More rain and repairs

Forgot to mention in my last post that Rosie got her first tooth on May 21 😀
John broke a spoke on his rear wheel this morning (May 28), so we got to try my new cassette removing wrench. Worked pretty slick and we were also able to true the wheel pretty well, given the pouring rain (I included a pic of the cassette removing wrench below).
May 26 - biked 40 km from Au to Willersbach - crappy campground
May 27 - biked 30 km from Willersbach to Melk. Did a guided tour of the Benediction Abbey; baroque architecture built in 1700s. Two ceilings were painted as an illusion to make it seem like a dome, but was flat - well done, hard to tell it was a flat ceiling. 100k library collection with classic sliding ladder to access high books. John had his best bratwurst sausage of the trip for lunch.
Poured rain intensely hard while starting to cook dinner at campsite - ended up taking refuge behind a  sheltered dumpster to cook chicken tacos. Somehow kids are still happy.
May 28 - biked 40 km from Melk to Krems. Poured rain hard all day while biking through beautiful vineyards and small villages with tasting rooms. Stayed in a hotel in Krems to dry out. Steph and John took a ferry to Krems and headed to a bike shop for a more precise wheel trueing and to buy a bigger rear tire - they ended up at a nearby town to stay for the night - meeting up in the morning. Still pissing rain outside as I write this, ha - it never stops. The locals say the weather is unusual for May.

Travelling gypsies

On May 21 we biked 40 km from Passau to Niederrana in pouring rain - whole crew was soaked, but somehow the kids were still happy. Felt like we were biking to Prince Rupert in a downpour. Decided to stay at a guesthouse instead of camping to warm up and dry gear (and let the kids watch cartoons). Every time we get to a guesthouse or hotel, the owners  seem to cringe when they see four soaking adults and four kids. Our broken German/English conversation usually goes like this:

“4 adults, 2 baby, 2 kinder, need rooms”

“Umm, How many rooms?”

“2 double rooms, and we have baby and kinder beds”

“2 double rooms?”

“Yes”

“Ummm, ok”

Then we proceed to cook in the rooms, dry clothes on the radiators, have wrestle-mania on the beds with kids, wash dishes and laundry in the sinks, make lunch sandwiches from the breakfast buffet, etc. They all seem happy when we leave.

May 21 - biked 40 km from Passau to Niederrana. Confluence of Donau, Inn, and Ilz in Passau. River is now wide, high and brown. 

May 22 - biked 40 km from Niederrana to Fieldkirchen

May 23 - biked 20 km from Fieldkirchen to Linz. 

May 24 - layover day in Linz. Went to the Ars Electronica Museum, took a steep train to a town outlook and went to the Kulture House to see an art exhibition, which included a crazy woven tube maze you could climb in.

May 25 - biked 40 km from Linz to Au. Biked up to the Mauthausen concentration camp on the way - between 1938-1945 approximately 123,000 prisoners were murdered there - very haunting place.

Last days in Germany

Spent our last two days in Germany at an Airbnb house in Passau. We’ve done around 580 km along the trail so far. Weather is mixed still, but hoping for more sun in Austria. Was chatting with a bike store owner today about e-bikes - we were noticing tons of electric mountain bikes on a road biking trail and were wondering why; the bike store owner said it’s “suv syndrome”. People commonly ride e-mountain bikes on paved trails in Europe. If I could recommend something to someone biking this trail in the future, so far it would be to take a rest day on Friday and/or Saturday- that’s when everything is open and things are happening. Most shops closed Sunday - can’t even buy groceries and Monday many stores are still closed. Better to keep biking during those days. Also, if you’re biking through Germany with kids, this country has the best playgrounds I’ve ever seen.
May 14 - biked 36 km from Ingolstadt to Bad Gogging, cold
May 15 - biked 55 km from Bad Gogging to Regensburg. Stayed two nights at the same campground. Enroute to Regensburg we stopped in Weltenburg for a beer and lunch. The benediction abbey there is Bavaria’s oldest (founded in 610 ad). We decided to take a boat from Weltenburg to Kelheim, which provided great views of a canyon section of river + beers, pretzels and accordion music.
May 17 - biked 56 km from Regensburg to Straubing. Stopped at the Walhalla Temple enroute. The temple was built by Ludwig 1 to honour great Germans; it was modelled after the Parthenon in Athens - lots of marble.
May 18 - biked 35 km from Straubing to Deggendorf. Nice campground on the beach. My hayfever went bananas, so bought a cornucopia of Germans pills, all good now. Lit my jet boil stove on fire - still works, but all plastic parts are looking sad.
May 19 - biked 58 km from Deggendorf to Passau. Spent two nights at an Airbnb.  

Camping

Camp grounds in Germany have definitely exceeded our expectations. The first night of camping (May 11) we stayed at the Donauworth Kanu Club. The place was empty, so they let us setup under a covered space - once setup it started raining hard with thunder and lightning! We had perfect timing and also had access to nice hot showers. Our next notable campsite was in Ingolstadt - they had hot showers, laundry, and 80s rock pumping in the bathrooms on arrival. When I went into the bathroom later to wash laundry there was that old techno song “sandstorm” playing - got me going for washing my ginch in the sink.
May 11 - biked 45 km from Gundelfingen to Donauworth
Patti went on her first carnival ride in Donauworth at a street festival
May 12 - biked 40 km from Donauworth to Neuburg
Bunch of friendly Irish folk at the campsite in caravans - reminded us of the movie Snatch
May 13 - biked 29 km from Neuburg to Ingolstadt
First night all parents stayed up for a beer and cards
Solar panels on many buildings along the whole trail so far

Hotels

We’ve been staying in hotels until now because weather has been rough and kids sick/cranky. Tomorrow we start camping, which will be a nice change from trying to find guesthouses/hotels and paying high prices avg $80 euro/night. Turns out there’s much less open in May, so many hotels and beer gardens have been closed. Don’t worry, we’re still finding beer. Did our laundry by hand tonight in the sink, here’s a pic of maximizing heated towel rack space:

Kinder (kids)

Kids are starting to get used to biking and bribery is starting to level out; however, kids are definitely getting their share of treats. The owner of the hotel we stayed at in Mengen kept giving the kids gummy bears and chocolates - at one point Patti and Gavin were playing on the grass outside and Kaya noticed an arm poke through the hedges and give a handful of candies to them - he kept saying “das good”.
May 7 - biked Mengen to Munderkinden (~ 48 km)
One 20% hill was a killer.
May 8 - biked Munderkinden to Ulm (~50 km)
Rain all day, but warm. Layover day in Ulm on May 9, but still biked 20 km and climbed stairs up the Ulmer Münster - largest cathedral in south Germany with the highest steeple in the world at 161 m! Also went for a soak at Donau Bad (bath). Tried white asparagus which seems to be in season - much sweeter than green. John got a new rear wheel - bike shop said he would have been lucky to get to Vienna.
May 10 - biked Ulm to Gundelfingen (~45 km) Rosie has had a fever until today - now feeling a bit better and laughing again.
Crew seems to all be one same sleep schedule, early to bed and rise. Most bikers we see on the trail are retirees on e-bikes and seem pretty blown away that we’re on regular bikes hauling kids.
Trip odometer ~ 290 km.

Valley of Castles

Missing boxes of gear arrived via courier to our hotel on May 5! After gearing up the same day, we biked 35 km from Tuttlingen to Hausem im Tal. Very beautiful trail with many castles perched on surrounding limestone cliffs. Church bells ringing every hour as we pass through small towns. Got split up from Steph and John in Beuron. We randomly stopped at a pub in Hausem im Tal for dinner at 6:30 and it turned out to have a connected hotel that Steph had booked - Steph and John appeared soon after at the pub/hotel - snitzel and beer for everyone, hooray! May 6, biked 40 km from Hausem im Tal to Mengen. Stayed at an expensive hotel at an airport- some local guide showed us the way via car and insisted we stay there.

Lost bags and Blizzards

Arrived in Zurich around 8 am May 2. Two boxes of gear didn’t arrived at the baggage carousel - of course. Our box included all the panniers, Kaya’s clothes, the girls clothes, bike tools/parts, stove, etc. Steph and John were missing their tent and clothes. Without our panniers, we could’t build our bikes, so we loaded the bike boxes onto two trains to Tuttlingen. It was a bit awkward carrying 5 bike    boxes around, but we managed. We only blocked off one coffee cart and had a weird interaction with the coffee cart guy. Got to the hotel ok and built the bikes on May 3 in the heated garage of the hotel while listening to AC:DC on John’s phone - nice. May 4 we took the train to Geisingen with the bikes - meant to get off at Donaueschingen, but got off too early. Rode 16 km into Donaueschingen to check out the source of the river - a small groundwater spring. Had a beer after seeing the spring - started snowing hard - biked 3 hours in a full on blizzard back to Tuttlingen; was cold and underdressed. Patti was super tough and barely complained ~ 52 km biking day.