Carry on up the Gempen

If you had suggested to me five months ago that I would ever in my life choose to get up at 8 on a Sunday morning, in order to get on my bike and ride up a 759 m high mountain (ok, hill) , by myself, I would have looked something like this:



And then, this morning, I cycled up the Gempen.

The Gempen is that hill you can see in the distance from our balcony:




This idea has been simmering in my mind ever since someone told me there are great mountain biking trails up there. It's not a big hill, by Swiss standards, but I was pretty nervous about it.

Click on any of the pictures to enlarge and see just how hot and sweaty I was:



Yep, that's where I'm going.



Most of the first two thirds were off road.



It was hot.











And I freakin made it!

The Gempenturm at the top:




This picture was taken by a Swiss cyclist at the top who found me HILARIOUS:



I figured that if you can see the Gempen from our flat, then you can see our flat from the Gempen. And you can (in the middle of this picture). This is the view out over Basel, to the EuroAirport and into France.



Took me 1 hour 15 minutes to the top and 25 minutes back down again. Doesn't sound like much when you put it like that, but this was a huge personal goal for me.

Number of times my chain came off: 2
Swiss cyclists who didn't believe I could put my own chain back on: 2
Number of burning thigh muscles: 2
Other cyclists climbing the Gempen this morning: hundreds
Other female cyclists climbing the Gempen this morning: 3
Adrenaline used up on the way down: gallons
Number of hot, sweaty, proud, badass Shazzas: 1



Another personal goal bites the dust.