When somebody Melks your Mojo

“Where are you going today,” the hotel owner asks as we check out.

We fumble around, searching our brains. There’s been so many places it is sometimes hard to keep up with them all.

“Krems,” Neil says, getting it first.

She purses her lips and nods. “A long way,” she says. “But it is nice. You must take the ferry across the river here.”

What? All our routes, maps and the EV6 app show the route on our side of the river (north, or the left bank).

She goes on to tell us that the route on this side is on a busy road for 40km. On the other side it is quieter with some roads, some bike paths. We must stay on that side for 40km to Melk, and then cross back to this side for the final 40km into Krems. “You ride through many small villages,” she says. “It is nice.”

OK. We take her advice. Local knowledge trumps digital advice.

The ferry is a simple cross-the-river affair. The ferry captain strolls about in his lederhosen (for real) getting Neil to steer the ferry while collecting the fare.

Once we get started after leaving the ferry we see that the woman at the hotel was right. We are on a quiet road with only a few vehicles and many cyclists whereas the road on the other side of the river is a constant rush of cars. We settle into another pleasant ride.

The going is fast to Melk, with our only one setback. At various places along EV6 we have seen very thoughtful repair stations with tools and often a floor pump which in theory makes pumping tyres much easier than the small frame pumps we have. There was one at the ferry loading point and Neil managed to get one of his tyres pumped before the ferry arrived. It’s been a while since the tyres have had attention so we stop, which is a mistake!

The experience we’ve had with these pumps is pretty hit and miss and this is a miss kind of day. Pumps are supposed to put air into tyres, but this is the kind of pump that lets air out. Another dud. And that means extra effort with the small frame pump to replace what’s been lost and get extra in.

We streak to Melk with the wind at our backs, feeling like cycling super-heroes as we reach speeds in excess of 30km/h without actually doing any work.

Melk is a pretty town with a looming yellow Abbey. It is a popular riverboat stop and the town is teeming with people. We stop for lunch here, enjoying the break and the town and the opportunity to have a simple wrap for lunch.

We’ve already done 50km this morning, not the 40 that our hotel woman said. We’re expecting to do just under 80km today, so we are hoping she is wrong about the 40km after Melk.

She is not wrong.

During lunch somebody or something has stolen my mojo. The cycling demon that powered away from Krems has been replaced by a weakling who seems unable to think and can barely push the pedals around and isn’t really aware of surroundings.

“We need to go up here to cross the bridge,” says Neil.

“What bridge.”

There’s a bit of a silence and he points. “The one right above us.”

OK, so I need a little careful handling for the rest of the day. Our hotel woman told us we would be passing through pretty small villages but she neglected to tell us that we are going through a significant orchard and vineyard area. At first it is mainly fruit trees but as we travel along vineyards dominate – and not just at road level where we are. Vineyards stretch across the hills (we Australians could almost call them mountains) alongside and above us, perched at ridiculous angles with the vines clinging to rocks.

We climb up into through and down out of every one of the pretty little villages between Melk and Krems and feel like we’ve made a poor decision to stay in Krems, especially as we are staying somewhere that is a bit demanding about arrival time. We’ve told them we’ll arrive between 5 and 6 and we have to stick to that, which means looking but not stopping. This area is worth more time and an overnight stop.

We do make a few stops as it is so hot, though not as hot as one of the villages would have us believe – a digital sign said 41C! It’s nowhere near that, though I would probably grant 35. The sun is pretty relentless which doesn’t help my mojo any. But I pedal on. There’s no choice.

After the villages today I find Krems a little underwhelming. We are staying at the weirdest place. It is an apartment but there are no real instructions on how to access it. I fall upon the drink vending machine in the entrance for a cold mineral water while Neil tries to find somebody. There’s nothing obvious so he calls and the guy comes down and whisks Neil away. For a very long time. I am starting to think he is being murdered but he finally comes back. It must have been 15 minutes or more. He has been upstairs signing multi-page contracts (two copies, one for them, one for us) for a one night stay! This place has been very demanding (by email), insisting on an online check-in by 6pm the day before arrival (what?) using a system that just doesn’t work! I think we’ve used this “check-in” system before – it’s the one that requires photos of passport, selfies, handing over the first-born and signing your name in blood. We would normally have not looked for an apartment for a one night stay but there was nothing else available in Krems.

The apartment is huge, but barren, with three rooms one after the other. It’s much more than we need but it has a bed, a shower and a place to explode everything out of our panniers, so it will do.

The air is very heavy. There is rain coming. We’re quite late getting out for beer/dinner tonight and when we find a restaurant the waitperson is reluctant to seat us outside because of the impending rain even though they seat other people outside well after we arrive. Inside is so hot and humid and I am terribly uncomfortable which makes for a less than happy experience. When the rain comes it is only a patter. We could have been outside. It would have been good for the restaurant. I would have eaten more if I was comfortable.

I don’t know what happened today. We were planning on a 78-ish km ride and it turned into an 88-ish km ride. Was it that the south bank of the river was longer? I can’t see how? Was the bridge back across from Melk 10km? Not at all? Did the roads expand in the heat? Perhaps that was it. Whatever it was, I left my mojo in Melk and can only hope a good sleep will restore it.

Stats for today:

• Distance: 87.27km (should have been 78??)
• Climb: 171m
• Average speed: 17.9km/h
• Average temperature: 30C
• Moving time: 4:53:00
• 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 the restaurant where we had dinner. It was late and I was past a beer so mine is the orange one.

Along the way today: