May 28, 2024
Day 2 - Fürstenfeldbruck to Fleck near Lenggries
First, my gps was acting flaky today and not picking up a strong signal when in wooded areas. It dropped at least two miles off the total. I would tell you exactly how many, but my phone battery was running low after using it for navigation and it appears I left my usb iPhone chord at home and have only usb-c which doesn’t work with my power bank.
I would love to say I had a solid night of sleep. Certainly I got a quote immediate start to sleeping. In fact, I fell asleep writing the blog post and didn’t finish it until the next day. That may also occur with this post. I don’t know how I managed to stay awake long enough to write posts previous years. Maybe I’m just getting old and falling asleep earlier due to age? If that’s the case, by the time I’m 50 I may fall asleep before I finish my ride….
Hotel checkout was 11am. I set my alarm for around 10. I spent a few hours during the night wide awake. I probably should have spent those hours writing the blog, but alas. I woke up around 9:30 and took my time getting ready. I stopped by Lidl grocery nearby to get some food for breakfast and lunch. My route for today didn’t pass through much of note for towns. While I probably could find food along the way, I figured I could save time doing it all at once. Unlike in the US, no one interviewed me about my bike while I stood in the parking lot eating my breakfast.
Due to the navigational issues inherent in the tiny screen of my gps and the lack of map detail, I tried using my phone. At first I was getting turn by turn directions from ridewithgps, but it kept saying to turn when really there was no turn. After awhile it stopped yelling at me altogether. I still ended up taking multiple scenic detours. After awhile I loaded the route to my gps and turned off the phone navigation. It was eating battery and, as mentioned earlier, I somehow didn’t manage to bring the right cable for charging it. I did plan to bring that cable, but obviously I forgot before it made it into the bags.
I actually used google maps navigation to get me from the hotel to the start of my route. Unlike all other forms of navigation, Google did not lead to me getting lost.
My route involved primarily paved rural riding. I tried to avoid populated areas as much as possible while also avoiding gravel. A lesson well learned from last year. I skirted the south side of München through forests and fields. And hills. I like the northeast side of München where it is flat, the south side is hilly. I didn’t attempt to get near the Ammersee or Starnberger See. In fact, I stayed as far away from Starnberg as possible. I still have nightmares about Starnberg.
Along the way I had some minor adventures. I passed a large pen of chickens for instance. I stopped briefly to take a photo of them and they all came running over to check me out. Then I pulled ahead and discovered a randomly placed porta potty so I stopped to commune. The chickens ran over to the other side of the pen to check me out. I also encountered a jerk of a driver. I was riding on the nice wide Radweg and came to a road crossing. A driver from the main road decided to turn across the Radweg just as j was about to cross. I shook my head at him. So what did he do? He stopped right in the middle of the road blocking me so he could roll down his window and call me a stupid ass for shaking my head at him. I have consulted my German cycle experts and have been informed that the cyclist should have the right of way here. Clearly the guy felt the need to defend his own idiocy. And here I thought only Americans were that rude. It appears we have passed our cyclist hating ways on to Europeans as well. Pity. I was still annoyed by that when I managed to take a turn into completely the opposite direction in a town I no longer recall the name of. I’d check my map for today, but I took multiple wrong turns so that wouldn’t help narrow it down much. As I was stopped contemplating the reality that I had to go up the steely hill I had just congratulated myself for bypassing by taking a previous wrong turn, a lady came walking up. She was quite excited by my velomobile. We had a short and throughly pleasant conversation about the hill (she knew it well from a few years ago when she still rode e-bike). She said she stopped riding because it didn’t feel safe anymore. Then she noted that with my bike being safe and visible was not a problem because it’s so big and brightly colored. I’ve never had anyone say that. usually they think it’s unsafe. This woman clearly has a much higher IQ than the idiot driver. The chat with her did partly restore my faith in Germans.
The hill wasn’t that bad a hill. They always look so steep, but then you get riding and find it’s actually fine. Just slow. My route led through more forest and fields to the Isar River. I had a very steep and twisty descent down to the river. That, of course, is when it decided to rain again, fairly hard. It is a special experience to have a cold breeze with hard rain pelting your face as descending. Sensible rider that I am, I kept my speed in check during the descent for safety purposes on the wet road. And also to preserve my poor face. At the bottom I came to a Kloster with a barn across the road with a large overhang. I parked myself there and “stopped for lunch.” I took my time eating and let the rain pass. It took well over 30 minutes, but it was much more pleasant when I got started again.
I followed a lot of the Isar Radweg. Some stretches were along the Isar canal, others through more fields and forests. I diyed portions of the route to make sure I stayed kn paved surfaces. The further south I rode, the more I could see the mountains, some of which not surprisingly had snow on them. Outside of Bad Tölz I encountered the longest and steepest climb of the day, 1.6 miles with 350+ feet of elevation gain. It was a totally manageable climb and led to a very nice downhill cruise after it into Bad Tölz. I once again managed to take a wrong turn and ended up getting honked at a couple times by a very impatient bus driver as I tried to figure out how I went wrong. Turns out I should not have crossed the bridge and instead needed to get on the not very obvious bike path on the other side of the Isar River.
The bike path ended on the outskirts of Bad Tölz. I needed to go up a hill under a bridge where I again managed to go the opposite way of what I needed to go. There i met a couple out walking their dog. The dog was not sure what to think of my bike, so we let him check it out. He was a friendly dog and I rewarded his good behavior with a mic sheas scratch. I got up the hill in the correct direction finally and then turned wrong once again. In the end, my detours proved quite pointless because I had to join the main road anyway. A strange routing decision on my part.
Further down the road I had yet another pointless climb into the hills to avoid the main road. Partway into that I bailed and road back down to the main road. It and so little traffic there was no point in being up in the hills. I had knee final inexplicable wrong turn shortly before my hotel. I met a local lady while I was sorting out my route who was fascinated by my bike. She was out cycling as well and shared some info about my route ahead. From there it was a very short ride to my hotel where I have a lovely warm room and a big dinner. Then I promptly took a nap. I have amazingly stayed awake to the end of this blog entry, but I am fading fast!
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Tomorrow? Tomorrow it is supposed to rain again. If I can see the mountains, it should be a scenic ride.
sorry, no map upload. I don’t carry a computer sue to the extra weight and will have to add maps when I get home.
Today's ride: 58 miles (93 km)
Total: 93 miles (150 km)
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On my phone it's a bit of a hassle to select the embed code then copy it, but it can be done. Don't expect the map, or pretty much anything else, to be actually usable during this process: there just isn't enough screen real estate on a phone for RWGPS to do what it needs to do, but the embed code is accessible.
5 months ago
5 months ago