So part one featured the Ascent, which lasted from about 8pm to 10pm. On top of the pass, we had a coffee and a snack and then started the Descent. But first, Andrew got to fulfill his childhood/adulthood dream of a headstand atop a mountain. His yoga teacher’s critique? Keep the ankles together.

And, of course, it started to rain lightly as we started to descend.

Foreground: Cow. Background: Source of the Rhine.

Once the slick, serpentine descent was over, it was time for a much more enjoyable, much more gradual and enduring descent through the valley that opened up before us.

A German I met on the last bike trip in an abandoned Uranium mining town in Wyoming on the rooftop of Monk King Bird Pottery once described bicycling up the Rocky Mountains as “peanuts.” The following picture demonstrates which legume his precious Alps are:

We had lunch somewhere. Andreas and Andrew ate at a restaurant while I ate groceries. Already, I could feel myself succumbing to the Forces of Comfort. After lunch, the path turned off-roadish and gravelly, much to Andrew’s road bike’s chagrin.

Our trip still a young and fresh, we took a swim in the newborn Rhine. It was icy cold.

Somewhere on this gravel road I lost my small, gray bike computer. A word to the wise: Don’t lose small, gray objects on 5 kilometer stretches made entire of small, gray objects. Dre and Andrew took a break while I scoured the gravelly landscape searching for the computer, cursing my clumsiness. Thanks to the well-wishing of two kindly old Swiss ladies, the computer was found. I found this when I returned:

These are clearly the Agents of Comfort.

And the day kept going.

And the Rhine was already growing in size and stature.

And, after a few more hours, we called it a day at a campsite in Carrera.