Nobody can ride 2,000km!

Margie Joyce and Neil McKinnon, July, 2023

It’s a bit of a bogan of a day as we leave Bogen. The town is recovering from last night’s festival (which we of course missed being back in Regensburg) and we ride out confidently following the bike path. Until we get to an umleitung (a dreaded detour). When we consult our various maps, it turns out we’re nowhere near the EV6 route. Neither of us have any idea what happened, but we end up following the detour which end up somehow getting us back on EV6. I don’t know how.

Most of today is a series of frustrating detours that lead us eventually to a trucker/fuel stop right by a busy autobahn. It’s a really hot and thirsty day. We’ve already had one cold drink stop and make another stop at a beer garden attached to the fuel station (yep, you read it right) for a great huge glass of coke and a fried cheese salad. I feel like I am back in Eastern Europe where this was my staple meal.

To get ourselves back to the river and where we need to be we have two choices: backtrack or go forward on a busy road (no, not the autobahn) for about 4.5km where we should be able to pick up the route again. Being the never-go-back kind we go forward and go like stink down the road not realising there is a bike path alongside it. There are a couple of uncharacteristically arrogant drivers with one yelling out the car window (meanwhile getting in the way of a truck himself) – presumably telling us to get off the road. We do, as quickly possible and have a much more pleasant ride back to the river where we do indeed pick up the route again. This time it takes us for part of a way along a goat track right alongside the busy autobahn. Everything feels busy and frenetic around us.

Overall it’s a pretty blah day. That is until we reach Vilshofen an der Donau. Vilshofen is about 20km from Passau and the EV6 app tells us there is a climb of 2-300m to get to there. Yikes! We retreat to a cafe for more cold drinks and Neil orders an ice cream. I don’t want ice cream if I have to climb that much in the heat, but I do take a few spoonfuls. Then a few more …

We set off for Passau and the whole day changes. We are now riding along the widest part of the Donau we’ve seen so far. It’s flat, it’s full and it is beautiful. And it is a pleasure to ride. The day is finally picking up.

The path is busy with cyclists, fisherpeople and ducks. I don’t know where it comes from but as some cyclists pass me in the other direction I suddenly have a squawking, protesting duck under my bike! I say a word that rhymes with duck and somehow manage to not run the poor thing over. It shoots off the path on the wing and lands, still protesting, with its friends in the water. I am slightly more shaken than the duck but in the end I think both the duck and I are OK.

We’re both keeping an eye on our Garmins. At 88km today we hit a huge target – 2000km on this trip! It comes on the outskirts of Passau and find ourselves a point for a photo, which happens to be right above a huge lock where a barge, heavily laden with a cargo of some kind of dark rock is passing through.

While I’m messing around trying to find a spot to put the camera a man rides up and asks, “Do you speak English?”

Aiden is an Irishman, very unassuming, riding around in grey trousers, a grey windcheater and lace up shoes on an old English steel bike he calls Queen Elizabeth. He has a couple of lightly laden panniers and very tanned hands and face. He’s riding around the world. Suddenly a little of our aren’t-we-amazingness falls off. We must be carrying twice what he is, we’re riding in good clothes on bikes we’ve set up well for touring. He looks like he got up one day and said, “Yeah, I think I’ll just ride around the world.”

Aiden likes a chat, so we give him a listening to and look up where the camping place is in Passau. Of course he’s camping. And somewhere in those lightly packed panniers he has a tent, a sleeping bag and cooking gear. Wow.

He helps us out by taking our 2,000km picture, then rides off seeking a supermarket. We may run into him again as he’s heading the same way as us for a while.

We ride off to our rather nice hotel, stash our bikes in the bike garage and take ourselves out for dinner. I think of Aiden sitting at his campsite scratching together a meal before turning in and I think I would rather be me today.

Stats for today:

• Distance: 92.17km
• Climb: 167m
• Average speed: 17.2km/h
• Average temperature: 29C
• Moving time: 5:20:41
• See our ride on Strava

The beer picture

At the end of a day’s ride, our tradition is to enjoy a beer, and to photograph it for posterity. Today’s beer picture was taken inside a Mexican restaurant in Passau (because there were no outside tables available when we sat down). Again, this is a break from tradition as I opted for a margarita over a beer. It was a very fine choice as well.

Along the way today: