60 k ride Zell-Kaprun-Stuhlfelden

Saturday, 23th of May 2020 - Zell am See

It was an absolutely spontaneously decision after before yesterday hike through the Seisenberger-Gorge in Weißbach.

This weekend was the Virtual Race of Ironman for 3 km run - 40 km bike - 10 km run. I did the runs yesterday and today was planed the bike. I thought about the bike road to Krimml as being absolutely flat and without any traffic. 

I am back away from what it means to be trained anyway and by changing the priorities of my life I now enjoy my adventures in a softly different way than before. To be at this point after the ligaments rupture in the left knee that happened in March on the ski slope it can be defined as a wonder of inner healing and the process is described here on the blog.

And by "before" I will always probably mean anno 2015.

The month of May is a bliss. I am in love with any kind of season and weather, but the month of May conquered my heart forever. Everything is blowing and re-birthing. 

I took the road from Schüttdorf to Kaprun through the Ebster Intersection reaching the centre of Kaprun, crossing the main street and entering the flat parcours to Piesendorf - Niedernsill. I didn't take any pictures until I reached Stuhlfelden, I just was enjoying the weather, the ride and the weather with the wonderful May colours!

This is before entering Stuhlfelden and I took the picture on the way back shortly before 5 p.m. as the first signs of the storm occurred over the entire region.

I was wearing absolutely summer clothes and I took, for the first time in the last five years I think, one of the most beautiful cycling pants that I bought back in 2013 before the Tulcea Triathlon as I felt so great and so strong and so happy and I wanted to have a special beautiful suit on me - what cost me a lot of time in transition 1 by the way, I left the T1 as the last one because of this suit! But beautiful memories and a nice 2nd place if I remember right.

The 30 km to Stuhlfelden lead the rider along meadows, over Salzach River and over the regional Pinzgauer Train parcourse.

Stuhlfelden is a municipality in Pinzgau County at about 800 m altitude and having around 1.600 inhabitants. Everything is up on the hill and it is for sure a charming place to live, as almost everywhere here.

This is a big old house with original wood so far I could suppose.  Entering Stuhlfelden by bike this is the first element catching the eye on your right side. No idea how old it is, I could not find any information about it. Stone, old and new wood, a regional-specific architecture and for sure modernised inside.

A sitting bench .... very low and small - 

so I could think the building is about 200 years old, as you find all over the country in the rural areas.

Although I was sure I will reach Mittersil today - another five to eight km - I decided to explore a bit more detailed the Stuhlfelden place and I took the road up on the hill to the right along with this house and in a few hundred meters I could drink fresh mountain water.

The road goes on uphill and here there is the protection wall.

These protection walls from concrete are all over the places here in the Alps, protecting the villages.

The road turns left here on the mountain and leads for about five km or more to a cabin - Alm -, which now is of course closed. The Alms are normally opening Mid of June when the summer season starts, so it is not about the virus or pandemic or so.

 A few meters after the curve another road splits suddenly and abruptly up to the right and I entered it. It is a forest road, so I let the bike behind and went above the waterfall.

I took the grassy narrow path to the left then and I watched back.

I decided to return to the road as I saw no good perspectives to go on at that late hour of the day, it was almost 4 p.m.

I took the bike and continued the ascending road for a few hundred meters more and then I let the bike behind (again) entering a descending path into the forest. Aunts Home, Forest Chapel - Stuhlfelden, Pinzgau, Austria

As all over the country doesn't matter which county there is a small forest chapel from anno 1833.

And a huge aunts macro cosmos which I watched for a few minutes and left it amazed. Millions of aunts working, carrying ....... big aunts. Organized as we could see in documentaries. Brrrrr - feeling!

The weather was still warm and sunny but black clouds were racing up over the valley so the best decision was the only one option: to start the ride back home.  

5724 Stuhlfelden appears for the first time in a document around year 963 under the name of "Stuolueldum". We are here in the Pinzgau County belonging to Salzburger Land. 

There is a specific Pinzgauer Dialect and when you speak to a local and tell him/her you understand/speak only elevate German (Hochdeutsch), they show a sort of disrespect. The Pinzgau people are extremely proud of themselves and they call themselves as being something special in the entire country of Austria. For me I could not find the reason for their "high noses", but in contrary actually. If I would be asked to characterised the locals I would say, they are closed, harshed, not especially friendly, greedy and proud without any special reason. They tolerate foreigners but don't like them and the range of reasons is wide. Foreigners mean money or cheap labour force. Last week I met a local here over 60 who said to me: "All here are lazy! They work a few months per year during the touristic seasons and the rest of the time they are doing anything. Lazy and dirty!"

OK, this is his 60 years of experience living here, I cannot say it.

The term "Stuhl" means chair and "Feld" means meadow - but I wouldn't want to translate the name. With about 1.600 inhabitants it's a small village.

The article could not be finished because after one hour of writing here the internet page was closed and all I wrote disappeared ..... and I do not do the work again, so sorry ..... 

I rode back home through unleashed nature which fascinates me and transposes me into a kind of ecstatic state of mind. Despite the black sky over me, I enjoyed the good luck of being pushed by the winds and I struggled a bit concentrating of biking with one hand and filming at the same time.
The big nervous rain and the 10 minutes of hail reached me four km away from home only.
Here some relevant short videos and pictures as an overview of the adventure ..... so sorry about the lost data and information I wrote before .... it was about castles and other things. 

Anyway, I was cycling 60 km today but I couldn't save the 40 km to be added for the Virtual Duathlon Race, so practically I did it and on paper I didn't do it, who cares? It was an adventure and I am happy to have done it!