Before leaving, many people asked us how we were training for the trip. Our answer: “um, drinking beer??”. Our idea of training was to just get on our bikes and start riding; we figured our bodies would have no choice but to catch up. Seriously, though, we would have liked to train, but, with all of the other stuff going on (see “preparing for the trip”), we just couldn’t seem to work it in. So, the ride through Germany and Austria became our training ground.
If you ever plan to start bicycle touring, Germany is an excellent place to do it. We rode on paved bike paths, with no vehicle traffic, at least 99% of the time. The bike paths are complete with road signs, pointing out the directions to various planned routes that crisscross the country and give the distance to the next village or city. A map is not even necessary. A crazy guy from Texas that we met in Vienna proved this: he simply carried a list – written on a small pocket-sized notebook – of all of the towns that he needed to pass through to stay on his route. This was sufficient to get him from Dusseldorf to Vienna.
Without too much attention devoted to navigation, we were able to focus on other things, like food. We learned very quickly that our usual habit of bringing a few granola bars and some nuts on a ride just didn’t cut it. And, since Sheri gets really grumpy when she’s hungry, it took only two days to develop new eating habits. We adopted the Hobbits’ excellent Second-Breakfast ritual, and then found time for a meal at least every two hours thereafter. Unfortunately for Mario, there were plenty of other things to make Sheri grumpy. Like the pain in her ass. As you might expect, our butts, accustomed to a cushy office chair, were shocked to sit for hours on hard leather. People had raved about the classic, leather Brooks’ saddle, but, given the state of our derrières, we felt dubious about them. Our opinion changed only when it turned out to be true that the good old Brooks saddle just needed a couple of weeks to break in and get comfortable (by that time, our buts had become as hard as the saddle anyway, so problem solved all around).
As we got accustomed to the rigors and daily rituals of our tour, we passed by serene farms, magnificent old castles and beautiful river valleys. Our course followed rivers the whole way. We started on the Rhine, where it quickly became evident that 500 years ago, every other German lived in a castle. Nowadays, standing at the Rheinfels Castle looking down on the river below, the valley looks exactly like a model train set: Trains run continuously on both sides of the river, skirting steep slopes and weaving through picturesque villages where the bells in the church tower chime on the hour. The river mimics the train tracks, providing a smooth thoroughfare for barges that, like an army of ants, quietly and diligently move stuff from A to B. As we continued up the Rhine, we continued to witness this relentless force of commerce and consumption, as streams of products move both day and night.
At Wiesbaden, we left the Rhine and turned east to follow the Main, passing through Frankfurt, and then turning southeast onto the Tauber and the Altmuehl Rivers. Much smaller and more free-flowing than the Rhine, the Altmuehl provided a respite from the commercial flow and put all the joy of spring on full display. Upon a canopy of bright green leaves and budding flowers, fresh lives were emerging all around us. Goslings with their hissing, protective parents pecked in the tall grass. Adorable little fuzzy ducklings, still awkward on their webbed feet, hopped through the water. We were lucky to see a Swan sitting on its eggs in the nest and several Storks perched up high atop chimneys and telephone poles in their massive nests. We were even treated to an impressive flight show by an excited Kiebitz.
Reaching Kelheim, where the Altmuehl flows into the Danube River, we were once again moving aside a mighty but, sadly, heavily engineered river. We didn’t keep track of how many dams we passed, but there were many. As the number of dams went up, our once vibrant spring show dulled significantly. A week later, the Danube took us to Vienna, where it finally began to feel like we were traveling, as opposed to going on a really, really long bike ride with some nice sites along the way. We spent 3 days there, taking in the beauty and the history of this wonderful city. We even donned our “finest” and went to the Opera… which brings up another off the many challenges of traveling this way. The question “What am I going to wear today?” never comes up anymore. Instead, we ask “How can I possibly avoid looking like the geek who wishes s/he could ride in the Tour de France today?” We tried to bring clothes that can pass for nice for our times off the bike, but it’s hard when your only dresser drawer is a 12” x 10” x 5”waterproof bag; everything must serve multiple purposes.
Moving on from Vienna, we brought our training period to a close, feeling fit and ready for the adventure to come. On May 25th, we passed through the ghost of the iron curtain into Hungary, where the next phase of the journey begins.
Stay tuned for stories from Eastern Europe.