The World By Road

While I was in the Munich area, I was lucky enough to stay in the small resort town of Tegernsee for a few days. This is a pretty sweet place. It is a small village located on the banks of a beautiful sub-alpine lake. The town itself is located right on the Austrian border in the foot of the Alps. Needless to say, there is a lot of posh stuff going on in Tegernsee, but hey, every once in a while you need to kick back and relax, especially if it is on someone else’s tab. My dad was meeting with some potential business associates in the Munich area and they recommended Tegernsee, which was about a 30 minute drive south since all of the hotels in the Munich region were booked solid as a result of the World Cup.

One of these business contacts was a really interesting guy named Lothar. Lothar is one of the top guys at W.L. Gore – the people who make Goretex and a bunch of other technical fabrics for various applications. Lothar is a serious biker. He was excited that I was out there doing the race in Roth and actually wanted to go on a ride with me that Wed. after the race. Things did not work out that way, but I can see why he wanted to show me that some of the best biking in the world is right here in this region of Germany. As I mentioned, Lothar is a serious biker, no sissy Ironman rides for Lothar, he competes in ultra distance bike rides. These rides encompass hundreds of miles in some pretty serious terrain. On top of being a true endurance cyclist, Lothar is also a very accomplished handglider pilot. We tossed around the idea of taking me up for a ride – Tegernsee is also home to some amazing handgliding spots, but unfortunately the weather would not allow it.  Instead, we settled for a good Bavarian lunch, with beer of course, followed up by the traditional shot of Schnapps. We also talked for a while about Lothar’s travels in the Middle East. He has been there a dozen or so times both on business and to enjoy in some of the best handgliding around. His knowledge of the region and experiences were fascinating to listen to and I am now, more than ever, excited to travel through that region. We may now even have a few handglider pilots down there to meet up with and experience the Middle East from a whole new perspective. Tegernsee was a quite beautiful place, and I can see why people like Jan Ulrich come here to unwind (especially since he now has a lot more freetime on his hands), and I will definitely be back here to take Lothar up on that bike ride.

For more pics from my trip, visit the following link.