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Category: Gertaly

Announcements Anything else Gertaly

New name, new look, new reality: Notes from Gertaly goes onabike.cc

By onabike.ccDecember 26, 2018
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Amazing Italians Announcements Anything else Gertaly

Thirteen boxes and three bags: Summer begins with a move to Munich

By onabike.ccJune 28, 2018
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Announcements Anything else Gertaly Life in academia

The semester ends with cake: Nothing is forever, but some things are

By onabike.ccMay 8, 2018
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Gertaly Hoists from afar

Cross-country skiing in Nova Ponente/Deutschnofen: A review

By onabike.ccDecember 30, 2017January 2, 2018
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Gear and Gadgets Gertaly Hoists from afar

Snow, traffic, and summer tires: It took us 10 hours to get home (instead of 3)

By onabike.ccDecember 11, 2017
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Amazing Italians Gertaly

Aiutoso. Friends and fine folks deserve a new Italian word.

By onabike.ccNovember 7, 2017November 10, 2017
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Chocolate is my vegetable, and ice cream is my fruit. German is my language, and Europe is my home.

The joy of an early season's couple ride culminates at the intense blue of a mountain lake. Ever been to Lago di Mergozzo? I noticed it's been three+ years for me since my last visit, but it's been as gorgeous as always. Or was it the lake? Or was it my bike? Or was it the Domane of my girl?
This is not the seaside. These are the beautiful shores of #lagodicomo on a misty day. Spending a day in solitude on the bike, revisiting places and sceneries that define me as a rider, and feeling that normality ultimately will resume. Let's keep our hope together: just a little longer and we'll be back.
It's gonna be more of snow again. So be it. After the frustration over missing the next big ride vanished, waking up to fresh white brings back memories of deep snow adventures from the past month.
It wasn't quite as warm as I expected, but the snow walls were as big as I wished for. The fourth season offers unique experiences itself and gives a different atmosphere to a landscape that you often know only in green. This was the first big climb of the year. Looking forward to those to come.
A year ago this day at about this time we drove to the airport in Munich. She was gonna catch a flight back to Milan after a weekend in the snow. I showed her a little box. She thought it would contain some chocolate, like the one I had given to a friend four hours earlier. "What's inside is really good! So good!", I said. She wasn't hungry, but I convinced her to take it. When she opened it, there was no chocolate though. Only some tiny bit of metal with a tiny diamond inside - just as the box says clearly. We're now engaged for a year. We were supposed to get married in September already... Our time to celebrate will come. Our bond is already there.
Palm trees and snow: winter in Ticino. Temperatures got back up to double digits. I took the chance for a strange ride. I would not take the natural ways, as they passed through Italy. I saw Como's light tower, but an invisible fence kept it far, far away in a different World. Despite all separation that came over us this year: together is out future.
What a fight... broken pump, inaccessible trains, closed roads, and then I struggled big on that 40km up the Simplon. It wasn't all so simple as the profile looked, or I had a really bad day. Then I went all freezing on the way down. But I made it. I hated it. And I loved it. This is cycling.
Only two weeks ago, I spend a weekend with @anyuchenay and @mathimuc in Trentino-Südtirol. All year I had wanted to revisit these places. A cycling year isn't complete for me anymore without a hello to some of my very own monuments. I missed the Giro this year, and I feel a bit sad that I had not gone, but I'll try again next year. Meanwhile, what I did on the bike in 2020 gave me lots of joy.
Sometimes the special experience is just next to the famous destinations. I've had a blessed day on Montisola, Europe's largest island in a lake. That's the fun fact. Symbol of life and future. Hard fact.
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