On Monday morning, we set off from Vienna towards Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Although it’s quite feasible to reach Bratislava in a single day’s ride, we thought it would be more to our liking to stop in the Austrian town of Hainburg for the night instead, and ride the last 15 km into Bratislava …
Vienna
Vienna is the biggest city we’ve been in so far, so I was a bit overwhelmed by all the crowds and the transit system. Nevertheless, the first night we made it in plenty of time to figure out how to get to the opulent Musikverein concert hall for a performance by the Wiener Mozart Orchester …
More Austrian Danube
The last few days, we continued riding down the Austrian Danube, again switching from one bank to the other of the river in search of the best route, the most interesting sights, etc. Unlike the previous German section of the Danube, we were almost always riding on paved surfaces, either bicycle trails or very lightly-traveled …
Into Austria
We made it into Austria this morning, and noticed several differences right away. The river valley is closed in on both sides of the river, leaving little room for roads, bike paths and towns. The railroads have disappeared, and the bike path is nice and smoothly paved, with very little car traffic. We’ve noticed an …
More German Danube
In the last few days, we have been continuing down the German stretch of the Danube river. A few highlights and notes… Zach’s GPS is working again — apparently the problem had to do with where he had put the phone. In his pocket it works; in his bike bag, not so much. So we …
Random Observations from Ingolstadt
Mountain Biking on the Sat-R-Day A fair amount of the riding we have done has been on unpaved trails, something we don’t encounter much at home. Zach doesn’t have much trouble with the gravel, but on my 2-wheeler that’s not really made for mountain biking, if the gravel is deep it’s a bit unstable. I’m …
Along the Danube
The Danube is the second longest river in Europe, and runs from the Black Forest in Southern Germany all the way to the Black Sea. We are planning to ride only as far as Budapest in Hungary. There is some debate on where the Danube actually begins, but the official source is located in Donaueschingen. …
Into Germany
On the third day riding north from Elsau, we finally reached the start of the Danube bike route. We rode north from Elsau to reach the Bodensee in Steckborn. Riding in Switzerland is fun, and as we were following a national cycle route, we didn’t have any trouble figuring out where to go. We saw …
Exhausted but here!
We had a rather long first day of the trip. After the 4:45 AM cab ride to SeaTac Airport, we flew to JFK airport in New York, and from there to Zurich, arriving at around 8:30 AM the next morning, which was about 11:30 PM Seattle time. Neither of us managed more than a few …
We’re on our way
After all the preparation and packing, the departure date has finally arrived. We’re off to Europe! Expected arrival time in Zurich at about 7:35AM local time Thursday. We’ll unpack the bikes, ride to nearby Winterthur, and hopefully the next blog post will be from Europe.
Packing the Scorpion
Even though the HP Velotechnik Scorpion Fx is a folding trike, its still a bit large and unwieldy, so some additional dissassembly is required in order to make a small enough package for airline travel. I was able to purchase a large double-walled box from the UPS Store (30″ x 30″ x 30″), which I …
Adjustments
Not being 22 any more (the age I was in 1988 when I took my first loaded bicycle tour), I decided I’d better get in shape before our upcoming cycling trip. So around the beginning of the summer, I started cycling more, and I’m very glad I did it — I wanted to enjoy the …
Shakedown Cruise
We decided we needed to take a Shakedown Cruise to make sure all our equipment was working as planned. So, after looking at some old local guidebooks, we settled on a loop trip through Snohomish, since neither of us had ever biked past Bothell or Lynnwood in that direction. This would give us a chance …
Getting ready
Zach and I are preparing for a 6 week bicycle adventure in central Europe in September (stay tuned for more details): Today’s task was setting up this blog, so our interested friends and family can follow our trip if they want to. We’ve been talking about routes, getting maps, etc. over the last few weeks …