Fridingen an der Donau

Thursday September 8th
In Which David Summits the Eiger by Bicycle

Over the past ten years I have had the privilege of experiencing some amazing cycling experiences around the world, however it would be hard to remember any ride that could surpass the natural beauty of today's ride from Donaueschingen to Beuron. We first assembled the team and bikes in the car park of the Zum Hirschen Hotel to undertake the obligatory group photo. This has become an essential tradition at the start (and end) of every extended ride.

The weather had provided us another perfect cycling day with not a cloud in the sky. The early morning air high in the Black Forest of Bavaria was clear and cool. I could not imagine better conditions for being on a bike.
We first began by riding to the official start of the Danube Bike Path and then followed a lovely shady path right on the bank of the Brigach River.

We started with 26 riders but soon managed to reduce this to a much more manageable size of 12 riders when a large proportion of our peloton missed my signal and headed off in the wrong direction. Our reduced peloton rode on along the riverbank, looking for the confluence of the Brigach and the Breg Rivers. We found it about a kilometre out of town. The other group found it also, except they were on the other side of the river ! It was a bit little the Keystone Cops of Cycling, but somehow we all rejoined together to form a long snaking line of riders as we resumed the ride.

From the moment these two small rivers combine, the river now bears the name the Danube (or Donau). This is the beginning of Europe's second longest river , winding almost 3000 km on its way to the Black Sea.

I was surprised that the bike path at this point was absolutely smooth bitumen, making for effortless riding. I was also pleasantly surprised with the quality of the bikes we had been supplied. They were comfortable, quiet and well maintained - perfect for this type of cycling.

We maintained a great degree of self control and pelotonic discipline, that is until we reached the first town with a coffee shop.

Although it was still early in the morning, about half the peloton was already ready for a coffee break. The others had a deadline to meet and decided to push on at a punishing pace. "I'll see you at the hotel", I shouted as they rode off into the distance, heads down and bums up. That statement turned out to be quite accurate.

Once again our peloton was reduced in size and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves cruising along, chatting happily and stopping for pictures along the way. In this region the young Danube river does a quite remarkable thing. At certain times of the year the entire flow of the river seeps into the porous limestone rocks and actually flows underground, before gradually re emerging and reforming on the surface several kilometres further on.

We took a short detour from the bike path to walk on the dry bed of the river. Markers on the banks showed the heights the water can reach in times of flood, but today it was completely dry.

We reached the large town of Tuttlingen early in the afternoon and decided it would be a perfect place for lunch. We found a suitable Bakerei and sat in the shade to enjoy lunch and a drink.

When the time came for us to resume the ride, Mary was so keen to get going that she rode away without paying for her coffee. No wonder the Ghostriders have earned such a bad reputation all around the world. As Mary happily made her daring escape, her bill was paid by an anonymous admirer. At least we didn't have to worry about being chased by the German police.

A little further on we reached the small Bavarian town of Mulheim. As we were carefully navigating through the town's streets, I noticed that David was keen to take over a position at the front the group. With a flurry of pedals and a rush of testosterone he was soon disappearing into the distance. The only problem is that it was the wrong distance. Somehow in the excitement he had ignored both his GPS and common sense and started pedaling frantically up the first big hill we had seen so far in Europe. I chased after him, shouting at him to stop, but it was to no avail. He had obviously switched off his hearing aids in order to cut out all distraction in his quest for the polka dot climber's jersey

After a couple of kilometres of chasing and shouting, I was getting no closer and just making myself hot and bothered. I stopped and turned back. Surely David would realise that he was going the wrong way and that no one was with him ? Actually he didn't.

I rode back down the hill and told the others the bad news. Carol could not stop laughing. "He does this sort of this all the time", she explained. We had no alternative other than to mark David as "missing in action" as we resumed the ride along the correct path. In the meantime David was battling up an enormous mountain of Biblical proportions, fearful of taking a backward glance in case he might be overtaken by one of the non existent chasers.

He actually maintained this same strange behaviour all the way to our hotel at Beuron. It was only then that he looked behind to see that he was all alone. The rest of us were having a thoroughly delightful ride through idyllic countryside. We did have a few small undulations, but nothing that could be called a serious climb.

A little further on we met up with Paul and Jan who had abandoned the racing group and decided to enjoy the ride instead. Around 10 km from our hotel we discovered a lovely roadside resting place, serving cold drinks and ice cream. It was an ideal place for another stop. It was here that we met a young Australian family who were riding around Europe with their three young children.

All their bikes were heavily laden with panniers and luggage. The young boy looked at me and boasted "We rode over 100 km yesterday". I looked back at my own very lightly loaded bike (and at my speedo which only registered around 55 km for the day) and replied "Yes but we are all very old". Take that youngster.

Gael must have been keen to get to the hotel because she jumped on the first red bike she could find and started pedalling. It might have looked a bit like hers, but it was actually nothing like hers. It was Douglas' bike. He had no choice but to jump on her bike and chase her down. It's never easy riding with very old people. They do this sort of thing all the time.

The final section to Beuron was a little challenging with a series of climbs and descents. The late afternoon was growing quite warm and we were starting to feel a bit tired. Beuron is an interesting Monastery town with a huge monastery and a number of other religious buildings. A prominent statue also testified to the fact that it is also a stop on a pilgrim route. Which pilgrim route ? Sorry, I do not know as the writing was all in German.

It had been a glorious start to this leg of the Odyssey ride and has left a very high standard for the rest to live up to.Read more