Daphne's Drivel

 The first order of business was getting to a bike shop to solve my shifting issue. Phoned ahead to a shop near central Innsbruck, packed up camp and made it there before 11am. Got a lovely guy named Ian who actually hailed from Dresden, who couldn't find any problem with my derailleur or chain, but began to think something was amiss with my rear wheel hub, as the rear wheel wouldn't " freewheel" properly. This worried me as the right parts for a hub fix might not be available right away.  My hero Ian That's the tangled mess of fine nylon thread that had become  wrapped inside my rear hub! However, when he proceeded to take things apart, he found the strangest thing.... a tangle of nylon threads like a spiders web had somehow worked it's way into the hub, and that's why my back wheel could not spin properly!!! Isn't that bizarre. Right enough, earlier I had noticed that one of the straps on my new frame back had become strangely unravelled, but it wasn...

 Today we got to ride the rest of the way down the east side of Achensee which was gorgeous, and we had perfect sunny weather. Lingered over a coffee part way along as we were reluctant to leave this picturesque spot. Riding along the lake on dedicated cycle path  Hundreds of runners taking part in a race around the lake Next we had a very steep descent from this high mountain valley to the River Inn valley en route to Innsbruck. Great fun but must have been hard on the brake pads with all that weight on the bike! Look at that descent! Strange things started happening with my bike today - I couldn't shift into my two small rear rings (rear gears), and I also couldn't free-wheel properly without things going wonky. Where was Frank when I needed him!!! It was Sunday, so nothing is open here - would not be able to get a bike shop till Monday. Luckily I could manage just fine without those gears for the day along the pretty Inn valley - I just had to be very careful not to force t...

  We were discovered here by the property owner! He had been tipped off my some hunters! We arose early in our little meadow to get the tents down and try to move out before being noticed (wild camping isn't always well tolerated). However, we had been spotted, and the land- owner came by in his truck and had a little chat with us. We explained our situation from the night before and that we were tired. He wasn't too upset, and we apologised. It's one of those situations where it's easier to ask for forgiveness after that permission before!! (Of course if there had been a way, we would have asked first, but there were no houses around). Anyway, it was raining when we set off to complete the gravel ride, which turned out not to involve much more climbing. We descended to a village where we found a hotel that offered a warm refuge, a place to charge up our devices whilst enjoyinga nice buffet breakfast. All was good again. We pressed on to our original destination - a bea...

This is what we ended up riding - shorter than originally planned, But enough climbing! Day 2 was always going to be a tough one - if we wanted to be able to get to the next camground which happened to be along the shores of a beautiful mountain lake called Achensee. It should be about 70km with a ton of climbing. A particularly challenging climb on a gravel path could be avoided if one was willing to ride on the main road for about 20km. In fact our campground host strongly advised us against taking the gravel road with our loaded bikes. But when Nancy and I took a look at that road with its busy traffic, we both agreed that in the interest of safety, we'd suck it up and take the steep gravel, which did in fact follow the official Munich to Venice cycle route. Approaching the lovely  historic town of Bad Tolz on the Isar river. Had lunch here Bad Tolz One of the many cute little chapels along the way We don't regret that decision...

 September 2-3 Frank was instrumental in helping get the bike in the box for the flight! The boxes ready to be unpacked in our Munich airport hotel My bike all ready to go! Yes there's a lot of stuff on there...don't have Frank along to share the camping gear and bike tools. And I seem to have a lot of electronics I'm very happy to report that on Tuesday Sep 4th in the early morning, Nancy and I, together with our boxed bikes and both our gear duffel bags arrived as scheduled, all together at Munich Airport. The expected queue at passport control with the new EES (eletronic entry system) that had been introduced in Feb was about 40 minutes. After just a little bit of hassle, the special taxi arranged with our airport hotel transported us to the hotel where we proceeded to assemble our beasts of burden! And yes- it took a while, but we both managed to get the job done in spite of our anxieties. The bikes were put together and ready to ride the next day after a good  sleep, h...