Day 24: Radstadt to Sankt Michael im Lungau

 

We got up early to a lunch in the Reichelts' gorgeous dining room. Outside, it was already very bright, and it looked like another boiling hot day. Riding down to Radstadt, we took minor roads, and then headed onto highway 99 alongside it. After just a couple of kilometers the bike path petered out and we had a choice between the meandering bike path and the main road. With the warnings of the postal clerk from yesterday in mind, I chose the main road to try to get over the pass as quickly as possible.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Past Untertauern, the grade steepened dramatically, exceeding the 12% grades promised on the map by quite a bit! We saw grades of up to 17% as the road dramatically climbed up what looked like a wall besides a waterfall (I'm not exaggerating by much). Together with the promised weekend traffic, this was quite a stressful hour and a half, with only brief periods of relief from the grade or the traffic.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

By the time we got to the top of Radstadter Tauern (1731m), we were pretty tired. Unlike other passes, this one was pretty much unmarked with a pass marker or an elevation sign. The summit looked like any other ski town, with ski lifts, busses, and lots and lots of vehicle traffic.

The descent, by contrast was a delight. I see that we hit nearly 55mph, and it was only that slow because there were cars in front of me! The map I had also showed a Twenger pass, but it turned out that it was not a pass at all, but just a town. Maps just aren't that accurate when you get out of the frequently touristed areas, and we were definitely exploring places in Austria that not that many visitors visited.

As we accelerated into Tweng, we overtook a couple of motorcyclists who graciously let us pass, but as the road flattened out towards Mautendorf, they over took us again. The day was warm in Mautendorf as we pulled into town for a grocery store lunch. There was apparently some sort of renaissance fair in town, but we didn't get a chance to check it out.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

We pulled into our hotel less than 45 minutes later, and were delighted to find our room ready for us. As we checked in, we met another cyclist who had just gotten back from a ride while his family was at the fair. He saw our loaded touring bike and said, "Why didn't you leave all that junk at the hotel?" I guess Americans aren't the only ones who don't realize that car-free touring is an option. His world view did not include the idea of point to point touring without support. The hotel had a swimming pool as well, but it was not in the best of shape. Lisa observed that the hotel didn't seem to understand what meatless was on the menu. We went to the supermarket to stock up on food for tomorrow, and then generally lounged around, resting for what everyone had told us was going to be a painful ride tomorrow.

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Day 23: Puch im Hallein to Radstadt

 

We left the hotel this time at 8:00am, and returned to the bike path to go along the Tauern bike path once more. Tauern is the name of the big national park in Austria, which encompasses several disjoint section, including the Grossglockner highway, which was our ultimate destination. My goal today was to get to Radstadt, where I had stayed one November in 2008. I had good memories of a family run place there, but it was booked for the Friday. I did find an alternative online, a wellness center which was offering very reasonable rooms at 25 EUR or so a person.

The bike path undulates roughly along the river, occasionally climbing into the local hills to visit a town. Since we had reservations, there was no pressure to take the absolutely fastest route to Radstadt. My intention was to follow my original route back from 2008 and reverse it, but the Garmin Edge 705 Bicycle GPS Navigator that Includes Heart Rate Monitor and Speed/Cadence Sensor (Factory Refurbished) was so slow it could not recover the saved track in a reasonable amount of time.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

We saw beautiful houses on hills, gorgeous wildflowers, tree houses in the bike paths, and a few cyclists on the bike path.

In Golling, the GPS told me to turn off onto highway 152 towards Radstadt. The freeway was indeed signed for Radstadt, and I had never taken this route before, so I decided to do so rather than take Pass Lueg, which was probably an easier climb. The highway follows the Lammer river, and we got to ride on a schizophrenic bike path along it, which couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a paved road or an unpaved dirt trail, and so switched constantly between pavement and dirt. Past Scheffau, the bike path disappeared just before a hill, forcing us to climb up on the road while the river disappeared behind a gorge which we could not see.

It was noon by the time we rolled into Waldhof for a supermarket lunch, and it was warm! Lisa tried to take a nap but between the traffic and the warmth it was a lost cause. Just before Erlfeld, however, the GPS unit directed me onto a hiking trail away from the main road, and it turned out to be a delight, following a sweet little mountain stream in the shade. The hiking trail (which was signed to be permissible to bikes) did not return to the road until Abenau.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

From there, the road descended back to the Lammer river, and we began a series of rolling climbs which ultimately culminated in our losing quite a bit of elevation when we descended to highway 99. Nevertheless, the route was pretty and it was fun, though Lisa was pretty tired towards the end. As we headed along the Enns river, the sights started looking familiar, and I found the Enns river bike path. What I should have done was to follow it all the way to Radstadt, but as I watched the kilometers count down I finally decided to return to the main highway to enter Radstadt on it.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Wellness Haus Reichelt turns out to be the home of Hannes Reichelt, a much decorated skier who had won several world cups! His mom ran the place while he was out skiing and racing all over the world. He was very famous in Radstadt, so whenever we told people we were staying there they would make a skiing motion with their arms. The place had a pool (an organic one that had no chlorine!), very nice beds, a garden, and exercise room. We were quite impressed for the price.

It was early enough in the day that we had time to go to the post office to buy a SIM card. As we chatted with the clerk who handled the transaction, he told us to get an early start tomorrow because the traffic would be very heavy on a Saturday over Radstadter Tauern (1738m). We asked if 7:30 would be early enough, and he said how about 5:00am or 6:00am. There was no way I could ask Marianne Reichelt to have breakfast that early, so my heart sank.

At a bookstore, I finally found a map that covered the region we were headed into, so I bought it. Lisa also spotted the Motorrad Reisekarten Alpen, a collection of maps covering the entire alps at my favorite scale of 1:300,000, and we took pictures of it so I could look for it in Munich at the end of the trip. It was warm in the afternoon, and we had a meal before walking back to Wellnesshaus Reichelt for an evening swim and another shower. Marianne even provided a wireless internet key for free as part of the room, so I could book a hotel for tomorrow. Given the warning about traffic and the anticipated steepness of the climb, I booked a place in Sankt Michael, at the foot of the Katschberg pass (1641m), which had 15%, 17%, and 21% grades stamped all over it on my map, so we didn't have to do two passes that day.

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Day 22: Rorshach to Puch im Hallein via train transfer

 

 

We got up at 6:00am, had our bags packed by 7:00am, had breakfast, and were on the road by 7:50am. Riding along the Bodensee Radweg with nobody to compete with us for space was fun, but soon we had no choice but to get onto the main road. While traffic was light, what traffic there was seemed be a hurry, which was more than a little annoying.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Fortunately, we soon had a bike path signed for the Austrian border, and we choose to follow it first around the airport, then along the Alter Rhein, and finally across a bridge which dumped us across the border.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

You know you're no longer in Switzerland when the bike path signs are no longer regular, correct, and unambiguous. We soon were faced with bike paths all pointing to Lindau, and had to ask a woman. She pointed in one direction, and then said, well, the other direction is more scenic. Since we had plenty of time (or so I thought), we chose the scenic route, which took us along the lake, but not before putting us onto a massive detour.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

The day was still cool, but it was rapidly warming up under the sun, and the path backed tracked us again to cross the Rhein before turning at Hardt to hit the shoreline again. By the time we got into Bregrenz, we were running short on time, and I opted to follow the main road rather than lose any more time trying to hug the lake.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

While this made the ride go faster, it was also a lot less scenic and there was quite a bit of traffic. We soon made it across into the German border, and found the bike path leading to Lindau again, crossing the bridge onto the island with a bunch of school children and arriving at the train station at 8:55am.

I bought train tickets and studied the itinerary. There was a direct train to Munich at 9:55am, so we tried that first. Unfortunately, it was run by a private train company, the the conductors did not like the look of our tandem, so we had to take an indirect train at 10:10, and change trains at Buchloe for Munich. Fortunately, that turned out to be an easy transfer, and we made it to Munich at 1:10pm. Our train for Salzburg would leave at 1:42, but first, I wanted to drop off materials at our Munich hotel (for instance, all the Switzerland maps), as well as filled up SD cards so that I didn't have a chance to lose them.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

When I got back, who did I find chatting with Lisa but Chris Brown, who had gone on one of my tours back when I lived in Munich. Chris was in between jobs, so after a bit of cajoling, we got him to take the train with us. Despite knowing to meet us at the train station, Chris had not brought along his bike, so could not join us in our attempt on Grossglockner. His excuse was that he was due to start a job soon in Sicily, and had to make travel arrangements and what not.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

We had fun chatting during the train ride, and got to Salzburg around 3:30pm. That gave us a bit of time to ride out of town and search for lodging. We immediately headed for the Salzach, the river that bisects Salzburg, and started heading south along the banks. It was a gorgeous day, and we didn't make very quick progress because there was much to see and take pictures of. Fortunately, European cities are not very big, and within half an hour we were out of concrete bike path into the forested dirt path.

By the time 5pm rolled around, we were in Puchs. The first hotel we found was closed, but the second one had a room remaining. When I expressed surprise at the price, the owner gave me a discount and we agreed to stay. Lisa wanted to buy a SIM card for her phone, but the post office was closed, so we walked over to the nearest grocery store to buy fruits for desert. Fortunately, the day cooled down quite a bit, and we were able to get a good night's sleep.

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Puch, Austria

We took the train with everyone else on Tuesday to luzern and then rode two days through Switzerland to the bodensee. It was as flat a route as I could find given I wanted speed, but flat in Switzerland still means 900m days.

We arrived in roarshach yesterday, found a hotel that served an early breakfast and set off this morning for lindau, Germany where we could access the cheap train system: 32.5 euros got us all the way to Salzburg, where I had wanted to start.

Chris Brown an ex-googler met us at the Munich station where we had a short layover and I got to drop more stuff off. Since we had the bayern ticket he joined us for the train ride to Salzburg as well.

We rode for an hour and found lodging outside the city, at an exceedingly fancy place but needed after a long day and 3 countries.

Day 21: Rapperswil to Rorshach

 

The Rapperswil hostel served a late breakfast, so it wasn't until almost 9pm before we left Rapperswil and headed towards Watwil. The Edge 705 did a great job navigating us on minor roads to Eschenbach, where the climb to Ricken on the main highway was busy. At Ricken I spotted a bike path towards Watwil, and immediately hopped onto it. It turned out to be a gorgeous dirt road that descended gently down towards Watwil. In Watwil, I somehow got turned around and followed the bike path towards Ebnat-Kappel instead of heading towards Lictensteig. After about 5 kilometers and a bit of climbing I realize the road looked familiar and pulled out the map. It turned out that we were on the bike path towards Schwagalp, rather than the shortest route to the Bodensee, which Lisa wanted to see.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

I turned the bike around and abandoned the bike path, crossing a covered bike bridge and headed on the main road to Ebnat-Kappel, where we had a grocery store lunch just before the SPAR closed at 12:15pm.

We rode to Lichtensteig, where we finally picked up a bike path for Flawil. This bike path wound around beautiful in the country side before crossing a stream and taking us to Unterrindal. Following the signs to St. Gallen, we rode along until I started seeing bike path signs for Waldkirch and Bischofszell. The dirt path took us into Waldkirch, but then petered out. Lisa was tired of meandering about at this point (it was also well above 85 degrees out and warm), so she asked me to take the most direct route to the Bodensee. This meant ignoring the bike path and following the road, so we rode to Wittenbach and then started a descent into Arbon.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Arbon was a beautiful sea side town, but whoever placed the tourist information center did not do a good job providing signs to it. Since it was a Wednesday night, I decided we would do fine just by rolling down to the water and riding towards Austria. The first hotel we tried was fine, but didn't have anything to offer it. I also wanted an early breakfast the next day so we could get to the German train station by 9:00am, which was when the Bayern ticket hours started. The next hotel was pricey, and they gave away the room while I was making a decision about it. We finally found one in Rorshach that offered a 7:00am breakfast and had decent rooms. It also hosted other cyclists, and had a very friendly manager. It was pricey, but the combination was pretty rare, so I sprang for it.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

That evening after dinner, we walked along the Bodensee and admired the quiet scenery. Then the world cup game ended and all night it became honking of horns and cars driving through the streets at high speed making it tough to sleep. Fortunately, I thought, tomorrow would be an easy day.

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Day 20: Meiringen to Rapperswil

 

We got up at 5:30am and were packed by 6:00. By 7:00am, we had the bikes out of storage and mounted and ready to go. When Andreas saw me he said, "When's your train?" "8:45am" "It'll take you all of 20 minutes to get there.." "But I need to buy train tickets too." "Oh, in that case, we'll have breakfast early for you." By 7:15, breakfast was ready and we were chomping away at it, appreciating the extra time Andreas had made for us.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

When it came time to settle up accounts, we paid with a combination of our Swiss Francs and Euros, since everyone other than I wanted to get rid of their Swiss Francs. I saved just enough for the train ticket to Luzern.

We descended to the intersection with the Lammi restaurant quickly, stopping only once to let the post bus by. At the intersection, a cyclist who was waiting at the intersection looked up at us, saw me, and said, "I read your blog on the internet." "What's your name?" "Sean" "Send me e-mail." "I will!" The funny thing is that I met Jobst Brandt at the very same intersection in 2005 as well, so I guess this really is the corner where cyclists meet.

At the Meiringen station, the ticket machines were busy, but I finally bought my train ticket, and we loaded up on to the train when it arrived under cloudy skies. Upon arrival in Luzern, we said good-bye to everyone else, and then proceeded onto the remaining part of the trip. My plan was still to make it to Austria to ride the Grossglockner highway, something that had eluded me for years due to bad weather. Now, the easiest way to do this was to take the train from Switzerland, but that would be extremely expensive. The cheap way to do this was to ride our bike to the German border, board the train there using the Bayern ticket, which for 32.50 EUR would take us all the way to Salzburg, where we could head south along my original intended route. This had the additional advantage that we'd see parts of Switzerland I had never seen before.

We arrived in Luzern under cloudy skies with a few rain drops. After exploring the town for a bit and finding nothing we wanted, we headed out towards Adligenswil after eating a supermarket lunch. The climb away from the lake didn't take very long, and soon we were descending towards Arth and Immensee. This was a lake I had never seen before, and the bike path along it was very pretty.

Past Arth, we followed signs to Sattel, which granted us nice views of the Lauerzersee from up high. As we climbed up to Sattel we saw another tandem couple come down the hill with panniers, the only other tandem cycle tourists we would see for the entire trip.
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/reader_report_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-9438
At Sattel, we had a choice, to visit Agerisee, which I had seen in 2005, or take the most direct route towards Zurichsee along the national route. Lisa wanted the direct route along highway 8, which had a bike lane. The road was busy, and not too interesting until we approached Pfaiffikon, where the road suddenly dove towards the Zurichsee in a series of sweeping turns down to the lake shore.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Pfaiffikon didn't look interesting, but there was a long bridge across to Rapperswil that I wanted to ride across to, and ride across we did, arriving at the scenic town of Jona on the other side. A visit to the tourist information office revealed that all the hotels were booked up, but the youth hostel was available. It was the most expensive youth hostel I had ever stayed at, and was a little out of the way, but the town looked interesting so we took it.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

We had dinner by the lake, did some grocery shopping, and walked around town after a quick stop at the hostel to drop off our stuff. Sunset was glorious, and it felt good to be riding again after 4 days of hiking.

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Day 19: Hiking to Grosse Scheidegg via the Romantic Road

 

Phil and I proposed doing Hornseeli backwards from the last time we did it. Kekoa and Cynthia were skeptical, because Hornseeli can be muddy and Kekoa's Five Fingers and Cynthia's sandals were not up for a soaking. We decided to just hike up and then turn around if it didn't turn out to be good, so after breakfast I got a bus pass for 5 people from Andreas and we set off on the hiking trail up towards Grosse Scheidegg. It was still cloudy, and the roads were wet, but we soon ran into cyclists riding up the mountain.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Daniel Gries and his wife were on a month long trip, and planned to do some backpacking as well, so not only did they have panniers on their bikes, but they also had backpacks with gear on their back. That did not look too comfortable to me, but they were willing to get off the bike and walk, which is something I'm not willing to do.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

As we approached Schwarzwaldalp, we found the weather clearing up slightly. At Schwarzwaldalp, we found two signs pointing to Hornseeli, one coming from the way we came, and one pointing up the hill. Of course I chose the one pointing up the hill, thereby missing out on the Romantic Road once again. As Lisa likes to say, I'm not very romantic. The route we ended up on was some sort of cross-country ski path that rose steeply through the woods towards Oberlager. I had a tough time believing that cross country skiiers could tackle anything this steep, but since I'm not an avid cross-country skiier myself I must be under-estimating the amount of grip those skis provide.

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Upon emerging from the woods, we walked across a cow field full of cows, and the path kept rising to 2000m from there to the junction with the romantic road, while the scenery once again got better and better. The clouds lifted and we started getting sunshine, which together with the snow covered peaks made for some pretty nice pictures.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

At the junction with Oberlager, we had to decide whether or not to tackle Hornseeli, walk down the romantic road, or walk up to Grosse Scheidegg on the same. Phil and I wanted to do Hornseeli and the romantic road, but we were out-voted by Lisa and Cynthia, who wanted an easier day. I knew if I were to do the romantic road with Phil I would never hear the end of it from Lisa, so I reluctantly agreed to make it a short and easy day.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Easy day it might be, but it was no less scenic. It was a good way for Phil, Cynthia, and Kekoa to finish their trip, with memories of what is still the prettiest place on the planet I've ever had the fortune to explore.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

We had lunch at the top, took the bus back to Rosenlaui, and the others lounged and started packing while Lisa and I went to the Rosenlaui Gletscherschultz to spend an hour or two staring at the cascades that dug a gorge through the granite.

Dinner was once again another fabulous concoction. We repacked our bags. I wanted to get rid of everything so we only had 2 panniers and nothing hanging out or in between racks. I got rid of the useless Dinotte light, we gave the hiking stick for Phil to bring home, and I borrowed some of Phil's unused SD cards. We filled up our portable shampoo/soap containers with soap from the big bottles and left the big containers in the hotel. Cynthia wanted to catch the 8:45am train, and since Roberto had a ticket with them, we could use that ticket all the way to Luzern with them, thereby only having to pay for one train ticket to Meiringen.

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Day 18: Grindelwald to Rosenlaui

 

 

The hotel's breakfast buffet was packed this morning, since a ton of folks had checked in the night before. Since we had climbed Grosse Scheidegg before, and had too much stuff to bring up the mountain, Lisa elected to ride the bus to the top of Grosse Scheidegg with the panniers, while I would get to ride up Grosse Scheidegg with the unloaded tandem. It was raining lightly as we left Lisa at the bus stop, but by the time we got to where the road became a single lane, the rain had mostly died down and I had warmed up to the point where I had to shed my jacket. We had mistakenly made the division wrong and calculated the grade from Grindelwald to the top of Grosse Scheidegg to be about an 18-20% grade. In reality, the grade varied between 10% and 15%, which was in line with what the other side of the pass would generate. Phil and I rode up steadily, and enjoyed the quiet and beauty of the pass where most of the tourists were scared off by the rain.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Lisa met us at the top of Grosse Scheidegg, having waited for an hour and a half for us to show up. We mounted the panniers onto the tandem and descended to Rosenlaui just ahead of the post bus, which could not possibly keep up with a tandem on these grades. Upon arriving at Rosenlaui, we left our bags in the lobby and our bikes in the wine cellar (though I would learn later that the new wing had a special bike lobby!), and set off for Engelhornhutte. Phil and I had done this hike before the hard way, by going to Kalterbrunnen first, and I wanted to try it the easy way. I also noticed that there was a side trip from the hutte that would take you up to what I thought mistakenly was the glacier.

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Well, going up the route the easy way was pretty steep, but granted us great views of the Rosenlaui Glacier. As we wound up our way on the over-cast and cool day, we got grand views of the valley, including Hotel Rosenlaui far below us. Lisa decided to turn around just before we got to the hutte, and I made my way up the alternate track, which turned out to be just an ice field.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

Upon returning to the hotel, we found that our rooms were ready, and Christine had given us first choice of rooms in the hotel, which was very nice of her. Lisa and I ate an ice cream while waiting for Phil to catch up to us and Cynthia and Kekoa to come back from their visit to the Gletscherschultz.

The four course meal that Andreas served was as nice as ever, and it was good to see Cynthia and Kekoa now, right at the end of the trip. They had done several passes I had never done before, including Splurgen, Mallorja, and Julier, and Albula, which I had done before on a previous trip. They didn't have as good a time in Meiringen as we did in Grindelwald, and we exchanged pictures and trip stories. It sounded like they had a good time.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

After dinner we took a walk outside in the cool misty evening. Gentle light from the setting sun filtered through the clouds and lit up the granite mountains around us. It didn't matter how many times I had returned here: it was different every time, and I was every bit as entranced.

From Tour of the German Speaking Alps 2010

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