Sept. 10, Bad Goegging, Germany

Well folks, I sunk to a new low today. I bought some instant coffee. It was that or go completely without tomorrow morning, and I am WAY past the level of caffine addiction where I can skip a cup in the morning, A friend of a friend is coming to ride the Danube path in a few days and is bringing me some more Ozo’s. Until then, I will just try to get by.

Yesterday left me spending the night in a campground without any wifi, and my phone signal didn’t quite cut it either. So , I will try to summarize yesterday as well as today. I got a fairly late yesterday start owing to a number of things, and hoped to go 80 km. It was a difficult frustrating ride, because construction projects made it necessary to divert the cycle traffic.

I am using 3 different forms of navigation. I have these maps in a book form, which also serve as guide books. I have a GPX app on my phone with nearly the same route. And, the bike paths themselves have signs saying “Danube Bike Path.” When a section of the route is closed off, they tend to put a piece of tape across the road signs, along with another sign saying the direction you are to go instead. I encountered one of these and took off along a really nice quiet road through the countryside. After a while, I came to a small village and the newly posted signs directed me back along the original route–but going the wrong way, according to my GPS.

At each juncture, they will have a pair of signs, because you never know which direction someone is riding along the path. You see the problem? I could have easily been directed to ride in a circle! So, I decided to go with the original route, as directed by my GPS. What I didn’t appreciate was that there were multiple construction projects that needed to be avoided, so indeed, the direction of travel was temporarily reversed along this one part.

After a while, I ended up on a trail where weeds were hanging over the sides–not a good sign, because that means not very much cycle traffic. And, eventually, I came to a fence blocking the way. The German equivalent of the Army Core of Engineers was overhauling a big section of the bank along the river. As a result, I had to back track quite a ways and wasted a few miles. The detour route was quite steep and I ended up pushing my bike for quite a while. After the detour, I came to another small town that had a very interesting main street:

Neat main street

The rest of the ride was flat, and I kept up a speed of 20 km/hour for the next 30 km, and got to the camping place by about 6:00 PM. It was one of the over-priced places, but I met an interesting fellow from Holland who was touring on a motorcycle. He showed me some pictures of Romania and made me really want to go there.

This morning I spent working, so I did not get on the road until about 1:00 PM. I asked the campground manager for the directions, because I needed to be on the other side of the river and I did not want to backtrack. He gave me direction to a small pedestrian bridge that did not exist; I am not sure what he was thinking about. The route he had me take took me near a military area; I went past a couple of signs that said “Warning, bla, bla, bla.” I didn’t stop to translate them, because, hey, he asked me to go this way, right? Eventually, I ended up on this really wide concrete road that paralleled the south side of the river.  I didn’t see anyone, but the road was covered with tank tracks! I kept trying to find the bridge, but ended up getting out of there. Before leaving, however, I spotted this sign:

Universal sign for a carwash in Europe.

Much of today’s ride had me going along an elevated flood wall, so I had a good view of the river for quite a while.

On top of the flood wall

I had to quit today after only 30 km. 3 km  down the road is where the path takes you on a ferry ride for a few miles. I missed the last one of the day by about 15 minutes. No worries; I got some more work done and will hit it first thing tomorrow. I have another 100 km until I arrive in Deggindorf, where I am giving a lecture. And, I have two days to do that, which should be easy.

Cheers!

Scott