Tag: Frosty

• Your Body Will Thank You

  Posted at 7:00 AM by Brittany, on May 27, 2022

  I recently bought a new gravel bike after months of trying to decide which bike I wanted to purchase. I am as frugal as they come, and the process of me trying to pull the trigger on this bike was nearly as difficult as my cat trying to pass struvite crystals through his urethra. Do I need a new bike? No. Do I get a killer employee discount opening up the world of bikes I would normally never consider? Yes.

  My KTM mountain bike served me well, and she will forever live with me even if her placement finds itself on my garage wall, but I wanted to treat myself to an upgrade. Little did I know that upgrade would come with additional purchases for added comfort. Gone are the days I can just pull a bike out of a box ready to roll.

  I’m convinced no bike will fit quite like the glove that Frosty did. We had a special bond.

  

  I have owned my new gravel bike for two months now, and have slogged through around five rides with her on a bike seat harder than cement. My lady bits and fanny mits have been put through the wringer, and for what? Because I am frugal. I thought to myself: “I already had to buy pedals for this bike, and add a stem riser, do I really need to invest in a new seat?“

  Yes. Yes I did. After going for a test ride with Duncan’s already upgraded bike seat (because he was smart from the start), I felt the heavens open just for me. Suddenly I remembered what comfort was, and the air smelled sweeter. The breeze felt warmer, and my smile felt brighter. Admittedly I didn’t love riding this bike when I bought it (perhaps because my heart will always belong to Frosty), but this seat will be a game changer.

  I can now call myself a biker again…because I will actually want to bike.

  

  Truth be told, I haven’t wanted to bike much since moving back to Washington because there are so few bike paths here. I don’t enjoy traditional mountain biking, so I find myself left with lackluster roads filled with cars who don’t know how to share the space. My longest rides have been 20 milers, and even those feel like a chore. I am confident I will eventually find myself dwelling somewhere with better biking options, and when I do I will be ready.

  With three bikes.

  The decision to buy the bike seat will have my body and my fanny thanking me. My theme for this summer is to be kind to my body, so I made another purchase recently for the sake of my skin. Duncan and I like to go to the beach, but found ourselves scorched on many occasions last summer. Insert the umbrella/tent hybrid. I found the below masterpiece on Amazon a few days before our first beach day of the season.

  It did not disappoint.

  

  

  What a time to be alive, 5 star beach shelters and boujee bike seats. I am hopeful for some adventure this summer, Lord knows I need it. I’m trying my damndest not to rely on Duncan for my source of adventurous joy, because that’s not fair to him. We have different adventure needs (and current goals), and I am learning how to understand that he does not have to be my source for everything.

  Is this what it means to be in an adult relationship?

  With that said, I am currently accepting applications for summer travel buddies. I had high hopes of going to Scotland this summer with my dear friend and her family, but the Covid testing chaos stresses me out. Alas, there is much to see within the United States still. I just need to find my solo courage again, I think I lost it when America became a dumpster fire.

  Q: Do you try to save money anywhere you can? Haters gonna hate, but I didn’t build this empire by spending all my money…

  

  | 26 Comments Tagged Biking, Frosty, Frugal

• Leiphmier Moos

  Posted at 2:00 PM by Brittany, on September 3, 2020

  When I first arrived in Germany I set a goal of traveling to one new country every month. I planned to live in Europe for 15 months, which meant 15 new countries total. My original plan was to leave Europe in April of this year, and I successfully visited 15 new countries by the time April rolled around.

  Then Covid hit, the world shut down, and I was forced to stop moving.

  The Corona quarantine months were some of the best months of my life. I had already been feeling burned out by all the travel, but I am living in a culture where this is what we do. We work, we travel, and we repeat. Not much time to rest. Heaven forbid I actually stay in Germany instead.

  

  It has been nearly six months since I have been on a plane, or taken a train or a bus to a different country (I have biked to Austria a few times, and one time took a train, but Austria is literally a pebbles throw away.) Instead I have been throwing myself feet first into Germany – by bike.

  I never considered myself a biker, but now I can’t imagine my life without this sport. When I was a runner (many moons ago) I never felt the way I feel when I bike. Exercise is meant to be therapeutic, to celebrate what your body can do, and I feel this whole heartedly when I bike. My bike has been my saving grace, and I have grown quite attached to it.

  

  I regret to say it took me FAR too long to figure out how/get the courage to take my bike on the train. The whole process reminds me of when I first bought my Cannondale (which I cannot wait to ride again next month) and rode it onto the ferry sitting among the other bike commuters of Seattle.

  The ticket process is simple enough, there is an all day bike ticket for Bavaria and with this I am able to bring my bike onto the train any time, all day long – for only 6 euros. Knowing where to take the bike is another story. Sometimes cabins are full, and I have to pretend I know what the train workers are telling me when they are trying to guide me through narrow rows to another cabin.

  

  With my newfound knowledge of transporting my bike, I decided to visit my dear friend MaryBeth in her new city of Ulm for a Sunday of biking. I have biked all over Bavaria (and still have so many untouched bike paths), so I wanted to explore another state. Ulm is in the state of Baden-Württemberg, and the landscape is like night and day to the state of Bavaria.

  Not only is Ulm a larger city than where I live, there are few mountains around and the bike paths take a bit longer to get to. MaryBeth and I decided to bike to a wetland park that is about 15 miles from where she lives in Ulm. This made for a beautiful and different than what I was used to 30+ mile bike ride.

  What I loved most about this midwest looking terrain was all the corn fields and sunflowers. There were no big hills, just open fields of farmland. 

  

  

  Our chosen destination was called Leiphmier Moos, and I wanted to go here because MaryBeth told me this wetland preserve is home to some Highland Cows. Perhaps it’s what they signify, or where they come from, but my love for the Heilan Coo is strong.

  Moos is the German word for moss, and I have found the areas that end in “Moos” are typically wetland areas. Moss aside, this preserve not only had Highland cows, but it also had bull frogs, ostriches, and water buffalo. I was only lucky to see the first three.

  

  

  After my temporary pretended teleport to Scotland, we headed back towards the city. We made a pit stop along the way at an abandoned lake where we had a snack and escaped the sun for a moment. My adventures with MaryBeth are always a good time, no matter what we do I always enjoy spending time with her.

  

  The last six months have been incredibly eye opening for me. I don’t want to say I regret how I spent my first year living in Germany, the travel was wonderful, but I do wish I had prioritized this beautiful country more. I’m thankful I was forced to slow down and thankful I was able to bike my heart out in southern Germany.

  I see myself living in Germany again someday, which is wild to say because my heart has always been set on Ireland or Scotland. I have a soul tie to the UK, but I now have a soul tie to Germany after my time here. All this to say, you never know where you will end up. All I know is that I am open to just about anything these days!

  Q: Is there somewhere in the world you have an unexplainable draw towards? 

  

  | 35 Comments Tagged Biking, Brittanys Life Abroad, Frosty

• 88 Kilometers to Kochel (am See)

  Posted at 2:00 PM by Brittany, on June 1, 2020

  Last April I took a train to a lake in Bavaria I wanted to visit after seeing a photo of it online. Upon my arrival in Germany, I wanted a baseline knowledge of places near where I live that I could visit on a day off. I looked up “must see” places, and Kochel am See was on the list.

  Kochel is the name of the town, and “am See” is essentially saying “at the lake.”

  

  When I visited this lake for the first time last year, I hadn’t yet purchased my bike. It took me a couple more weeks to pull the trigger on my trust steed, an investment I originally struggled to make. As I have said time and time again – I cannot imagine my life in Germany without my bike.

  A short while after I bought Frosty (my bike) I had thoughts of what it would be like to bike to Kochel. It wasn’t close by any means, but it wasn’t so far that it was unattainable. I tucked the thought into the back of my mind for a looonnngg winter of cold and dreary weather.

  As soon as the brightness of spring started to come back, so too did my suppressed “stay down in the basement” thoughts of biking to Kochel. 

  

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to return to visit the lake, it was that the mileage (or kilometers if you’re not a behind the times American like me) intimidated me. The self doubt was running rampant in my mind spouting grawlix like phrases of negativity.

  I avoided the bike ride to Kochel, favoring closer/more comfortable distances instead. These shorter, but equally laudable rides were necessary for me to send my self sabotaging mindset to the gutter where it belonged. It was time to destroy the narrative I had created in my mind.

  

  I had two options with regard to biking to Kochel: I could go as far as comfortable and turn around (or worst case if for some reason my bike exploded or my leg got mauled by a rogue centaur, I could take a train home), or I could stay in my comfort zone telling myself “you can’t do it.”

  I decided to play my cards with the possibility of seeing a centaur. 

  

  I chose a day I knew would have sun, but when I started it was cold. Brutally cold. I wanted to turn around many times, until I made it to an area of the bike path I’d not been before. Something about new territory always sparks a flame in my brain similar to the adrenaline one might feel when lifting a car off of a horse.

  And by someone, I mean Superman. And by a horse, I mean anyone in distress. You get the idea. 

  As if planned, the moment I found a new to me bike path the sun came out. You can’t make this stuff up folks! My doubts were washed away, and I continued to tell myself “you can always turn around.” I know my personality, and I am stubborn as hell so turning around is usually not an option – but just telling myself it was (and believing it), was all I needed.

  

  The path to Kochel was beautiful, as all of the paths in Bavaria are, and I felt rejuvenated in my solitude riding through new to me locations. I made it to the lake and was feeling great (to the lake was about 25 miles, a distance I cover almost daily – so it was nothing new…yet.)

  I sat and enjoyed the view, savored a snack, and enjoyed the warm sun on my skin.

  Before biking back to Garmisch, I explored some of the surrounding areas as well. I was already there, and knew I likely wouldn’t be back so I wanted to see some other new to me places. I stopped by the town next door called Schlehdorf, to get a closer look at Cohaus Kloster Schlehdorf, aka the town monastery.

  

  I also rode a few extra miles to see another smaller, and much less impressive lake called Eichsee. 

  

  After Eichsee it was time to head home, so I settled into the two hour ride ahead. Overall I felt strong, and I felt good. It wasn’t until around mile 45 I started to slow down. I was about ten miles from home, so I took a break by the river and ate the rest of my snacks.

  I knew the remaining ten miles would be trance like, I had ridden them many times.  I zoned out in an attempt to make them less uncomfortable. 

  

  I made it home, and my total milage for the day was 54 miles, or 88 kilometers. I was elated. It wasn’t the distance, or the lake, or the day full of adventure that brought such a warmth to my heart, it was the proof that I AM MY OWN WORST CRITIC. I put this ride off for months because the distance intimidated me, I told myself it was too much for my body, when really I have all the tools to make this activity possible.

  The tools for me are different than the tools are for you, or for Sally, or Shaun. Life with an autoimmune disease is unpredictable and it takes attention to detail to make these goals a reality. Proper nutrition, proper hydration, proper rest, and a proper pace. These are boundaries we all have, they just vary person to person.

  

  Some days I wake up and I know right away a 55 mile bike ride (I rounded up) is not an option – and that’s ok, but what’s not ok is never trying because I assume my body can’t do something. What’s not ok is forgetting all the good days I have because I’m dwelling on the not so good (physically) days.

  The strength of your mind determined the quality of your life, and my life felt pretty high class after crushing this goal. The lake was not the goal for this day, the goal was to push myself further away from my black and white thinking, and to remind myself I don’t have to go fast – I just have to go. I’ll never know what I can do unless I try.

  It just so happened that this day was also my one year anniversary with Frosty. I think we celebrated well, don’t you? 🙂

  Q: Can you think of a time you surprised yourself with your capabilities?

  

  | 20 Comments Tagged Bavaria, Biking, Brittanys Life Abroad, Frosty, Kochel, Life

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• Contact: blissfulbritt@yahoo.com

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