Heiterwang – Immenstadt
67.6km, 5hr 31mins, 1056m total climb
Woke up in cloudy, misty Heiterwang and
very wet tent. Moody Atmosphere. Couldn't see the top of the
mountains any more with drizzle fo' shizzle. We decided to carry all
our stuff, including the tent to the dry room of the camp-site. This
made it easier and we took our time getting our things in order and
loading up the bikes. One Dutch lady came in and thought we had been
there all night!
We cycled our favourite route towards
Reutte (had to go down the same hill as on the off day before) for a
cheeky stop at Lidls to buy drinks and food (one huge loaf of
Brioche!) for the way. Johanna dropped her bike whilst she had her
1.5L bottle of Fruchts Schorle in her hand which at the time was
unfortunatley pointing at my tired and stary face. The shock caused
her to squeeze rather abruptly and skoosh a good half pint directly
into my unresponsive visage. That woke me up. A good de-grease of the
eyeballs to help me see better for the rest of the day!
After 20km we hit the breakfast climb
for today. A steep sledging slope in the winter time and a old toll
road in 1632, it skirted the flanks of a 2000m peak and it must have
been the only way past until the modern road was built. We wheelspun
and scrabbled our way up to 1154m on gravelly unpaved road, but every
meter climbed was worth the amazing views overlooking a raging
mountain stream in the narrow valley below. Half way up we found a
little chapel and lit a candle. If only the clouds weren’t there
the view would have been even better.
We were rewarded with a long downhill
on tarmarced road and a pretty easy ride for the next few km's,
flattening out for a while at altitude. Snowy. The cycle paths hadn't been cleared so we turned round a couple of times and then just stuck to the main road, faster anyway The big lake up here
was still mostly frozen and you could still see the langlaufen or
maybe skating track from the winter on it. Then climbing again and back up into Germany! On
the elevation plot on the GPS we could see that the end of the route was going to
have 10km or so steep downhill and then a coasting section and looked
forward to it. It turned out to be a 700m drop in about 7km through a serpentine which was great fun to ride, but cold!
The day turned out worse than we
expected weather-wise and it was too rainy for camping and we didn't
have a hotel booked. We just decided to chance it and stopped in
Immenstadt (2km from original planned destination) and tried the
first hotel we passed. We liked it and decided to stay. Hotel Engel
(radfahrer freundlich/ cyclist friendly) for 60EUR (including
breakfast) with WiFi in the bar. Winner.
No comments:
Post a Comment