Day 9 - Königsee to Eggstätt - The Great Bavarian Velomobile Adventure

June 4, 2023

Day 9 - Königsee to Eggstätt

FYI, most photos today were shot while cycling, as in actually in motion. Sorry if they turned out blurry.

Today was the day to start back to München to ship the Bülk (hopefully) to the US. Rater than attempt to do the whole 110 miles in one go, I split it into two days. Frankly, with the varying riding conditions and the confusing nature of trying to follow my Garmin gps and it’s small screen, 55 miles is about as far as is reasonable in a day right now anyway.

Today started out with leaving Schönau am Königsee. Getting over there from Berchtesgaden was a chore. Riding back out was a piece of cake. Traffic was very low on the Bundesstrasse today and it’s mainly downhill into Berchtesgaden. It was a very quick ride. To leave Berchtesgaden in the direction of Bad Reichenhall you have the option to go uphill, very uphill, or VERY steeply uphill. I chose uphill. It ended up being a much gentler climb than anticipated. In fact, cycling infrastructure heading into Bad Reichenhall was quite good. Things moved along at a reasonable pace compared to previous days. I was hopeful of arriving at a decent time for once.

Bad Reichenhall also ended up going quite well. Last time through took a couple hours between stopping at a bakery and getting ice cream and the hoards if interested people. This time the route bypassed the city center and lead out of town quite quickly. Now things were really looking promising.

I don’t really know where these pictures are from and I’m too tired to look it up

Then the climbing hit. I knew it was coming. I’d seen it when reviewing the elevation profile the previous night, but I didn’t quite grasp the challenging nature of it. It was one demoralizing climb after the other. Then I honked somewhere between Teisendorf and Traunstein, and I honked hard. For those of you not up on cycling jargon, bonking is when your energy supply drops so low that you just can’t keep going. I didn’t want to ride anymore. I wanted a nap. So I stopped at the bottom of a weirdly chased cycling bridge in Traunstein and add a bretzel and some cucumbers. I thought I was doing good with my nutrition for the day. I ate a container of blueberries, several snack size cucumbers, and a couple fruit bars. I have just been informed by a medical professional that these items are very low in calories. This would explain a few things. It also happens that these items make up a large portion of my normal diet. That might be why I’m frequently hungry and kinda skinny.

The fact that I was at the funny shaped bridge was also because I once again missed a turn trying to follow my gps. I’ve never had so much trouble following it. I’m not sure why it’s been a major issue this trip. Or maybe I have this issue regularly and just don’t have to frequently get out of a velomobile to get back on track. Whatever the reason, it complicated the act of leaving Traunstein. I opted to follow the river on the way out thinking it would avoid a big climb. Hahaha. Silly me. I don’t think you can get out of Traunstein without climbing, at least not if you are heading for the Chiemsee. That climb was rather demoralizing too. I even had to pause to rest partway up.

After that things did start to improve though. The calories from the bread must have finally started to process because I was able to put out better power for the remainder of the ride. By now any hope of getting in before 6pm was gone, but at least I had the energy again to enjoy the flatter riding.

There were hoards of mosquitos at this spot on the Chiemsee. It was the only photo I attempted to take

Partway around the Chiemsee, my route directed to join the main road. While waiting to pull onto the road, what should come by, but a homemade velomobile and rider. I have no idea what his name was, but he is from Bergen and built a reverse tadpole velomobile. It is the only time I’ve met a velomobile on the road anywhere by coincidence. He was doing a loop around the Chiemsee, but was smart enough to do it on the main road rather than use any of the gravel path.

I regret having ridden any of the gravel path around the Chiemsee today. I’m routing less and less onto bike paths and routes. While I like the peaceful riding, it’s pretty slow going with the velomobile. I am well aware of that fact. At home I almost never use bike trails because they just don’t work well with Velomobiles. I did find one stretch that was nice to ride today, the very final stretch. A nice smooth and wide bike path leading to Eggstätt. It really wasn’t necessary to ride it because there really wasn’t any traffic anyway. The struggle is that for touring I like to ride the really quiet paths, listen to the sounds of nature, take my time, and be far away from traffic in the mountains. That’s not really velomobile territory for the most part. The route tomorrow will be more velomobile friendly as will the second part of the tour. I’m curious to see if I enjoy it as much. It may be that the areas that make for an enjoyable vacation for me are ones best ridden with my Azub Origami recumbent, and that’s okay.

Eggstätt is a very small town. It just happened to ne roughly at the halfway point of the return ride. The main restaurant in town is part of the hotel for tonight. As about the only option, they were fully booked. Thankfully there was one other option open tonight by the lake in town. The food was reasonably good regional cooking, and most importantly, it was calories.

I just found this sign amusing because they misspelled Parke. This is how my last name is spelled.

Tomorrow the loop for the first part of the trip lands back at Flughafen München where the Bülk will get packed up for an early morning flight. The route back is essentially a reverse of the route out which means it should trend downhill and end quite flat. Here’s hoping for a faster ride than today.

Oh, and I have a drippy nose. I’m hoping it doesn’t develop into anything significant. I haven’t come down with anything since a year or so before Covid. I’d rather not fight a cold for the end of my trip. It did clear up decently while riding today and hasn’t gotten any worse than some nasal drip.

Today's ride: 53 miles (85 km)
Total: 281 miles (452 km)

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