all combined to make me feel really glad I did this loop, and sad when it came down to descent into Pichl, where I picked up the Enns bike trail towards Radstadt.

But even the flat bike trail had a consolation prize, for as I rode along it, the sun suddenly came out and lit up a farmhouse and its surrounds with a crisp golden light that this picture barely managed to capture:

From Radstadt

By the time I got back to the hotel I was wondering if I shouldn't have made a longer loop, it being but 3:00pm. This hotel didn't serve dinner, so I quickly unpacked, washed up a bit, and discovered I had no soap either. I rode out to the city to try to find soap and see if there were restaurants within walking distance. Well, soap was not a problem, as I found a drug store open very quickly. But I discovered all the surrounding hotel/restaurants near me were closed, so ended up riding into town, where I bought some emergency snacks in a super market. I looked around town and to my surprise, found a Konditerei that served dinner even though it was only 4pm. I parked my bike outside (unlocked, as I hadn't bothered to bring a lock), went in, and ordered hot tea, the fixed menu (noodle soup and Wiener Schnitzel) and then topped up with a dessert pastry. I was impressed by the entire works. The meal was good, the price was reasonable (14 Euros for the entire thing), and of course, the waitress was pretty.

I then went back and retired for the night.

The next morning, I got up and ate a nice big breakfast before hopping onto my bike and riding down the Ennstall towards Bischofshofen. The bike path led in the wrong direction, so pretty soon I found myself on B99. Fortunately, B99 parallels a freeway, so it had light traffic, though in Huttau there was a parade of some sort involving horses, which I was glad to get past, as the road was quite nasty. It was overcast and I got quite cold on the descents, discovering at this point that I had a hole in my gloves.

Near Bischofshofen, I picked up the Tauern Radweg, a bike path that would lead all the way to Salzburg. Unlike other bike paths, however, this one was really a bike lane along the highway --- the one time I saw a sign to a separated path, it turned out that the segment of the separated path was close. This was just as well, since while approaching Werfen, I saw the big castle on a hill. On the spur of the moment I decided to visit it, and rode up along the pedestrain path until it got too steep and had to walk. Fortunately, the walking was very limited, and I got to the castle entrance only to find that the place was closed for the season. I had good views though, so it wasn't wasted effort.

I picked the paved cable-car route down to the parking lot, and started heading down the hill when I saw a gorgeous view in front of me:

From Radstadt

Now I wasn't unhappy that I hadn't opted for my 100km original route which would have bypassed this portion. I kept going and the route got prettier, giving me better and better views until I got to Pass Lueg, which was so short a climb I didn't notice it. From there, the scenery changed, giving me more greenery rather than granite mountains. I had a quick lunch at Hallein, and thereafter picked up the Salzach dirt path that led into Salzburg, arriving finally in the Salzburg train station in time to catch the 2:11pm train. As usual, the train was late and it was dark by the time I got home.

Still, it was a good trip with 140km and 1393m of climbing. Considering the restricted daylight I was getting, this worked out as well as I could have hoped for. I'm finding that after about 7 months in Munich, my only regret is not spending more time in Austria. I'll need to explore this country more in the future!

Wolfrathausen/Stanbergersee/Holzkirchen Ride

Wolfrathausen-Starnberg-Holzkirchen

I had not expected another beautiful weekend, and now that I was more or less recovered from my cold I took advantage of it! I caught the 9:55 S-Bahn to Wolfrathausen, and there proceeded to ride over to Stanbergersee, where Lisa and I started our first tour of the Alps 5 years ago.

The ride immediately took me across a couple of rivers and then started climbing. I got a few beautiful pictures of the lonely road and then proceeded to descend all the way down to Stanberg, where I found a bike path right next to the lake and proceeded to ride along it. It was gorgeous, and many families were out feeding the birds or just taking a scroll. When it came time for me to leave Starnberger See, I made a left turn and rode up a bike path covered with leaves. As the bike path left a tunnel, I could only trust to scoot my bike along because the leaves were so wet that I had no traction! I immediately left the bike path and got onto the road, but after several hundred meters the GPS signaled a turn where there was no apparent intersection!

A U-turn revealed that there was a gate with a bypass for a bike onto an unpaved forest road. No wonder Garmin Mapsource had balked at routing me this way the night before when I was laying out the route. No matter, I rode along the bike path, passing some equestrains, and then found some thick leaves to ride through. These weren't wet, but riding through deep leaf-fall is an act of faith, since you can't see what's underneath it all. I kept my eyes on the trail looking for big rocks sticking out but had no issues until I came onto the Forest lake that had caused me to route in this fashion.

After that, I returned to the road and tooled along merrily past hill and dale, enjoying the beautiful day. It got so warm that I had to take off my jacket, and I loved swooping through single-track roads surrounded by woods, with the roads still wet from dew even though it was past noon by the time I swept through them. Since I hadn't done any serious riding for a while, I had plotted only a 60km ride today, so I only had to stop one to take in a snack before I got to the Holzkirchen S-Bahn, where I had just narrowly missed my train. Never mind, since the hour wait gave me time to buy and eat lunch and visit the delightful ice-cream shop just 300 meters from the S-Bahn station.

A surprisingly beautiful short ride. Recommended in good weather.

Hollriegelskreuth to Wolfrathausen

 

Ride to Wolfrathausen

I had a cold all last couple of weeks, so it was only on Sunday that I felt well enough to go for even a short ride down to Wolfrathausen. It was a beautiful warm fall day, and the ride was surprisingly short, but it ended on the beautiful river in Wolfrathausen with gorgeous fall afternoon sun. This will be our last ride on the tandem until I return to Sunnyvale in December.

Zugspitze Trip

Zugspitze Trip

It was a beautiful day, so we headed up to the Zugspitze. Lovely fall colors, wonderful clear weather, and views that had to be seen to be believed!

My Commute Got Prettier!

Munich Fall Commute

My commute took an extra 15 minutes today, because I had to stop so often to take pictures! That was a problem I never had in Mountain View, and I feel privileged!

Garmisch Fall Hike/Bike Ride

Garmisch Fall

It was a beautiful fall day today, so we got on the train at 7:44 and rode it to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, famous for the Zugspitz. Our first order of business was to explore the Partnach Gorge in Garmisch, which turned into a 2-3 hour hike as we followed the rivers up and got gorgeous views of the mountains around us.

Then it was a cable car ride back to the Olympic stadium and then a short walk back to get our bikes. We intended to ride over to the Zugspitz Bahn to hitch a ride to the tallest mountain in Germany, but between mechanicals and a general tardiness we didn't make it and ended up riding to the Eibsee instead. Nevertheless, what a gorgeous day!

Assling-Chiemsee-Grafing

 

With the weekend forecast to be sunny, I wanted to do a ride, but not something painful, since we'd just come back from the Tour Across France. When Radina suggested a ride to the Chiemsee and back, using her newly discovered method of using the MVV ticket on the Deutsche-Bahn, I agreed. Radina, Mike and I met at the Munich main station at 9:20 for the 9:40 train, which arrived in Assling at 10:15am. Meeting us there was Frank Spychalski.

Since it was Radina's route, she led the ride, though occasionally from behind, as Mike and Frank seemed to be feeling strong today. It was cold and overcast, surprisingly so, and I found myself in need of food as soon as we crossed the bridge at Rott-Am-Inn. Riding with a 1:75000 map, we still occasionally got confused and found ourselves lost every so often. Nevertheless, as we approached Gstadt-am-Chiemsee, the sun finally broke through the clouds and we got ourselves a little warmer at lunch.

After lunch, I saw Mike putting on sunscreen --- an optimist! I myself kept my arm and leg warmers on, and eschewed the sun. We rode off along the Chiemsee for a bit, with beautiful views to the left of us --- it was quite windy, as evidenced by the number of sailboats out with sails full, but with the wind behind us it was much nicer than having the wind in front of us. Nevertheless, it still felt chilly in the shade.

Past Rimstim, we rode towards the Simsee, but missed a turned and climbed a purely gratituous 9% grade before turning around and riding towards the Simsee for more beautiful views. At that point we got lost trying to get to Vogtareuth, and ended up at the local airport. Fortunately, a local pointed us in the right direction, and soon we were along the Inn river bike path, and then crossing the bridge.

Once over the bridge, the GPS took over and we navigated quickly towards Grafing, but Frank chose the direct route back to Assling. The sun was now low in the sky and we were treated to gorgeous sunset views of the surrounding houses and landscape --- Germany at its best. Unfortunately I'd forgotten my camera and Radina's camera wasn't good for shooting on the move.

We rolled into Grafing Bahnof just as the S4 pulled in, so we boarded in the nick of time at 6:00pm. A surprisingly beautiful ride at 1134m and 108km of riding.

Cycling Culture Differences

Sitting in the office cafeteria the other day with Sara-the-Intern, we had the following conversation:

"I don't like cycling."
"But why do you bike to work?"
"It's faster than walking, and cheaper than transit."

So there, there are many women in Germany who dislike cycling, and yet ride their bikes to work. Conversely, there are many women in Mountain View (an arguably better place for cycling year round) who won't even consider cycling to work.

When asked why, most women would say that it's just too dangerous, even if they lived close enough to work to do so. But Munich is just as dangerous --- the bike paths have intersection conflicts that will drive most American League Cycling Instructors wild.

The big difference is in perception --- very few utility/commuters in Munich wear helmets. Cycling to the average person, is no different than walking --- you wouldn't wear a helmet to walk, even if the statistics tells you otherwise. (In fact, if you believe the statistics, you should wear a helmet when driving your car --- head injuries are a common cause of serious disability in car accidents!)

The minute cycling perception shifts to: it's so dangerous to ride a bike that you must wear a helmet, then most women give up cycling. Not just because it's dangerous, but also because wearing a helmet will screw up your hair, which many women know is a no-no, even if they refuse to admit to that little bit of vanity. The resulting reduction in the number of women cycling (by darn near 100%, if you compare the number of women cyclists on the road in Munich versus women cyclists in Mountain View) does eventually make cycling more dangeous, because the easiest way to reduce cycling accidents is to make cycling more popular!

I've heard this opinion articulated before, but living in Munich has really driven it home to me --- it's not uncommon here to see a woman go out on a date on a bicycle --- complete with high heels, making up, and dresses, and of course no helmet. By making cycling seem dangerous, cycling safety advocates and helmet advocates have really made cycling more dangerous for everyone, even those of us who do wear helmets. The irony is rich, and I wish I knew what to do about it.

Trip Report: Rosenlaui

Rosenlaui

When I first accepted my Munich assignment, I sort of had this vision that I'd get a nice big apartment, and I'd have plenty of friends come to visit. To my surprise, all through the best travel season (June, July, etc), I had no visitors. Then this past week, Phil Sung, my former intern arrived for a visit. Apparently, when he asked me for suggestions 6 months ago, I mentioned Rosenlaui, and Phil was kind enough to get reservations for him and me. I've visited Rosenlaui 3 times now, on all previous tour of the Alps, but each time was for one night each, and being on a bicycle tour, we just rode through.

We decided to drive up, instead of taking the train. This theoretically would take us less time, and give us more flexibility, and cost less. In practice, with better planning we could have saved some time and money, but we would have had to give up a wonderful meal at the Lammi restaurant, and I guess that's worth a little bit of money.

The drive was interesting, and I got to ues my GPS' navigation function --- interestingly enough, this was the first time I compared it head to head against Google Maps, and found that the Garmin City Navigator NT was quite a bit better --- every time the two disagreed, Garmin's directions were much more likely to follow the "official designated route" as shown by the highway authorities.

We arrived at the Lammi Restaurant at 1:00pm, and had the wonderful home made brat-wurst with Noodles. This is the place that made all other sausages (yes, even many German sausages) a disappointment, and we thoroughly enjoyed the wonderful meal and ordered ice cream after wards to top it off. We then headed up Grosse Scheidegg, stopping at the Hotel Zwirgi to have a quick peek at the famous Reichenbach Falls. The road was narrow and winding and I remembered why I enjoyed climbing it so much on the bike --- it's too narrow for there to be a lot of traffic, and what traffic there was had to go slow because of the Post Bus (which has right of way), and the scenery.

We got to Rosenlaui around 3:00pm, and checked in with Christine. After putting in everything we brought with us into the tourist room, we decided to take advantage of the good weather and go for a hike. We initially started out down the Valley to Kalterbrunnen, where we picked up the trail to Hohbam. Once we got there, we discovered we had enough time to make the hike more extensive, and chose to go all the way to Engelthornehutte at 1901m. We got there around 6:00pm, and headed down the hill, along glaciers and beautiful rock gardens. The descent was a little challenging, and we wished we hadn't left the hiking sticks in the car. We got back to the Hotel at 7:30pm, just in time for the nightly 4 course dinner.

The next morning was gray and cloudy, and after a quick breakfast, we headed down the hill in a drizzle to see Lauterbrunnen. I was just there in July, but figured Phil should have a chance to see the touristy sights as well, since he was quite worn out from the day before. We saw the Staubbach Falls, the Trummelbach Falls, and walked around Stechelberg, but the rain kept coming down. We didn't manage to make the Lammi for lunch, but stopped in Meiringen to see the bottom of the Riechenbach Falls, and to learn that we would rather see the Gorge at Rosenlaui than the one in Meiringen.

So we went to that one, and enjoyed the gorge, with its underground swirls of water. We liked it so much we did it a second time, and it was just as impressive. Then it was back to the hotel for hot showers to warm up and another glorious 4 course dinner.

Saturday morning looked foggy when I woke up, but when I ran into Andreas he told me to look outside, and sure enough, it was brilliantly clear! I showed Phil how to perform an exposure lock on his camera so we could capture some of the spirit of the moment, then quickly got ready and started out on an ambitious hike. We first headed up the trail on Grosse Scheidegg. I've done this bike ride many times but the hike is prettier --- lots more water exposure, and grand views of the glaciers and open space. At the top, I asked Phil what he would rather do, take the Post Bus to Grindelwald to catch the Jungfrau Bahn, or keep going on the hike. He chose the hike, and we paused at the summit to look at the amazing scenery right in front of us --- fresh snow had capped all the local summits (including the Eiger and the Jungfrau), and everything looked so clean and white it was blinding.

On the bike, I always just descended to Grindelwald, but I'd always wondered where the hiking trail went. It looked like it went quite a bit higher, and I turned out to be right. It headed up to 2000m, where you could split and head over to First (2200m), or back down to Rosenlaui Valley. The Rosenlaui Map indicated that the route might be a little challenging, so I offered to Phil my opinion that it was better to delay First for a future visit and just do the Hornseeli Trail.

Sure enough, the trail started heading upwards after a short descent, and the going got steep. Right after a corner, we saw that not only did it get steep, it got muddy. I should have switched back to hiking boots then, but I stubbornly thought that it would get better at the lake. Well, the lake was pretty, but had too many cows visiting it recently, so there I finally gave in and put on hiking boots to stomp through the mud and water. Phil, unfortunately was not as well equip, and after a while gave up and switched to sandals.

The scenery was gorgeous. To one side, fall after fall could be seen. To another, streams cascaded down right into the trail. Ahead of us was beautiful farmland where a river ran through it. All this was framed by gleaming white peaks, with strands of clouds and fog hanging in the air, lending our mountains an air of mystery. I could have cried, for it was all so precious.

At the bottom of the hill, Phil took some time to wash his feet, and I switched back to running shoes and fresh socks. We looked around and were amazed at the landscape before us. Unfortunately, at this point, Phil's camera battery chose to give up the ghost --- heart stricken by all the physical beauty before us, no doubt. Well, we kept going down the Romantik Weg (Romantic Way). At this point, we had choices between longer routes or shorter routes, but Phil's knee was starting to hurt so we picked the easy route to Schwarzalp, stopped there for ice cream and to buy some alpine cheese, and then headed back to Rosenlaui, where hot showers and another fabulous meal awaited us.

Sunday wasn't as pretty --- the snows were almost all gone, and it started to drizzle an hour into a 2 hour walk we had saved for ourselves. So we bundled ourselves reluctantly into the car, and headed back to Munich, vowing that we would find a way to come back to this hauntingly beautiful place.

Take note: Rosenlaui has no TV, no internet access, no cell phone coverage, and no running water in its rooms. Our room had no electrical outlet but Christine told us it was an anamoly. Don't go there expecting a modern resort. Do expect a fabulous fixed menu dinner for an amazing price, and excellent hiking. Next time I do a bike tour there, I'll be staying for more than one night --- it's too nice not to!

Rosenlaui comes highly recommended. You won't find it in most of the guidebooks about the area, and you will need reservations if you're going to be there during the weekend. By its very nature, it will not draw too many tourists, but if you're the adventurous type, go there for a week. You won't regret it.

P.S. Phil found some photo stitching software and applied that wizardry to one of the pictures:

The Security Boondoggle

I've been having to think about security at work recently (never something good for my mood), and despite rarely wanting to blog about Computer Science, I ran into something too funny and endemic of typical security issues that I'll break the rule this time.

First, I read the MIT presentation about subway hacking, which is in itself hilarious funny and very much worth a read. Go ahead and read it and then come back --- the rest of this post assumes that you have.

Well, I happen to know people who used to work on that kind of transportation security system, so I sent them e-mail to tease them about the security work. Here's a response (names and details redacted):
[they hired] a security guy who guards all the encryption code zealously. I mean.. he was quite the nazi and because of his position, he let's people know it. Everyone who wanted to work on the encryption code for XXX subways had to go through him.

One day, the worse programmer I ever know (although he claimed he invented the keyboard) was assigned to debug an issue on the fare cards and encryption god was out of town. Well, he basically reversed engineered the encryption code by manually trying everything until it worked. Took him a week but he did it. That scared the shit out of XXX because he was quite possibly a sanitation engineer who pretended to type on the keyboard.

Anyway, these MIT kids need to take a lesson from some of those tricksters in XXX. The most creative ones know exactly where to crease a magnetic stripe so that the fare card will give unlimited rides. This is without the benefit of any technology. Another one would manually tape several cards over each other to create a super ride card. Of course, there are the ones that just brings a gun and a bat and just shoot the machine until they can get in. Those ones are much less creative.

That description of the security Nazi unfortunately matches my experiences with computer systems in general --- when systems designers think about security, they immediately think of complex crypto system, encrypting everything everywhere, and in general making life difficult for the legitimate user. In reality, most security attacks work on the weakest link --- the social engineering approach, or the physical system. So your most valuable security people isn't the guy with the PhD in cryptography, but your UI designers and engineers. If you make a system so painful to use because of security, then users will actively find a way to defeat it. (For instance, if I buy a computer game, I usually end up finding a pirated version anyway and installing it because the user experience is better!)

A few years ago, Eric Rescorla gave a talk at Google entitled The Internet is Already Too Secure. It was a great talk, and it makes the very important point that it's too easy to get academic respectability for designing and implementing complex crypto systems for security. What's really hard is designing easy to use systems that users will adopt and achieve widespread adoption and success (like ssh), with good-enough security that the rest of the system is the weakest link. But whenever I talk to security experts that's never what I hear. It's always about making life hard for the legitimate user!

Consider this story about two payment systems: one system was much cheaper than the other, but required additional input from the user to verify security. The other system was much more expensive, but required no work from the user to use, and hence was much less secure. Both systems were widely available at all point of sales. The higher security system had next to no fraud. But the lower security, more expensive system was much more popular. The maker of the lower security system made so much more money than the other system that it more than paid for reimbursing merchants for fraudulent use. In case you haven't figured it out, the lower security system is the Visa/Mastercard payment system, and the higher security system is the pin-required debit card system. Convenience, and making things easy for the legitimate user should trump all security concerns --- if that's not in your design goal, you've already screwed up big time and it doesn't matter how much security you put in --- commercial success will be out of your reach, so you'll never have any security problems to worry about.

And for those who are wondering, the Munich MVV system uses the least secure method of all --- the honor system. Until you get caught a few times, it's actually cheaper not to navigate the difficult-to-use ticket system. In the time I've been in Munich, I've only been checked once (yes, I had a ticket when I was checked) --- but the system still works (when the ticket inspectors came through, not one person on my incredibly crowded train was a cheater). My guess is, going with a more complex security model would have cost the MVV money, rather than save them any. In that sense, more security is just a tax on legitimate user, rather than helping anyone at all.