My own private Emocide

Got up in the morning, actually being woken up by the screaming of roosters and farm noise; how righteous is that? It was sort of overcast and I was sort of tired from the adventures in the past 24 hours still. So I figured I would take it easy and have the relaxing time I actually had come here for. After having finished “Clueless” with Colin Hanks and Tony Shaloub (What an odd flick) last night and continued watching season one of “Doctor’s Diary”, I watched a couple more episodes and also did some journal writing.
At about 11:30 I finally decided to hop on my bike and circle the lake. I had been talking to some of the people from there at the restaurant, and one of them said something about it being 38km around the lake. Add 3km steep downhill to the lake from here and the same distance back uphill. Turns out — so I found out during breakfast — that the lake is at about 400m and the Hotel is at 700m. That’s 300m altitude difference on 2.5km road. Make that a 12% average incline … And that’s even though there even is a short downhill part included. Well, in the evening I will have to climb the road again. Packed up my bag — I figured I would also bring swimming trunks and a towel — and filled up my water bottles. Then hopped on the racer and started rolling down the hill. After the first 500m, there is a really sharp left turn at a pretty steep angle. I approached that at about 50km/h and had to really hit the breaks, as the outside of the turn was lined with a 3-row barbwire fence. I had already noticed this as pretty dangerous on the way up, but when you’re going down at that speed, struggling to keep all rubber on the road, it gets that more intense and gave me quite an adrenaline rush.
In less than 4 minutes the downhill part was over and I was back on the lake shore drive, heading south. it was still sort of overcast, but actually pretty perfect bike weather. Leaving Weyregg behind me, I passed through Steinbach, where I had spent many summer vacations in the lake house of my then-best friend Clemens. The last time in 96 as far as I remember. Leaving Steinbach behind, I made quick progress towards Weissenbach, which is very far at the almost south tip of the lake. Biking along the lake is a lot more interesting and time passes by a lot more quickly than riding the cycle on an ordinary country road. I got to stick behind a garbage truck, which gave me a good draft (I had encountered better smelling ones) and pretty much pulled me for a couple of miles. Then in Weissenbach, right before the Eurocamp, I passed by the 2nd piece of land that Clemens’ parents own. And whaddaya know, that one actually is for sale (in the mid 90s they had been offered some ATS 50M, which is somewhere in the 5M range at the current — weak — dollar conversion rate). A couple of hundred meters further down the road, I passed by the sawmill which I have some fun memories of from back in the day too. Just across the road there it was, my favorite public swimming place on the lake. It’s a little secluded and surrounded by huge trees. The building there to get changed, use the facilities and which also has a diving school in it, displays a huge Che-portrait (you know, the one from …’s photo you see on all the sellout ‘68ers shirts). People there usually are nice. At that point I had about 30 minutes and 16.5km in my legs. Was a very nice warm up for the morning. I pushed my bike in, left it under a tree and started to get undressed from my bike gear and tech items. That’s about a 5 minute thing. Once I was done, I went to the changing rooms and put on my swim shorts. 10 minutes after I had came back and a banana later, I was sitting by the shore with my feet in the lake, feeling drops of rain on my shoulder. I walked back to my stuff, as it was already under a tree and stayed there. The group of mini-skaters next to me had started to pack up and leave, just like about 90% or the other visitors to that beach. I stayed there, trying to wait it out. After all, I really did not want to hit the road with my new completely slick tires, now that it was wet.
Lying there, a little sneezing fit hit me (Note to self: When you’re allergic to it, sitting under a birch is not the smartest idea.). “Gesundheit”, I heard it from the next blanket. There was a young couple, just getting ready to leave too and I said “Thanks”. We struck up a conversation. Turns out, they were from Ried im Innkreis, which is pretty far up, almost by the German border, and they drove down here for a couple of days’ vacation. His name is Andi, hers is Julia. He is 23, she is 21. It always hits me, when I meet people my brother’s age, how much more mature they seem to be. Either way. So we walked towards the exit together, the difference being that I didn’t bring any of my stuff. I talked to the diving staff, who responded that there was no really sure way to tell how the weather was going to pan out. After a few minutes I said: “You know what? Fuck it. If I am getting wet here by rain, I might as well get into the water.” Julia and Andi looked at each other and were like: “He has a point”. So we walked back towards the pier and jumped into the water. The rain even got a bit stronger, so it was a pretty funny feeling swimming in the splashing water. Still, at that point it probably was warmer in the water than in the rain.
Not too long after getting back out of the lake, the weather started to clear again and we moved back onto the grassy area. I taled to those people for quite some time and they shared their blanket with me. When they offered me some of their food, the conversation somewhat indeliberately turned into the “So, you’re vegan?!?” direction. Although they both are from rather rural areas, they were pretty open to that idea. In fact, Julia herself had turned vegetarian already about 10 years ago. Since Andi’s dad is a meat loving hunter, they told me about some of the conflict potential in that family situation.
Hours went by and we had a pretty good time. People — obviously from the Eurocamp — had set up a slackline set and a lot of people were trying out. It was a very altermnative looking group with one guy, 3 chicks and a bunch of elementary-school-age girls. They also hung a hammock between the trees there, which gave it all a very alternative touch. Andi and Julia wanted to try the slacklining thing. So we went over there and talked to the people for a while. I was being too chickenshit. It’s not like I wouldn’t like to try it — and it would fit my current program, considering my parkour ambitions perfectly — but I just wanted to spare myself the embarrassment. The people seemed very alternative. From what I could tell, there were 3 girls and one guy with dreads. The girls were in their early 20s and originally from Graz, not sure about the dude. They also had a few girls with them around the age of 10 they seemed to be shaperoning.
Either way… The 2 tried the slacklining thing and actually didn’t do too badly. Back at the towels, a group of young guys was playing volleyball. Andi — being his obvious, pretty social self, asked, whether he could join and asked me to come too. So we stood there at the beach, tossing the volleyball around, for about half an hour. The guys were all about 19 and from Bavaria. They had driven to another lake before, but didn’t like it so much there, so they decided to come down to lake Attersee. So, bottom line, what should have been a 175km drive for them, took them a total of a whopping 700(!)km to get to.
After a while we all got sorta tired and sat down next to the slackline people. Andi and Julia went swimming a bit more, I didn’t want to hop in anymore, so I wouldn’t have to haul around wet pants on my way around the lake. Before I left, we swapped numbers, as they said, they would possibly want to come over for lunch at my hotel. At 7:30 I though it would finally be time to leave, as the announced 38km of round trip distance around the lake, about 25km left, should bring me back safe and sound, before darkness falls at about 9pm.
The ride around the lake was beautiful, Henry Rollins spoken word on the player, biking from one beautiful spot to the next, crossing one jetset village after another. Within about 15 minutes it became pretty clear, that the 38k estimate was off. By quite a bit… I eventually biked into the sunset and the total distance clocked in at approximately 56km. I managed to complete the 3km avg. 10% ascent to the hotel with just one little pause; it might have been the approaching night in the potentially pitch black woods had something to do with the improved stamina and motivation.
Back at the hotel, I talked to the owners for a bit. They were pretty interested in city life and I got to know some about how they deal with the ever-increasing estate prices. Also, they were interested in some vegan living info… after all, the owner guy originally was a butcher. They were friendly, but unfortunately I did not get the feeling as if they really understood the reasoning. I did go to bed rather early.

Got up at 8:30 and left at about 11am. Said goodbye to the owner. She asked me whether I would be able to help them out withh a website for the hotel. I thought that was kinda cool. Should get me a way to spend some even lower-budget nights at the lake.
The ride home went without a hitch really. It was warm and I stopped again to get water, but all in all the drive home went faster and smppther than the ride to the lake.