My lovely hosts Angela and Markus at Rosengarten in Riedlingen are from now on set up to accept bitcoin as payment… if you can convince them. :)

Summary of day 7 of Tour de Satoshi: Bitcoin is on a winning streak. But snow storms, frozen feet and hardship.

The tour from Bregenz to Riedlingen was memorable. But not in a good way! The pain of having frozen feet all day is now on the top of the list of things I will remember from this tour. But let me start from the beginning.

The weather forecast had predicted light snow throughout the day which was something I knew I could do. However, as I started riding out of Bregenz, I already caught a glimpse of it coming, the first snowstorm out of four. Although the storms come in short waves, they are very strong and consume a lot of power to ride through. Therefore, the four snowstorms rattled me quite intensely. The rest of the day agreed with the forecast and it snowed continuously.

At the Bodensee in Lindau. This picture was taken 10 minutes after the snowstorm had blown over me. Traces of it trailing off can be seen in the background.

Ironically, that was not the hardest part of the day. Google maps’ bike navigation, like any proper bike navigation, sent me onto bike trails. However, since most of those trails were covered with ice and snow, it was hell riding through them. I always had to make sure not to slip and fall. I could have used the spike tires which I had brought especially for this kind of weather but as you recall from yesterday’s adventures, I had to throw those tires out and had no alternative for today. To exasperate the situation, riding on snow-covered roads meshed with mud and ice feels as though riding uphill because it requires a lot more energy and power than dry paved roads. At some point, mind you towards the end, I couldn’t take it anymore and changed route onto the normal car path.

Example of what I was faced with all day…

With that said, the next challenge was — again my freezing feet. I kept on thinking about a documentary I once saw of Reinhold Messner who climbed mount Everest and many other high mountains and now has only a few of his toes still intact. And although deep down I knew that this is not comparable and that my toes could withstand a day in the cold, I couldn’t help but feel in the moment that my toes falling off was a possibility. My overshoes were ice-covered to a point where they were completely frozen stiff when I finally took them off. Underneath that layer was another overshoe with the same fate and underneath it all were my click-on cycling shoes. When I finally took my shoes off at the end of the day, they were dripping wet. No joke! Thinking of going back out there tomorrow to repeat the ‘frozen feet’ fiasco makes me wish bitcoin would have been born any other time than the dead of winter.

After almost 100 km (which felt more like 150 km), I finally reached Riedlingen and was again on the haunt to find a place that would host me in exchange for bitcoin. Alarmingly, I soon found out that there are only two places with rooms to host guests in the entire town with the last hotel having have closed last year. Thankfully though, I found my hosts for the night already on the first try. It is called Rosengarten, a recently renovated place that is now on my recommendation list. The lovely owners Angela and Markus were quickly convinced to do the bitcoin transaction so we opened an Electrum wallet and I paid for a night and breakfast. Bitcoin is now leading the race 5:2!!

After paying for my stay with bitcoin, we celebrated it with a selfie.

After today’s exhausting cycling through the ice, snow and cold, I am now, more than ever, counting down the days until the welcome party in Frankfurt. However, the bitcoin count on my wallets is still not enough to reach Frankfurt so if you are a proud bitcoin owner and like to support the Tour de Satoshi, feel free to donate at:

btc (segwit) wallet address:

bc1q87jy2c28snel5tj3c5q94fdfuy9xwhl0ljlysn

Or my btc (legacy) wallet address:

1P3UwoDLhqJZbkYiZuKQZrmZvbB2GssLB

As much as I look forward to facing the next challenge of this tour tomorrow, I cringe at the thought of enduring the pain of numb feet so let’s pray for better weather. Thanks for reading and sharing. Only three days to go!! YEAH!!

Peace.

Vitus