Day 3 - Anger to Zell am See - The Great Bavarian Velomobile Adventure

May 29, 2023

Day 3 - Anger to Zell am See

I hate gravel

I knew coming into today that it would be on the more challenging end of things. However, 53 miles seemed like a very reasonable distance. After all, I do that much mileage in a couple hours on a Saturday afternoon every weekend. Read on to find out just how wrong I was….

Accommodations last night were exceptional, minus a couple mosquitos that got into the room. It was a nice little vacation apartment with a kitchen, living area, separate bedroom, and bathroom. The view out the porch was quite inspiring. It’s a place that I would gladly return to and do day rides from in the area. There is really only one place in town to eat, but it’s a pizza place that makes an outstanding crust.

I was determined to start the ride at a reasonable hour this morning in order to get it done earlier in the day, especially since Zell am See was projected to get rain around 5pm.

Leaving Anger involved a nice fast bit of downhill on nice pavement. The mountains were beautiful, the cows were happy behind their fence, and all was well, aside from the fact that nothing was open for breakfast due to the holiday. Departure was around 10am after stopping at a bench near the square in Anger to eat some granola bars for breakfast.

Bad Reichenhall was the target to acquire food. It was largely successful, although the bakery assortment was a bit sparse, probably due to the holiday. The catch was that despite arriving around noon in Bad Reichenhall, departure from there was rather delayed. It wasn’t just the cobbled streets and photo opportunities. It was rather the magnetic effect of my velomobile. Red is an attractive color and based on the number of people flocking to see it and ask questions, I feel quite confident that the choice of red will help substantially with visibility. Velomobile World got a LOT of free advertising today.

My velomobile crossing the Salzach, the river the route today follows

On one of the pedestrian streets in Bad Reichenhall. This location is where the most interviews were conducted.

Honestly, so many people were asking about the bike that I think a dealership needs to be opened here

Rathaus, Bad Reichenhall, with a very sexy bike

Outside Bad Reichenhall I made a navigational error that led to riding on the wrong side of the river. This turned out to be a very good thing because it must have recently been paved. It was a lovely place to ride being wooded and somewhat curvy, kind of like a roller coaster.

Had the whole path been like the paved section, today would have been velomobile paradise again. Unfortunately, someone decided not to pave a 10 mile chunk of the Tauern Radweg. I knew this going into today, but had forgotten over the years how hilly and rocky the unpaved portion is and only remembered the excellent scenery. The spots I remember best, partly because photos of them are framed and mounted on my living room walls, were all in the area near Bad Reichenhall. I stopped a lot for photos, for obvious reasons.

The gravel section was also much longer than I remembered. Apparently I’ve blocked out a lot of painful memories. I made some new painful memories today that should not be repeated. Gravel is awful to ride a recumbent on. It is horrific to ride a velomobile on. It was agonizingly slow going, sometimes having to get out and push up the small steep hills due to loss of rear traction. I made it up most of them, but at an absolute snails pace. It must have taken a good three hours to get through the gravel. Never again. Yes, it was pretty, but that poor bike. I can’t believe it survived.

A lot of misery went into acquiring these nice photos

Thankfully the gravel didn’t go on forever. The ride sped up quite a bit after the gravel. The path was pretty up and down and felt like a roller coaster. That was fun. Some areas of pavement were better than others. That meant keeping a watchful eye out while whizzing up and down. However, even on the flatter sections I still wasn’t getting good speed. I had forgotten it was all uphill, minus those short little downhill bits. I just kept reminding myself to enjoy the scenery.

Some of the towns seem to have grown since I was last through here. The signage doesn’t seem as easy to follow as last time either. I did remember quite a lot of the path. Some of it is not quite as smooth as before, but it was still a really nice ride. It wasn’t very fast riding though. More time to enjoy the scenery.

Daylight was fading and still there were 20 miles to go. It was rather disheartening. 50 miles at home goes very fast. 50 miles of gravel, rough pavement, tight turns, wrong turns, and all manner of other things, does not go fast. More time to soak in the scenery, but it did start getting a bit chilly around 8pm as the sun disappeared behind the mountains.

It was a great relief to arrive at the Pension for the night at 8:30pm. I knew gravel would be tough in a velomobile, but I had no idea it would be this bad. So word of advice: if you want to see gorgeous mountains but the path is gravel, use a mountain bike. For everything else, a velomobile is ideal.

The bike survived the day. I mostly survived. Tomorrow is a hiking day so the bike gets a rest and a chance to air out the stink from having me in it sweating away for several days.

Today's ride: 53 miles (85 km)
Total: 148 miles (238 km)

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