Ready, Steady, Go!

Day 1 64.5 km

The tour rep came at 9 and went over the route with us. We didn’t realize until much later how very sketchy and short that orientation was. We were left to find out too much on our own and wasted a lot of time doing so. We spent an hour, precious time as it turned out, with her then set off. We were all excited because, for the first time, we put on all our biking gear and felt very Lance Armstrong-y, as well as a little ridiculous.
How exciting it was to actually be on a bike path, in Europe! The weather was sunny and beautiful , we biked past newly-mown fields with hay gathered into huge rolls (haystacks are a thing of the past it seems!), and sometimes the path wound through the fields. It all felt so good that Charo broke into song! However, after 18 kms of leisurely biking, we consulted our maps and discovered that we had 50 kms more to go. That sobered us up quick. We managed to get some quick sight-seeing in and a nice lunch outdoors. All our meals would be outdoors because the weather was so great. The thighs started feeling the kilometers, though, and the buttocks ... they were burning. At a coffee-break stop we noticed a group of people we had noticed at the start; they had come the same distance as us and were on their way to Aschach, as well. There was a big difference in gear, though: they were in leather shoes and skirts, as if they were going to the mall. No helmets, either. “We’re Dutch,” they explained and, having just come from Amsterdam, I understood.

We arrived at our hotel at last, dying for a hot bath. The hotel was picturesque and actually had a monastic feel, especially the steep stairs. But oops, no elevators and our room was on the 2nd floor (meaning 3 flights of stairs), and – desesperacion! – the bikes had to be hung up on hooks high above my head. There was a healthy, strong-looking young man behind the desk who didn’t lift a finger because, as he said, it was a gasthof not a hotel so we couldn’t expect service. Thank goodness Val was so helpful and so strong. She helped us all with the lifting and dragging and hauling. All of this after having biked 70 kms! That night: Alaxan, stretching, and early to bed.