Day 13 - Peiting to Königsbrunn - The Great Bavarian Velomobile Adventure

June 8, 2023

Day 13 - Peiting to Königsbrunn

I was up until after midnight plotting out the revised route for today. I no longer have reservations anywhere except my last night, having cancelled the last of them today. I am now free to go wherever for however long. I can cut back to the hotel by the airport fairly quickly from where I am. Being in the near vicinity of the Lech, I decided it made a lot of sense to follow it north to the Donau. The valley here is reasonably wide and flat. Actually, not just flat, but ever so slightly downhill. Or so I thought….

Rather than push myself to get out the door early for some epic length ride, I took my time and full advantage of the 10:30am checkout. This is a vacation, after all. The breakfast buffet was a good one with a variety of exotic dried fruits and two flavors of yogurt. I fully availed myself of the variety, took my time packing up, and headed out of town. As I was riding along, a fireman was walking down the middle of the otherwise very empty street. Actually, the whole town seemed like they were still in bed. Odd. The fireman stopped me after doing a double-take and informed me I needed to turn around and take a different route out of the city center because there was about to be a profession. Bit odd for a Thursday, I thought. As I was riding past the stores on the outskirts of Peiting, I noticed they all seemed to be closed. Very strange for a Thursday.

It’s all downhill leaving Peiting for Schongau. I had a bad feeling about what might be coming next. Yep, it’s all uphill leaving Schongau. In fact, the route I took must have picked the steepest option out, and on a bike path no less. With a sharp 90 degree turn. Since I already had to get out to turn the bike, I figured I’d just push.

The route continued with the silly climbing elevation stuff for awhile before leveling out and finally giving me some flat riding. It was a refreshing change from the brutal hills the previous day. The oddities of the day continued with a long line of tractors, some quite vintage, driven by lederhosen wearing guys and dirndl wearing ladies. There were some vintage cars as well. Odd.

Then my route took me down a descent. I should have known to check the routing before descending near a river like that. Silly me. When I reached the bottom of the descent and crossed the Lech, I was met with a steep double digit climb of over 300 feet. My enthusiasm for climbing was lost when the drippy nose turned up, and yes, it’s still drippy when I’m not cycling. I stopped halfway up the climb to rest in the shade and verify I hadn’t done this to myself any other times today. I will not be making this mistake tomorrow. For one thing, I have quite a lot more time tonight to write a new route.

The climb did eventually end leaving me back up on the Lech bluffs with much flatter riding. My speeds improved quite a lot and in short order I arrived in Landsberg am Lech.

Landsberg is a nice little medieval town set into the river bluffs. It has a number of city gates, quite a lot of the original wall, and a scenic city center. I did not get many photos of the gates or wall because I was occupied with a descent to the river, but I did film some of it. In the city center I acquired three delicious and hard-earned scoops of ice cream: mango, melon, and coconut. My reward for suffering through 300 feet of climb.

It cuts such a fine figure in a scenic city square

It was a challenge getting photos because people kept getting in the way

This woman spent quite a bit of time looking at the bike

After Landsberg the valley opens up even wider and that’s where the good riding started. While I was stopped in Landsberg I reserved a hotel room in Königsbrunn on the south side of Augsburg. It seemed a reasonable destination for today, and would spare me fighting my way through Augsburg. I have to say that the riding between Landsberg and Augsburg is superb for a velomobile. It is the first time all trip that I’ve been able to cruise along. I was riding between 20 and 26+mph for probably about 110 watts. This is with way too much baggage weight and slow tires. I honestly should have put the fast tire on the rear before staring out today. I probably would have shaved a decent bit of time off the ride. The scenery was not bad at all, and there was almost no traffic. At times I saw more cyclists (mostly in my rear view mirrors) than I did cars. It turns out today is the Catholic holiday of Corpus Christi. Hence the procession, tractors, closed stores, and lack of traffic. Had I realized that prior to booking my hotel room, I would have worked my way through Augsburg today. It probably would have had much lighter traffic than it will tomorrow.

I was so preoccupied with riding fast that I have only this and one other photo for the remainder of the day

I arrive at my hotel shortly after 4pm, by far the earliest arrival of the entire trip. The last 25 miles I was averaging over 20mph, including one 5 mile stretch where I did 23.3mph. For how gently I was pedaling and how fatigued my legs are after yesterday, that’s a pretty good speed.

Tomorrow I will find a way around Augsburg and reach the Donau where the riding should also be quite flat. I’m not following the official Donau Radweg as it has an allergy to pavement. I, on the other hand, have an allergy to NOT pavement. I want more of what I had the last 25 miles today because I really enjoyed that.

Presently it is raining. There has been some thunder and possibly one bolt of lightning. Even so, it is merely sprinkling. I have had great luck with the weather and will return home with a classic velomobiel rider tan.

Today's ride: 46 miles (74 km)
Total: 457 miles (735 km)

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