Day 57: Obernberg (Austria) to Seibersdorf (Germany)

June 25, 2014

Yesterday a young cyclist came up beside us and said hello. Michal is from Prešov in the Slovak Republic but is cycling Bratislava to Venice. In due course he zoomed ahead, but as we know there is always the tortoise and the hare effect. So last night his tent was beside ours at the camping. Michal is 18, and we were impressed at how he Skyped his parents, and also spoke for a long time. This morning, he did it again. Cool. Mihel is a professional handball player with the team Tatran Prešov. Handball? Apparently yes. He is cycling for just two weeks of the one month break his team has. I asked him to eat a pizza in Italy for me!

Today we had two maintenance and repair projects with the bikes to attend to. One of them was specific to Dodie's bike, and she is here in the background lobbying for it to be covered first. In fact, since the thing came up yesterday, she is put out that it did not get introduced in the blog yesterday. What happened was that the gear cable for Dodie's front derailleur frayed and snapped. So that forced her for half of yesterday to have only the front "granny" gear in operation. Since Dodie is a granny (or grampie), that is not totally bad, but it still cramps one's style.

We do have one spare gear cable along, but it is an extra long "tandem" cable, needed to reach from Dodie's extra high handlebar down to her rear derailleur. We were not eager to use up this cable. Also, we judged cable cutters to be too heavy to include in our kit, so the cable would have ended with a coiled and troublesome couple of spare feet to deal with. We left the situation untended yesterday, but put finding a bike shop high on the list for today.

The crazy part is that I and Matthias from Fahrrad-Klinik we looking right at this part on Dodie's bike yesterday morning, and did not notice the problem. Anyway, the upcoming towns of Braunau and Simbach showed lots of bike shops on our maps. Sure enough, one was clever enough to put a sign out on the radweg - this was Radshop Obersberger which technically is in the town of Obersberg, rather tan Braunau. The sign also promised express service. It was true, they took Dodie's bike right away and put the cable in before we could even eat our sandwiches, which we did perched on our stools in their large bike storage area. We noticed that local people coming in for repairs were given pickup tickets for future dates, so clearly this bike shop had made a kindly decision to help out cyclists from the long distance path first. Nice.

Later, though, we discussed the cost - 16 euros, or about $CAN 25. At home, this would have been a $4 topic - buy the cable and pop it in (after fooling for a while with the fact that the cable always follows a funny path through a twist or a trigger shifter, plus making sure to get the tension right). But guess what - we are not at home, so $25 it is!

The other bike topic? Chains. After 2889km, our gauge said they were worn - so we bought new ones in Passau. It's a little messy and dirty to swap chains, so we were glad we were calmly at a good camping this morning. The old chains were not looking good - despite what we considered frequent applications of lube, they seemed dry and a touch rusty. We were using something we found recommended in a blog - Squirt dry lube. Maybe we just never used enough? There is 1/4 bottle left after the 2889 km and 56 days of use. Comments?

After talking with Mihel for just a bit and fooling with the chains (plus losing my 5mm hex key in the gravel), it was about 9:30 before we left the campground. Right across the street was a Spar market, so we got immediately sucked in to that. No pedalling happening! However, aside from the usual 20 pounds (just kidding!) of oatmeal, Dodie did find some good stuff in there. Two items seem most important (to me!). First, she found some Linzer schnitte. She got these in a bid to stem the whining about the Linzer torte we never found in Linz. And actually, these packaged schnitte were really good. Basically they are what we would call at home crostata, with a filling made from red berries (raspberry, or other) and hazelnut flavour.

The other thing was a four pack of Ritter Sport chocolate bars. These folks are amazing for quality, but also for having a zillion flavours. It seems every week we find some we have never seen before, and certainly never in North America.

I would hasten to add that the shopping cart also contained lots of real food, so this was not just all chocolate and pastry!

It was 10:30, then, before we got really under way. That is very unusual for us, but today our excuses are quite good.

We set off up the Inn, and found that although the path was "good enough" it lacked really interesting things to look at, had a sprinkling of pesky hills, and most notable - had too much gravel vs. paved surface. We are not really complaining here, it's just that we are not really wowed, either.

The weather contributed to some interest, if you can call it that, by switching repeatedly between hot sun and pelting rain. The main excitement came from the thunder. We would listen to it over to the right, and wonder if the storm was moving towards us or away. Then boom, here it would also be to the left. Usually with really loud thunder, and lightening, Dodie ducks into cover very quickly. A few times today, though, there was no cover. So that just means grin and bear it.

The threatening weather and distance to the next camping combined to make us think guest house. So when in the town of Seibersdorf we passed one with a posted rate out front of 45 euros, we sent me in to check it out. It was a nice place, but mysterious. I found two TVs going, a kitchen where cooking had been going on, and an unattended 3 year old and a 5 year old. I walked through the whole (extensive) place calling halloo, without any response. So I went back out and made my report. Dodie said, lets just carry on. But then a man drove up - not sure who he was- and instantly a lady appeared at the door. I took this as my opportunity to barge in, confirm the price and check on availability. The lady's response was hard to figure. She seemed to say she had no place, turned on her heel and disappeared through a door without further comment. I followed her, and made sure she understood I was talking about a double room, for one night. She seemed again to indicate there was no way, but began to fumble with some keys, and finally handed me one. I asked about where to put the bikes, and she gestured vaguely toward the side of the house.

To be clear, this is a large, real guest house - with advertising signs, business cards, large dining room, outside tables, etc. Of course, also to be clear, the interaction described is between two people whose language skills equal a one year old, on both sides. I hope that it is, but we are here really in the boonies. Perhaps foreigners are not really welcome, perhaps not those with Canadian flags on their bikes. There is a quite prominent framed memorial with individual portraits of soldiers from this town lost in 1939-45, in the hall of the house. There were a lot of them for such a small town. Dunno. Just feel uncomfortable.

The room itself, though, is great - everything we have come to see as German standard: marble steps leading upstairs, super quality bathroom fixtures and windows, fluffy duvets.

By the way, there are at least 40 rooms here. So far we have not seen another person, other than the lady and the man who drove up (and the three and five year old).

And oh, it did bucket down as we snugly ate our supper in our room, so choosing to be indoors worked out in one respect anyway.