At this moment when I'm posting that, Szymon celebrates his 30th birthday. I couldn't find a better time to introduce him to you, if you don't know yet the biggest road cycling hippie of our century.
Meeting with Szymon is not an easy task. "Planning" word doesn't exist in his dictionary so you have to grab the moment quickly as soon as it comes.
October, 9AM. I'm meeting with Szymon @ his temporary place, close to Meiringen. Our target is Grimsel, Furka and Susten as much as weather conditions will allow.
We pack our bikes to my car and hit the road to start from Innertkirchen.
Banana, few snacks and we are good to go. We start our first climb chatting about many things as it's our first ride together.
As soon as we start the climb, Grimsel welcomes us with super strong face wind. It basically almost stops me and I'm having a real trouble to keep the straight line on the bike.
Szymon seems to feel like in heaven shooting pictures left and right without holding the handlebar (!)
We ride up pretty fast as it's becoming cold and chilly. Dark clouds on top don't look nice.
When we arrive to the top we know it will rain in few minutes. Furka doesn't look better neither so we're changing the plans. Few photos of Furka and return to Innertkirchen to try Susten from the other side.
Furka is always a certain pass for awesome photos but going with the real master of cycling photography I have a unique opportunity to see how it's really made. I can tell you one thing - those insane photos of Szymon don't come for free. You need inhuman skills to shoot like Szymon does it.
If not the cold and coming rain I wouldn't be able to move Szymon from that mountain. It was amazing to see how the mountains hypnotize him...
Decent down from Grimsel isn't the most pleasant one. Rain and wind provides an extra adrenaline to both of us.
At the same time I have the opportunity to finally test my graphene carbon rims in the rain.
The test goes superb, braking is excellent, as good as
in dry. I can only recommend those rims to anyone who's looking for all
season carbon wheelset.
Going back to valley we are getting back the sun. It is the moment to warm up and feel fingers again.
Opposite to Furka, Susten looks sunny so without stopping we're starting the climb up to the top.
It goes very nice, although I do not have enough power to keep up with Szymon.
Views are breath taking and Szymon does brilliant job to catch them into his camera...
Stopping and spending some time to watch the mountains is one thing I learnt from Szymon that day. Funny to say but living over 5 years in Swiss Alps I always went straight to the top to descent even quicker without looking into fine details of those beautiful and mighty passes...
After long climbs in wind and rain, the last descent from Susten was a real pleasure.
An yes... it was still windy :-)
That didn't stop Szymon to shoot awesome pictures!
Not even knowing when, we finished the descent. Last kilometers of pure fun were ahead of us until we reached Innertkirchen.
Overall, one of my best cycling days as far as I remember. I know those mountains very well and often ride those passes. This time however it was different. Exceptional company, time of the year, colors and light of autumn... all that made magical climate. Riding without pressure & rush with enough time to pause and look into the mountains is something we should all try.
@Szymon - many thanks for this and I'm hoping we will meet on the road again.
Happy birthday and keep doing what you doing... you're damn good in it!
Thanks for reading & watching
Cheers
Tomasz
P.S. All photos are copyright to Szymon. Please do not use them without asking him first.
If you want to support Szymon in his 'romantic cycling' you can donate by purchasing his 2019 calendar
Thank you!
Thank you!
blog-roadtripping
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