Another good breakfast fuelled the day (including a bacon roll this time; bonus!). We left Tuttlingen through the outlying business park which accommodates over 300 medical instrument manufacturing companies. Did you know that Tuttlingen produces 50% of the world's surgical instruments and implants. No? You do now.
A gentle mist soon lifted and the sun broke through causing us to keep stopping to don or remove gilets according to whether we were in sun or forest. This section of the Danube is characterised by the limestone gorge it passes through and the scenery was, accordingly, very pretty with huge cliffs dominating the narrow sections, and a wide flood plain on the, er, wide sections. Temperatures were in the balmy low to mid 20s with alternating cloud cover so, with a total lack of wind, it was perfect for cycling. The path varied between tarmac and fine limestone gravel (and the odd country road) which made for easy progress. First stop was at Beuron, nearly half way, for coffee and excellent cake. Now, the only problem with gorges is that unless the path exactly follows the river, it has to go up and down ... and there was plenty of that ... on gravel tracks. If Anne's bike was behaving perfectly then that would not be a problem but with bottom gear unavailable, and 2nd and 3rd jumping under load, we were approaching a total sense-of-humour failure. Cue the multi-tool and the suggestion of a break whilst I had another fiddle. Lo, it looks like I have now adjusted it back into perfect indexing and even got her bottom gear back without overshifting into the spokes. Thank you God, that's made Anne happy and my life easier to bear!
The water of the Danube has cleaned up a bit here. Maybe it's because a lot of it disappears down sinkholes in this region and drains across to the Rhine. That's one way of getting rid of the mucky stuff. A beer stop was called for at Neumuhle and, with all that up-and-down, we thought we deserved a second coffee and cake stop at Gutenstein. Well, there wasn't far to go, and the sun was shining ... and it was cheaper than you'd pay at home. Sigmaringen duly arrived and we checked into our traditional gasthof. After a laundry session (how come this is always a blue job when we are away cycling?) and a shower, we wandered the town taking in the splendour of the local castle. Then the splendour of a magnificent meal sat in the beer garden of a Greek restaurant! It even looks like the fine weather is set to continue. Famous last words.
35 miles at 9.5 mph avg; 03:40 pedalling time and 390m ascent.
No comments:
Post a Comment