Day 12 - Starnberger See to Peiting - The Great Bavarian Velomobile Adventure

June 7, 2023

Day 12 - Starnberger See to Peiting

Mission: Abort!

First, if you want to read only positive uplifting things, just skip past this post. Actually, if you want only sunshine and roses, this is probably not the journal for you. When it’s good, I will say it’s good. When it’s not, I’m going to be honest. Cycle touring is not always wonderful, even if the pictures make it look glamorous.

My runny nose was somewhat less troublesome last night. I took that as a positive sign. Checkout ran up to 11am as well, so I opted to rest in bed until around 9:30. The accommodations didn’t offer an official breakfast, though they did have a cheap packaged pastry available. As I was loading things into the bike, I thought I’d check out that fancy new massive idler. There wasn’t an opportunity to do that last night, nor to ride it. Turns out the idler is literally touching the back of the seat. This seemed less than ideal, especially since the idler should theoretically be spinning freely, at least in my uneducated opinion. That precipitated a phone call to Nici and an exchange of messages with another expert source to determine if I should go ahead and ride with it as is. I was advised to see how it goes. Worst case, the seat has a vent hole in it. So ok then….

I managed to leave the hotel in entirely the wrong direction, and up an unnecessary hill. This confused my already normally confused gps. I further confused it by making up my own route into Starnberg to obtain breakfast and a view of the famous lake. I did finally locate an unobstructed view, only possible by walking my bike under the train tracks and along the promenade. I sat by the lake and enjoyed my sandwich. The only thing was, by the time I dealt with the idler situation and found a view of the lake, it was lunchtime.

There are these sort of canals in Starnberg. Probably so the affluent summer residents can get their boats out on the lake from the convenience of their back yard

It was challenging to get a photo angle without people in it

There was an older guy busy feeding the birds that kept unintentionally trying to photobomb

And then the kids coming up and touching it

Even here there are people in the picture. There are people everywhere in Starnberg

Following lunch, I attempted to leave Starnberg. Here is where things became especially troublesome. The streets are a veritable maze full of cars with over-privileged drivers. It reminded me a bit too much of home, especially when I got honked at by the car behind me when I waited at an intersection for a fire truck I heard coming. I’d say it went downhill from there, but I don’t want to confuse you. You most definitely must go uphill to leave Starnberg for the Ammersee. The trouble is getting to your selected road. I went the wrong direction numerous times, sometimes going uphill, sometimes going downhill. Sometimes I got out and just walked along the sidewalk to try and get to the street my route was on. At one point I was stopped by an older lady who was fascinated by the bike and then proceeded to regale me with her tails of marathons she had run. She certainly looked fit enough to be running marathons.

Mercifully I finally found my desired street. It definitely went uphill. VERY uphill. Possibly the steepest uphill of the trip. I think I had to get out and push at one point, but honestly I’m already trying to block out the painful memories of Starnberg. Then there was a stretch of narrow gravel trail through woods, a foot bridge I had to get out and push across, some more steep uphill, an awkward transition out of the wooded trail through a condo parking lot, and finally I was free of Starnberg. It was now somewhere around 2pm I think?

The ride to the Ammersee involves a fairly nice paved trail alone the main road. Given the traffic I road in yesterday, I opted for the quieter trail instead of watching my mirrors as cars and trucks approach quickly, hit their brakes, and then floor it to pass me. I’m on vacation. If I want that kind of riding experience, I would have just stayed home. The ride down the last descent was relatively quick and simple, save a construction zone that interrupted a nice downhill to the lake. The Ammersee, at least on the south end, is not quite as exciting as the Starnberger See. It mostly featured sun bathers and a lot of mosquitoes. It’s been a wet start to the year here and the mosquito population is booming.

At this point I was starting to calculate how many miles were left, upcoming elevation gains, and remaining daylight. I’ve been getting in later than ideal most every day this tour. I don’t really like that. It would be nice to relax during the evening. Things were starting to look questionable, so I put my head down and starting riding.

Views from the less painful part of the ride

No time to stop for photos. Shoot and ride.

Another wrong turn, some rough gravel, but so far it was mostly reasonable elevation. And then the big climb hit. I knew it was coming. I saw it when I planned the route. On paper 800ft doesn’t seem so bad. At first it was manageable, although the occasional overtaking auto was annoying. The climb kept going. And going. Then it got steeper. 13%. For an extended period. I pulled over in a shady spot, dripping with sweat and utterly miserable. This wasn’t fun. What was I thinking when I planned this? Then I remembered I’ve been climbing a lot slower since the runny nose hit. Well that explained the dramatic performance drop. I looked at the clock. 4:30pm. I was only 25 miles into a 56 mile day. While this was the toughest and longest climb of the day, it was not the only one coming up. In fact, I was now entering the foothills of the alps, not exactly a good place to ride a velomobile quickly.

I did some serious thinking while sitting there in the shade. It did not seem realistic to get to Rieden am Forggensee before sundown. Yes, I have bright lights and could ride at night, but I didn’t want to do that. This is a vacation. It is supposed to be fun. I called tourist information in Schongau and got the numbers for a couple hotels. I opted for one in Peiting, a more manageable 36 miles for the day. They had a room for about the same price as the one I had reserved. It took several calls, but I finally reached the accommodations I had originally booked, explained the situation, and was able to cancel. Bless their hearts, they offered to come get me, but I explained I had a velomobile that probably wouldn’t fit very well in their car. They were very understanding. So that was that. The big planned second loop was out the window, done in by Starnberg, a rubbing idler, and a great big hill which didn’t even have a nice view at the top.

The scenery was nice, but not quite enough to make up for the suffer fest

The hill did finally end. From there it was a series of smaller ups and a couple short descents. The worst was when I got sucked in by a new piece of bike path. The main road had hardly any traffic, but that brand new tarmac was just too tempting. At first I ended up off the edge of it, cursed my carelessness, and got back on for the descent. Then the trail turned off away from the main road. It was still descending so I went with it. Big mistake. The trail made a sudden right turn. I hit the brakes, checked my gps, and discovered I had gone downhill now in entirely the wrong direction. That meant getting out, turning around, and going back up the hill. At this point I was so done with hills. I just pushed the bike.

Germany: you need to pee? Too bad. We padlock our porta potties.

Once back on top, it was a series of stretches of bad trail, awkward turns through construction, a railroad crossing I had to get out and push the bike around, some wrong turns on the streets of Peiting, and finally my hotel.

Once in my room, I headed straight for the shower. That’s when I discovered I’d managed to leave my bottle of shampoo at the previous hotel. I used the hotel hand soap as a replacement. Then I managed to dump most of the container all over the sink. This was clearly not my day, but at the same time, so many things were going wrong that it was almost comical.

The pink is the soap I managed to dump all over the sink

I did manage to finish showering, eat supper without choking on my food, wash out my stinky clothes, and write this blog without accidentally starting any fires, natural disasters, or world wars, at least so far as I know, so that’s a plus. And it didn’t rain today.

So where to now? Probably north towards Augsburg loosely following the Via Claudia Augusta bike route. It’s not exactly exciting, but it is flatter. I think I’ve gotten enough mountains for this trip. Certainly I’ve done enough elevation gain. I need to find a way around Augsburg. I want no part of heavy traffic or a big city. Then I’ll head to Donauwörth and somehow cut back to München.

And what of the rubbing idler? Eventually it will make a sort of groove in the seat and stop rubbing. For now it seems to more or less work, though I suspect some power would be lost to the rubbing, rather negating any potential benefit from the massive idler. The developer says I just need a new seat that is more forward and won’t rub. I do need to install a different seat because the current one doesn’t really fit that well. I’m having a tough time seeing over the hood and keep hitting imperfections in the road. The shape doesn’t work very well for me either. At some point the full contingent of seats will be done for this velomobile and the main ones will be sent to me for use with test rides. At that time I’ll find the one that fits me the best and get it installed in a better spot. All part of the risk of ordering a bike sight unseen. The Bülk that was with me has a more easily adjustable seating setup that I personally prefer, especially for test rides, but this developer has a strong view on the seat being part of the structure of the velomobile. His design, his choice, but it does come with some downsides in my opinion. I’m sure he feels there are downsides to the Bülk seat as well.

The VERY large idler. No idea how many watts this is supposed to save, but if it enhanced my performance today, i quake at the thought of how slow I would otherwise have been….

Today's ride: 36 miles (58 km)
Total: 411 miles (661 km)

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