A few days back Velouria (from Lovely Bicycle!), Jaqueline, Paula and me (anna) headed off for a day trip along the Danube. For not-so-regular readers of our blogs let me note that Jackie and Paula are not real human beings, but our dearest city bikes. Although lifeless they acquired the status of a good companion, and henceforth they shall be treated as such.
Initially we had only planned to cycle as far as Klosterneuburg, but continued along the Danube on the EuroVelo 6 route till Greifenstein. So all in all we cycled about 45 km (that is 28 miles).
The combined foot and bike path along the Danube canal brought us out of town. This path is generally very crowded but not wide, so one has to ride carefully. Having passed some initial chokepoints, we sat down for a short rest at Nussdorf and bought some bottled water for the trip.
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| Coffee at Nussdorf (still Vienna) |
Most of the rest of the ride was in 30 km/h zones (between Vienna and Klosterneuburg) and on the "real" bike path. After a while we swapped bikes, and I got the chance to ride Jackie, an 80s version of the prominent Austrian Waffenrad by Steyr. She was surprisingly easy to ride, and very stable. Her handlebars are smaller than Paulas, and she's equipped with 28" wheels. I also enjoyed to ride a bike with a coaster brake again. Velouria indeed has a good taste regarding bicycles :).
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| Me and Waffenrad Jackie |
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| Velouria and Paula in a 30 km/h zone (they seemed to get on well, too) |
We passed corn fields and ships and finally had a break on an artificial island between Greifenstein and Korneuburg (there's a hydro-electric power plant). Only there we realized that we had actually cycled quite a bit. Refreshment was due. It was very hot, and due to the nearby river a lot of mosquitos were after us.
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| Some parts of me, Jackie and Paula in Greifenstein [by Velouria] |
I felt that we were much faster on the way back. However, I don't think it mattered so much that we were cycling downstream, as it was generally very flat. Thus even with such heavy bikes as ours, it's an enjoyable and easy ride in the current heat.
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| Velouria and Jackie on the way back towards Vienna |
I also tried to shot some shadow pandas. Well, there is still room for improvement :).
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| Call me superwoman. |
All in all, a really nice and relaxing trip. Thanks to Velouria (and Jacqueline) from Lovely Bicycle! for the nice company. Paula and I got on well, too, and intend to do more leisure rides throughout the year. Read why.
Further Information on this trip
donauradweg.at (all information about the Danube bike path in Austria, German)
-- order folders for cycling trips (for free, German)
-- Donauradweg 2010 (download the Danube bike path folder, German)
EuroVelo 6 (route across Europe, from the Atlantic to the black sea)
anachb.at (route planner in and around Vienna, German)
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I guess this counts as "riding a greenway" for the LGRAB summer games :). I'm looking forward to what places other people encounter.
7 comments:
It's good you explained Paula. For a brief moment, I thought we were about to be introduced to Paula's human namesake, much as American soap operas bring in long lost family members.
An interesting, fun and cool post.
Gorgeous photos! The superwoman panda looks pretty cool, actually. Glad to see that Paula and Jackie got along well. Sometimes I wonder if I need to explain the name thing more often, lest readers wonder, who is this Betty person she's always talking about?? :)
Yes, I definitely think of Paula and Jackie as 2 additional entities who joined us. I guess that's kind of crazy... but I'm comfortable with that : )
So wonderful that you're getting to spend time together...*all* of you.
Looks like a beautiful day to bicycle. Wow!
Glad you all had a good time. It will be well-remembered too later.
We (from Vancouver, British Columbia) just returned from some cycling in southern Germany. My partner who can speak and read abit of his mother tongue, German, spent enough money buying the Eurovelo maps plus other maps to get enough cycling route details.
We cycled in the Freiburg, Karsluhe Germany area and enjoyed ourselves. (We were also in Prague, then Copenhagen.)
Some stuff in my latest entries here on southern Germany experiences:
http://cyclewriteblog.wordpress.com
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