70kms-on-the-bike-with-Ernst
27th April
I went and bought special cycle shorts today for my sore bum that is suffering from too much cycle sitting. This afternoon I will cycle for a few hours with Ernst – my doctor friend. Then on the weekend we have a 2 day cycle trip with the Wespel family in the Alps south of Munich.
Now I do some guitar playing.
I meet Ernst at 1.45 beside the fountain in the middle of Eisenharz. Off we go, towards Lindau – the peninsula town on Lake Bodensee (Lake Constance). This section is about 40 kms and a vertical drop of about 200 metres. Ernst is a passionate cycle tourer who rides when ever he can and knows this area of Germany intermitly. We use no map. Ernst knows all the great little back roads and bike tracks. We swoop across country – 40 kms – over hills – through fields and forests –through beautiful Allgau in spring. At this time of the year last year, the ground here was still snow covered. This year is completely different.
As we ride we talk – in English. A welcome relief for me and Ernst enjoys the English practise. We talk about the countryside, changes to the local towns, global warming, and mortality.
In Lindau, we buy tickets for the train to Oberstaufen and then spend the next 40 minutes wandering the streets of this most civilised town on the edge of this most civilised lake. We sit and eat ice-cream. Thunder and lightning crash over Bregenz, the next city around the lake shore and in Austria.
The train ride is a great way to make ground up hill. And as we ride the heavens bucket down. We weave and wind, always uphill between the hills.
In Oberstaufen we alight and walk through the old town to the “Blue House” for tea and a shared cake. Outside we get a German tourist to take a photo of the two of us with bikes.
Ernst then leads us on a tortuous but great way home. Often on shingle tracks, beside rivers or streams, through forests, the occasional little climb, hardly ever on a car road. We look behind to see the Hochgrat/FAlken ridge that Zita and I walked yesterday. There is a final 10% slope to ride up – about 100 metres height gain – before the final 5 kms back to Eisenharz.
A fantastic 70 kms altogether. A special and close time for me and Ernst – great to share this time and talking and experience together. We hug each other with a brief but heart felt farewell. I ride the 5 minutes home – grateful.
The new padded hosen (shorts) I have bought this morning and worm today seem to have done the trick.
Zita arrives home an hour later and we have dinner.
Now I do some guitar playing.
I meet Ernst at 1.45 beside the fountain in the middle of Eisenharz. Off we go, towards Lindau – the peninsula town on Lake Bodensee (Lake Constance). This section is about 40 kms and a vertical drop of about 200 metres. Ernst is a passionate cycle tourer who rides when ever he can and knows this area of Germany intermitly. We use no map. Ernst knows all the great little back roads and bike tracks. We swoop across country – 40 kms – over hills – through fields and forests –through beautiful Allgau in spring. At this time of the year last year, the ground here was still snow covered. This year is completely different.
As we ride we talk – in English. A welcome relief for me and Ernst enjoys the English practise. We talk about the countryside, changes to the local towns, global warming, and mortality.
In Lindau, we buy tickets for the train to Oberstaufen and then spend the next 40 minutes wandering the streets of this most civilised town on the edge of this most civilised lake. We sit and eat ice-cream. Thunder and lightning crash over Bregenz, the next city around the lake shore and in Austria.
The train ride is a great way to make ground up hill. And as we ride the heavens bucket down. We weave and wind, always uphill between the hills.
In Oberstaufen we alight and walk through the old town to the “Blue House” for tea and a shared cake. Outside we get a German tourist to take a photo of the two of us with bikes.
Ernst then leads us on a tortuous but great way home. Often on shingle tracks, beside rivers or streams, through forests, the occasional little climb, hardly ever on a car road. We look behind to see the Hochgrat/FAlken ridge that Zita and I walked yesterday. There is a final 10% slope to ride up – about 100 metres height gain – before the final 5 kms back to Eisenharz.
A fantastic 70 kms altogether. A special and close time for me and Ernst – great to share this time and talking and experience together. We hug each other with a brief but heart felt farewell. I ride the 5 minutes home – grateful.
The new padded hosen (shorts) I have bought this morning and worm today seem to have done the trick.
Zita arrives home an hour later and we have dinner.
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