Germany to Austria: Don’t Step On My Blue Suede Shoes

23 Aug 2011

Saulgrub to Lermoos (64 km)

Instead of a tire, we blew out a shoe.  Gina’s shoe, to be exact.  Gina’s biking shoe that is 12 years old.  Gina’s biking shoe that I suggested she replace before this six-plus week cycling trip but was met with a stony stare, the kind that turns people into pillars of salt, the kind that says Don’t talk about replacing my perfectly good biking shoes that I’ve had since the Summer of 1999.  Now I ask you, do these shoes look perfectly good?

They looked like that before we left for Germany.  And now the bottom of one looks like this:

We were able to surgically remove the rock but it might be time to finally put these shoes out to pasture.  Because we still have several weeks of cycling to go, we’ve had to make some minor repairs.  Now her shoe looks like this (to which she said, and I quote, “This looks good, I might not even need to get a new shoe”):

Not sure how well it will last if we run into more triple chevrons (translation: really big hills marked on maps with such that require us to get off our saddles and heave with all our might).  Might be a good time to Google how to say Duct Tape in German.

Aside from the shoe incident, the route to this pristine Austrian valley surrounded on all sides by Alps was stunning.  We like it so much here that we are opting to take tomorrow off the bikes to enjoy the view.