The day starts with rain. A longer lie and a good breakfast saw us don full waterproofs and head off at 10:00 in spitting rain. We set off alongside the lake for a while following the D6 route into the town of Radholfzell. All would have been fine if we'd ignored the cycle sign to Tuttlingen which we followed warily instead of the Garmin which indicated a different direction. Should have trusted the Garmin! No more signs to Tuttlingen materialised and we ended up taking a very circuitous route through endless suburbs trying to get back to the next waypoint. Anne not happy as she likes signs and never trusts me to navigate. Unfailingly, trusting my Garmin, I got us back on route. Eventually. We continued (with signage!) with gentle gradients meeting a French couple also cycling to Vienna and also got lost in Radolfzell for the same reason! We diverged, then re-met again just as he took a puncture in his back tyre. I stopped to see if he needed help but he just seemed to give up. His tyre was worn out anyway; he assumed, without checking, that the valve area was ruptured; he didn't have an inner tube or repair kit and didn't seem inclined to set about fixing it anyway. My sympathy was much reduced when I saw the state of his kit and his lack of preparation (I carry 2x tubes (different size to him so I couldn't donate one) and a spare tyre, and loads of patches). Then it started to rain and he just seemed to want to push his bike instead, so we reluctantly left them to it. For pity's sake, he was towing a trailer so wasn't exactly short of space for spares! Don't know how they will get out of that fix because there's no cycle shop for miles; this stretch is pretty rural! Just into the village 1/2km from where we left them, the heavens absolutely opened and we took shelter in someone's front porch until it passed. The road flowed like a river and even after it backed off the rain continued varying between spitting and heavy.
At the very last village we passed through (Eigeltingen, at lunch time) we managed to find a flower cum coffee shop for coffee and delicious cake. A bakery provided some provisions for later on and then the climbing began. The hill went on forever and would have been unconcerning except for Anne's lack of bottom gear and flakey next-gear-up. And it was 100% humidity and getting warmer (but still raining). We met a young German cyclist who had cycled from Vienna in 4.1/2 days to this point. We didn't tell him we were taking 18 days for the same route. We eventually made it to the radio mast that we'd been hoping we'd go nowhere near and started the 3km plummet into Tuttlingen. After a pause for the consumption of the earlier bakery purchases which slowed our descent, we arrived at 15:30 in sunshine. The hotel is very modern and funky, which means small, with a sink that we can't do laundry in, but is otherwise fine. After a shower, and a wait for another thunderstorm to pass, we headed out to find the Danube and food. If the truth be told, it's pretty unprepossessing just here. A murky, brown/green, turbid waterway, slow flowing with interesting debris floating thereon. It's certainly not blue. Things can only get better!
29 miles at a miserable 8 mph avg. 3hrs 36min pedalling to achieve an ascent of 690m.
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