Sun:27.Sep.20 Pantin.fr

Hooray, I am up-to-date with bringing all the colourful pictures to my blog! I finally found a decent way to use my Macbook's Preview tool to bulk edit my photos, no more excuse for not having a Photoshop licence. It is still a rather clunky process, since I need to 1) download the files to my computer, 2) (bulk) convert them from HEIC to something exploitable, 3) crop & resize, export and finally 4) put them here, but it's faster than what I tried to do before. Let's see whether I can keep up with coloring my posts on time, since the vast majority of the images have been added to posts that aren't visible to anybody but me (serving as my virtual memories).

The Tour is over, and was a blast to follow. And I attended my Twentieth C̶e̶n̶t̶u̶r̶y̶ ̶F̶o̶x̶ Tour stage overall, despite being a boring one (as expected, being the last one of the race). More to come next year, hopefully. It's time to get back to those mountains, and more imporantly: bring friends and stencils!

180 kilometers with CSP through sun, wind, and rain, and 12 along the canal: a weekend of 8 hours of sport. Now I just need to clean and fix my now just 1000+ kilometer old Silberpfeil, besides being a true beauty, perfectly streamlined and a featherweight it does have some c̶u̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ over the edge features like the annoying R.A.T. or the even more annoying seatpost (who keeps sliding down).

Tue:15.Sep.20 Pantin.fr

It's September, and it's Tour de France. A first timer in 107 editions, but fun as usual to watch. On my parent's tv screen, on my phone while hiking the Alps, during work on a second screen (hail to the home office), on a tube monitor connected to a mobily satellite dish in Maupertuis, everywhere and all the time. And surely on the road next Sunday for the final stage, to cheer the Slovenians to victory. If I counted correctly (I might have missed one or two Champs Élyséees arrivals), this will be my e̶i̶g̶h̶t̶e̶e̶n̶t̶h̶ n̶i̶n̶e̶t̶e̶e̶n̶t̶h̶ twentieth Tour de France stage attendance, and the first with a mask. And the third for Max.

  1. 1992 July 12 - Stage 8 - Valkenburg (NL) – Koblenz (DE)
  2. 2005 July 17 - Stage 15 - Lézat-sur-Lèze – Saint-Lary-Soulan Pla d'Adet
  3. 2006 July 23 - Stage 20 - Antony – Paris
  4. 2011 July 14 - Stage 12 - Cugnaux – Luz Ardiden
  5. 2011 July 15 - Stage 13 - Pau – Lourdes
  6. 2011 July 16 - Stage 14 - Saint-Gaudens – Plateau de Beille
  7. 2011 July 17 - Stage 15 - Limoux – Montpellier
  8. 2011 July 24 - Stage 21 - Créteil – Paris
  9. 2013 July 14 - Stage 15 - Givors – Mont Ventoux
  10. 2013 July 17 - Stage 17 - Embrun – Chorges
  11. 2013 July 18 - Stage 18 - Gap – Alpe d'Huez
  12. 2013 July 19 - Stage 19 - Le Bourg-d'Oisans – Le Grand-Bornand
  13. 2013 July 20 - Stage 20 - Annecy – Semnoz
  14. 2013 July 21 - Stage 21 - Versailles – Paris
  15. 2014 July 12 - Stage 8 - Tomblaine – Gérardmer La Mauselaine
  16. 2014 July 13 - Stage 9 - Gérardmer – Mulhouse
  17. 2014 July 14 - Stage 10 - Mulhouse – La Planche des Belles Filles
  18. 2019 July 12 - Stage 7 - Belfort – Chalon-sur-Saône
  19. 2019 July 28 - Stage 21 - Rambouillet – Paris

Tue:01.Sep.20 Flirsch.at

At the Ansbacher Hütte well north of 2300 Meters in altitude. It’s been snowing today, and it remains pretty cold. Even at night in the cabin, where everything but the Gaststube remains unheated. Luckily the showers weren’t blocked due to Corona, an excuse that all the other cabins (Stuttgarter and Kaiserjoch) brought forward. Corona, the uncontested excuse for everything. We are almost half way through our one-direction Tour along the Lechtaler Höhenweg, from Lech to Imst. Four hours by car to Imst, bus bus train bus to Lech. And now we are hiking back, a first timer after 8 round trip hikes between 2010 and 2017. I already read my traditional Spiegel from end to end, and keep wondering whether I find high interest in almost every article just because they’re interesting or because there’s nothing else to do up here —except for drinking Radler and sleeping (and checking Tour de France results, when there’s a network)?

Sat:29.Aug.20 Lachen-Speyerdorf.de

Le Tour 2020 is rolling, what a miracle! Sitting on the couch at my parent's place, I just switched on Eurosport (Live) with legend Jens Voigt commenting. So pleasant to listen to this guy, so pleasant to watch the riders take on the road. What a great surprise, making a great event even greater. Despite the thread of quarantine upon arrival in Germany following a rather uncomfortable Covid19 test in Pantin (with results not before Tuesday, to be fetched in person... lol) I made it into Germany and onto the couch, and tomorrow we planned an early start to get into the Alps and the first cabin: Stuttgarter Hütte at over 2300 m.

Mon:24.Aug.20 Mailly-le-Château.fr

Back from vacation in Paris, back at the cottage (that we signed exactly 5 years ago), and this for the second time alreeady. Back in forth until Max's school starts in one week and we'll be bound to Pantin during the week. We currently inversed our habit and now spend the work week in Maupertuis, and then the weekend in Paris: for Myriam's brother's wedding on Saturday, and my third DDC tournament ever (after two events with Charlie in 2008, in Le Mans and Tour) on Sunday (winning the trophy with Jano, just like Bayern did later that day). This weekend I'll return to Germany to finally resume the annual alps hiking tradition with Daddy: since the last edition in 2017 we had my brief encounter with the USA interfering with the hikes.