Although it had been overcast (though thankfully not rainy) all week, Sunday morning dawned brimming with a promise of sun. I knew the drill pretty well, so we got breakfast, pumped up the bike tires, loaded them up in the car, and headed out. The Pater had kindly lent his mountain bike to us for Lauren's use. I had gone digging through saddle bag after the first ride on my bike to get a tool to tinker with some things and had scoped his bike out at that time: hardtail Scott complete with disk breaks. It would certainly do for our leisurely excursion. Mistake Number One (and really the heart of just about all of the other difficulties to come): I did not take the bike for a test ride. I waited for a minute after pumping up the tires, and when they held air I figured we were good to go. So off we went to Westbahnhof Train Station. Other than getting scolded by security for attempting to drive through the semi-circle drop-off-looking-area to leave Lauren with the bikes and then go find a parking spot, this leg of the journey was pretty uneventful. Parking found, tickets purchased, train boarded, bikes secured (with the nifty snake lock Mom gave me), tickets checked by conductor, fee of €5 for each bike (who knew you were supposed to pay for your bike to get on the train, too?), arrival in Melk. Good.
We got outside the train station and I pulled out the bike tool to adjust the seat hight for Lauren. Or not. It wasn't one of the quick-release clamps, just a collar which could only be adjusted with an Allen wrench, and the bolt was stripped. There was nothing I could do. So we walked through Melk to where the bicycle rental hut was, hoping they could help. They could not because they were closed (it was a Sunday after all, as I feared it would be). So we went to the gas station across the parking lot. When the tool produced by the cashier also proved to be of no help, Lauren and I decided to play the Damsel(s) in Distress card and flag down the next strong-looking guy who went into the station. Enter Austrian #1. A gentleman walks into the gas shop. Lauren and I haggle quickly over who has to ask him for help. As he steps out the door, I wave him down. He also tried unsuccessfully to use the Allen wrench, but says he has some tools that would probably do the job. Oh boy! But he has to go home to get them. Oops. We say it's okay, we'll figure something out, please don't drive home just for us, but he's also a cyclist and insists he'll be back in five minutes and jogs off to his car. Sure enough, he swings back into the parking lot five minutes later and unloads a gigantic tool box. Using a rubber mallet he was able to force a wrench in and get the seat adjusted for us. We thanked him profusely (and offered to buy him a beer or something for his troubles), but he just smiled and drove off with a wave. Alright! On to the trail for us as well!
Well, not quite. As Lauren begins to pedal off I call out to her to shift. Nothing. She stopped and let me hop on to get 'er going. Except, I couldn't get 'er going. I stopped, too, and fiddled with the gears for a minute before determining that somehow they're in fact disconnected to the derailleurs. Well shoot. I'm starting to feel a little disheartened. I'm pretty good with basic adjustments on bikes, but this was beyond my skill set. Lauren and I exchanged looks after quite a while of me tinkering. We were both thinking the trip was over before it even started, but neither of us wanted to say it (okay, actually, I have no idea if Lauren was thinking that, but I was). Perhaps a stroll down the Danube a little ways would suffice? However, I knew Lauren was really excited about this part of the trip, so I manually moved the chain into a medium gear and jerry-rigged the derailleur into staying in place so it wouldn't channel the chain back into a lower gear.
And off we rode. The ride from there was pretty uneventful for a while and the scenery was really gorgeous. Both of the times I had done the trail before I had gone down the northern route, but there was also a path along the southern banks of the river which I was keen to check out, so we went that way. I would go so far as to say the scenery was even more beautiful on that side, but perhaps it was just a more spectacular time of year to be riding.
The southern path didn't pass through as many towns (or vineyards), but it did more or less stay right along the banks of the Danube. We chatted and biked and really didn't come across too many people, and decided to stop for lunch about an hour or an hour and a half after we started since by then it was already past noon with our little morning mishap. We ended up at a Heurigen overlooking the Danube on the east side of a tiny town by the name of Aggsbach-Dorf.
Little did we then know it, but enter Austrian #2. It was a really charming little place which we had all to ourselves; I ordered a cordon bleu and Lauren went for the tradition of wiener schnitzel, though we decided we were going to just split them between us. The food was delicious and the waiter was really nice, but it was time to continue along the trail. Lauren was going to pay, but he did't take credit cards (not unusual for a lot of places in Austria). But no worries, we had brought cash for just such an occasion. Except for the minor detail that we had had to pay the conductor €10 for the bikes. Which left us with €20. The meal was €22. I asked if there was a bank-o-mat nearby. No. The nearest one was back in Melk. So there was really nothing we could do. We got him to write his name on the receipt, which had the address of the Heurigen on it, and promised to send him the remainder of the the bill. He grinned and beared it and let us go, but that was a really hard one to swallow.
Back in the saddle and stomachs full, we continued down the Danube. Lauren and I couldn't help but laugh at how many things had gone wrong thus far, but surely we had spent whatever bad karma had been lingering and the rest of the day would be smooth sailing. It had to be; we still had Romeo und Julia to catch at the Burgtheater that night. We pedaled ever onwards, basking in the surroundings of the absolutely gorgeous valley and going just fast enough to keep warm in the slightly brisk temperature.After about another hour Lauren was starting to feel the ill-fit of her biker, though. The frame was really too big and being stretched out when you're riding is never comfortable, but being too stretched when you don't ride a bike too often is even worse. Although I'm shorter than Lauren, I offered to switch bikes; I figured if I could manage my Dad's mountain bike, also too big, I could work with this one. Conveniently The Pater also used SPD cleats with his bike, so I was able to clip in and not have an awkward ride balancing my shoes on his pedals. Unfortunately a simple bike switch wasn't the end of our problems.
About fifteen minutes later the ride was feeling really off for me, so I started looking around for the cause. Oh Scheiße! I had a flat tire. The past two times I had ridden the path I had wondered what would happen if anyone got a flat since we weren't equipped with a pump, but as no one had had any problems I let the curiosity go. Sunday was my lucky day to find out, and only one plausible answer was coming to mind: we were going to have to hoof it. An old man driving down the bike path (why? I'm not certain) told us, from what I could tell through his heavy country accent, that the closest town was 2 km away and the town after that had a train station. Okay, we could work with that. Not quite the destination of Krems that we had in mind, but not the worst possible news, either. At least we had even more time to admire the view.
Perhaps another ten minutes later a road biker came by and circled back to see if he could be of service. He had a spare tube, but being a road bike tube it was of little use. Considering he didn't have a pump it still wouldn't have done us much good. But he told us he lived in Krems and was on his way home and if we wanted he could drive back and pick us up. I was hesitant about the idea and had I been by myself I would have declined the offer and taken my punishment for being foolish enough to go biking without a pump, but he informed us that we were still 15 km out of Krems (and was quite taken aback when we initially declined the offer and said we would walk), so after trying to exchange looks with Lauren to ascertain her feelings on the matter without openly discussing it in front of him, we accepted. Hello Austrian #3. He was in his late 20s and seemed nice despite a poor choice of facial hair styling. At this point we knew we would be missing the performance that night, but we were past that and just wanted to get home without any more technical difficulties. It was also starting to get a little dark, which may have had some influence on our decision.
I exchanged phone numbers with Austrian #3 and we continued on a ways to find a good place to wait and lock up the mountain bike as he said he only had room in his car for one bike. We figured at that point as long as we could get back to my car we could work everything else out. So we perched on a picnic table to wait, and just as the last of the light was disappearing our knight in shining armor pulled up. Huge relief!
We quickly loaded the bike and were on our way to the train station, chatting merrily. We arrived just in time to purchase tickets for the train back to Vienna that was leaving in a few minutes, hopped on, navigated the U-bahn, and got back to my car. It took a little longer to drive back out to the locked-up bike than I anticipated, but we loaded up, then continued on a little further to the Heurigen we had stopped at for lunch. Although it was already closed for the evening, we wrote a note on the back of the receipt and left a generous tip for his earlier generosity. Although we were bummed about missing the performance, I think we were both just happy to get back to some warm showers and a good dinner.
And, lesson learned: I will be prepared next time I go out biking!
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