Before we could start our (not so epic) riding trip we needed bikes. This entailed walking for half an hour in the already rising temperatures to cross the town from the hotel to the bike hire shop. Then there was the usual faffing about adjusting saddles, fixing panniers, trying out brakes etc etc. What the bike hire company didn’t tell us was that each bike comes with the heaviest chain combination lock in Christendom and having spent a not inconsiderable amount of time packing as few clothes and toothpaste as possible to reduce the weight, this great lump of metal was most unwelcome.
However after the faffing and grumbling we eventually got the peloton underway but only as far as the hotel we started at before the half hour walk to the bike hire shop and did some more final faffing, adjusting, water bottle filling, application (in my case) of lashings of factor 50 in such quantity that I may as well have worn a slippery white plastic bag!!
After that we moved a full 100m before I insisted on the obligatory ’team photo’ by the river. I accosted a charming young frauline who kindly took a fine photo of some not-so-fine physical specimens of 3 sexagenarians and one septuagenarian in lycra. Oh well – we’re on holiday!
It is now 11:30am and the sun is scorching the earth (and my white Scottish legs) and we have barely gone 200m. However things are looking up as we crossed the river Danube from south to north on the fine suspension bridge called very splendidly the Prinz Regent Luitpoldbrücke. Ludwig Luitpold became Prince Regent in 1886 after his nephew King LudwigII was declared mentally incompetent to rule!! I’m sure he did lots of fine things to get this bridge named after him and so it transported us to the other side of the river. We’re off.
After 10 miles in the baking sun wedged between a road on the left and the not-so-blue Danube on the right and already in a lather we rolled into Obernzell and the first coffee stop of the trip. Then onward to Jochenstein (not Celtic jokes here please) the home of a very fine 132MW hydro power plant driven by turbines in the river. It is also the home of some distinctly average apflekucken and some inexplicable lemonade concoctions much loved by the local wasps but less so by tourist cyclers!
Also at this point we had slid unrecognised from Germany into Austria without the merest hint of passport stamping for us non EU residents.
We made our final destination to a great hotel on the south bank of the river having crossed in a small ferry for the princely sum of €3 each. The hotel is located on a very dramatic bend in the river known as the Schlögener Loop.
So having scraped of the 10 layers of factor 50 and sunk a few beers we settled down to fine evening on the terrace. To watch the setting sun. Magic.
Velodyssee 