Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Category: Biking

Danube Bike Trail Day 3 Ulm to Schwenningen

Today was a late starter after a late night on the computer and a totally yummy breakfast at the Leo Mar Hotel. I decided to experiment returning my PET bottle, all you do is put the bottle in a machine that scans & if it is PET crushes it and gives you a 25cent printout against your next purchase. This makes the cost of 1.5litre of fizzy water for £0.16 🙂

IMG_4123The ride took me through the cathedral square and then along The Danube now a fully fledged wide flowing river, although the only lock I saw could only take UK style narrow boats. I started to flag so popped into a beer garden in an orchard. A bit like The Orchard except for beer barrel German men knocking back pints at 11am.

I had a mega green salad for lunch which I couldn’t get through 🙁 in yet another beer garden.

Interestingly the distance to the mouth has started to be shown on big board every few hundred meters, first one I saw said 2561.2km to go…

 

IMG_4151Then as I was cycling up a small hill at 14.07 in a park outside Dillingen disaster struck!! The jockey wheel assembly on the rear derailleur snapped off and embedded itself in the spokes making me stop abruptly and only just unclipping my pedal in time. Inspection revealed it was damaged beyond repair plus it had broken two spokes.

What to do next? First thing is to form a conference with anyone passing! I was told there was a repairer in Dillingen. So out came the tools to remove the damaged bits  and cut the broken spokes off. I walked into town in 10 minutes to find the excellent but very busy Top Bike Brachem shop who told me to get a coffee and come back in an hour. So amazingly at 15.48 I was back on the road! in my new cycling shorts. I asked the owners if they knew anywhere local to stay.

They recommended the Schloss Kaltneck in Schwenningen and awesome it is too 🙂 the dinner tonight was excellent and my room is great.

So all in all a very lucky day. Mileage today is 49.8 but that includes walking around Dillingen. With a total since leaving Cambridge of 1257 miles (2011km)

The photos are here

Strava is here:

Strava_Ride___Ulm_to_Dillingen

 

 

Danube bike trail Day 2 – Gutenstein to Ulm

I slept incredibly well  & long at  the Landgasthof Bahnhof -with no WiFi to detract me 🙂 and left quite early after a good breakfast, Total bill for full board including beers at €51.86 who says Germany is expensive?

This morning had a real chill in the air. After reaching Sigmaringen I was pleased I had stayed at Gutenstein as I didn’t take to the place especially after been hounded of the riverside pathway by The Gartenschau gestapo, apparently it’s all closed off for 5 months.  My personal hate, public spaces closed for paying functions.

Disappointingly after reading my twitters first thing, Vodafone decided that was enough data for the day until late afternoon Tomorrow I’m going to have to pay the £5 a day that Three charge for unlimited data. It is truly amazing that all the mobile companies only offer PAYG 200MB yet say they have LTE at 7MB per second. That is you are allowed 1 second per day on the internet 🙁 I spent the day pondering why Apple just doesn’t buy it and make a real internet company out of it. I see Vodafone market capitalisation is £100bn which means Apple could buy it for cash!  better investment than what they are currently doing with it!

IMG_4082The ride is very zig zaggy and you have to keep your eye open for the signs. Otherwise it is really quite beautiful, especially now that the river has some volume & speed, I passed several of the hydroelectric schemes like the Swiss ones. The other thing I notice is the amazing number of sewage plants you end up navigating around, perhaps Jim or Burack should organise some works tours 🙂

The passing tourers are getting friendly, why I even spoke to one today. plus many nods and hellos. Although the racers just look as if they will mow you down.

I eventually arrived in Ulm and AroundMe found the excellent value  Leo Mar  Hotel boasting of it’s 100MB connection, ideally situated next to a pizza place & Aldi with an Ikea across the street.

The ride was 76 miles today which means I’ve now done 208km of the Danube  trail. Total mileage since leaving Cambridge one month ago is now 1207

Here’s Strava:

Strava_Ride___Gutenstein_to_Ulm

and pictures here

 

 

Danube bike trail Day 1 – Donaueschingen to Gutenstein

A late start today as I was busy trying to break the German PAYG SIM card cartel, every operator offered an identical 200MB for €20 so it is marginal with 3’s £5 a day offer. However, remembering Euan’s shenanigans with 3 in France I opted to go with Vodafone. Disappoingly I now find their network is mainly Edge with 3G only in the big places.

Geoff at the start of The Danube
Geoff at the start of The Danube

I started cycling and found the spot where the Brigach & Breg meet in quite an idyllic place, except for the bridge carrying the by pass a few metres away, immediately bringing my mind to the horror of Byrons Pool.
At least the bridge hides the huge sewage works discharging as much water into the nascent Danube as one of the streams.
The ride continues pleasantly zig zagging on smooth paths through fields.
The surprise is at Immedingen the Danube disappears to apparently pop out 12km away to from the Aach river! So the Danube has to start gathering water again! A small canal allows a little bit of the original water to continue to appease the doubters 🙂
The afternoon continued up & down through gorgeous limestone gorges. Strava says I’ve done
3000 feet of climbing today!
After cycling 54 miles and feeling wrecked I reached Gutenstein and called it a day at the very basic Landgasthof Bahnhof
So that’s the first 80km done

Here are the pictures

Boy, what a whopper!

Toughest hill of the trip today, especially after biking already 45 miles 🙁 Straight up 1300 feet the Strava elevation says it all:

Strava_Ride___Zurich_to_Donaueschingen

Lovely bbq area

The ride from Zurich to Donaueschingen started with riding through vast construction sites before the airport, very reminiscent of when I visited Dubai! After the airport it turns into a gorgeous cycleway along the river with many covered bridges and you get to visit the Rhein Falls if you want to part with 5 chf.

It all changes when you cross the river and reach Schaffhausen (which is interestingly still in Switzerland, so The Rhein is not the border.  I made some mistakes and nearly ended in a tunnel heading to the motorway 🙁 However a did a U turn and eventually navigated around the station and into the country again. Eventually reaching Germany atop the foresail long grind.

How can you tell you have left Switzerland:

  • The gorgeous HUGE visible cycleway signs disappear and are replaced by occasional ‘tasteful’ small signs in white with pale green text.
  • Suddenly a huge number of very fast artics. and motor bikes appear.
  • What you think is a cycleway ends after a mile in a crash barrier 🙁 where you have to oik the bike over. Or cycle back and take your chance with the artics.
  • Open Street Map suddenly loses a lot of detail and main roads are not correctly identified
  • Oh. A bonus the hotels are cheaper 🙂

So it is totally possible if you are flying into Zurich with your bike to cycle to the start of The Danube Way, bit hairy in places but still an excellent ride. I will put my corrected GPS gpx track up on bike map.net eventually.

The first hotel, thankfully, was full and I’m now at the really quite nice Hotel Linde, the manager offered me a double room at the single rate and the restaurant has been very good.

Tomorrow is the big one! First day on The Danube Biketrail, will I use all those bike line books I’ve been carrying for the last 1000 miles or so 🙂

Todays Strava:

Strava_Ride___Zurich_to_Donaueschingen

 

And the picas are here