The Brutal, the Bold and the Beautiful

Bad Gastein to Spittal an der Drau

A very interesting ride today, and one of extreme contrasts. The day started with a brutal climb up from our accommodation overnight to beyond Bad Gastein, where the gradients finally eased off to something less eye popping. RidewithGPS - the route planning and recording software that I use - tells me that after a short descent we had a section up past Bad Gastein where the gradient averaged 9.9 percent. That would have been fine if it was a nice even gradient the whole way, but in fact there were some flat bits and even a very short bit of downhill. The corollary of that was we had to negotiate some quite steep ramps - apparently even a short one of 22%. Much of it was 12% plus. Not a very nice way to start the day, but I sure am glad we didn’t ride up it yesterday in the pouring rain like the Three Cliftons and a Duckworth did.

I stopped briefly to take a couple of photos and do a bit of a wardrobe adjustment so Dianne had an opportunity to go ahead and shoot this bit of video of me riding up towards her on one of the *moderate* ramps and the Garmin told me that the gradient was 12% …

At least it was a good way to get warmed up. Apparently the temperature was about three degrees when we set out. However, it was extremely beautiful with blue sky starting to appear between the clouds and evidence of fresh snow showing on the mountain tops.

Here’s a view from our room looking down valley …

… and another looking up towards Bad Gastein …

So, before describing the rest of the ride, here are snapshots of the route, showing how we are getting right into higher mountains now …

Bad Gustein to Spittal an der Drau (note the section of the route that is dead straight)

… and the elevation profile, which significantly distorts the amount of climbing for today's stage, because the mapping software I use reads the elevation on the surface on the surface of the land - just like all the others - and is unable to compensate for tunnels:

Bad Gastein to Spittal an der Drau (I've marked in the tunnel on the straight section on the map). RWGP

 and Strava both tell me that I climbed about 590 metres, which shows how high the mountain rises above the tunnel.

Once we got beyond Bad Gastein (which is a beautiful little town steeped in history) the road leveled off quite nicely and ran along a lovely stream towards more mountains … 

.. oh, and here is a photo taken earlier looking back down the valley …

Because Dianne and I had to ride up a section of road the others had already surmounted the day before we thought we better leave a bit earlier than them. They arrived at the train station just a little after us.

When they got there we had a bit of a debrief about yesterday’s conditions and then settled in to wait for the train to arrive. Some photos taken while we waited …

In terms of its usefulness today, the “station” as an entity seemed almost to exist only to serve as a toilet. Information from the Austria Trains website said that there were waiting rooms but the station was actually locked up except for the toilets. There was no one selling tickets inside. Instead a little booth with a man inside selling tickets was set up just past the train station. We had to go there, but our tickets, turn around and make our way up onto the platform where the bike-carrying carriage would stop.

Here’s a look at the platform where people had to park their bikes so they could be loaded onto the train by a man paid to do the job …

Note the man in the orange shorts and blue T-shirt and be aware that it’s about 5 degrees out!

Di and Louise posing to mark the momentous occasion of catching this special train that transport cyclists and motorists from valleys that are very close geographically but a long way apart via road ..

Hmm. Cyclists in Black? The makings of movie? Maybe? … or maybe … NOT??

Di reckons that “if you squeeze your knees together really tight it helps keep you warm”

Here’s a photo that Jane took of the train after we’d helped load our bikes into the carriage. There was still plenty of room for cars in this section; the carriages for passengers are farther along …

… and here are Louise and Di. Louise is preparing some sort of message before she gets Michael to connect his phone to the internet so she can piggyback of it and send said message. Di is doing what Di does when she’s traveling be it by train, plane or automobile … and that is 🥱 💤 SLEEPING 💤 🥱. 

The train journey was short and relatively quick and definitely a lot shorter in duration that it took to load and then unload all the bikes from the bike carriage.

This brings us to what I’m calling the ‘BOLD’ part of today’s ride: the wonderfully swooping, sashaying and diving descent down a fast but twisting roadway. Huge fun it was and I have to admit to a bit of hooting (but no jiving) as I sped downwards. My Strava feed tells me that I hit a top speed of 81.2 km/h, which is the first time I’ve exceeded 80 for quite a while - and that despite some very tight bends along the way. I paused at one stage once most of the tightly twisting bends had been left behind to regroup with the others. Here’s a look down at the route below with quite a lot of descent left to go. Let’s have at ‘er folks!

Michael had done his due diligence as Chief of Coffee Shop Organization and mapped an excellent cafe for us to drop into after we arrived in the little town at the bottom of the descent. Snaps were taken to mark the moment and warm kit taken off before we settled in for coffee and, for some, a little something sweet. Some photos that were taken while we were stopped …

After what seemed not quite long enough basking in the sun we were back on the bikes and back on the bike route known as the ‘Alpi Adria”. And now we come to the “Beautiful”. A long, broad, verdant river valley with steep, tree-clad hills on either side. Here’s a photo Michael took of Dianne and me a little while after we’d left the cafe turned left onto the bike trail …

It was very nice, quiet riding away from traffic, but I’d spent quite a long time looking at the routes Michael had harvested from Komoot and shared with me leading up to our planning for our trip. I discovered that there are some places along the general route of the Alpi Adria where a couple of bike paths exist - creating different options one can take and sometimes there are intermittent sections of bike path that merge and diverge with various roads along valley floors. This was one of those sorts of day.

When I was looking at today’s route I found that some sections of Komoot’s version of the Alpi Adria differed significantly from what I thought I thought Di and I would prefer to ride in terms of a) being somewhat longer,  b) hillier and c) taking a  more convoluted route to our accommodation for the night.I therefore  tweaked the route quite substantially in taking in those considerations. Nonetheless, we decided to follow the Komoot version that Michael had shared. It was very pleasant riding initially, up above the valley floor providing very nice elevated views down into the valley - which I suspect was the reason Komoot uses it. After about five kilometres or so though I thought it might be preferable to return to the route I’d mapped out, as the Komoot route had some rougher sections, with little ups and downs and twists and turns. I thought our route down in the valley might be a bit easier riding and more flowing. I punted to Di the idea of rejoining it and she agreed so we parted ways with the others when we had the opportunity to do so, perhaps to catch up in Spittal. 

Our route took us back down to the road that runs along the valley floor with occasional diversions onto bike paths: some short, others more extended. Here are a few photos from the rest of our journey to Spittal an der Drau. The first is where I got Di to stop and pose with in front of an odd montage of lion statues, something I don’t know how to describe and a building with photos of other building plastered to the side of it. Maybe the photos were showing a series of transformations the building has undergone. I didn’t have any idea why the objects are stood there but I thought it looked kind of quirky.

The next photo is of a small barn that had some chickens wandering in and out of it. I quite liked the look of it and even more so when I rode a little further than when I first saw it to get a better angle to take a picture and say the array of solar panels on one end. The were currently shaded but must catch a good deal of sun at some time of day. Anyway, the merging of such contrasting technologies of a little, old barn and solar panels merged together is something I have appreciated since Di and I did our hike along the length of the Pyrenees in 2010 and spotted a similar sort of set-up. This brought that back to me in a flash:

This next photo was taken after I caught up to Di after stopping to take the photo above. The road we were riding along was nice and quiet, and Di is cruising along enjoying the journey:

In mapping out today’s ride I’d found a gasthaus about eight kilometres from our accommodation. We arrived looking forward to a feed only to discover it was closed. Unfortunate and disappointing! We got back our bikes, thinking maybe there would be something close to where we were staying, but discovered just another place just a few kilometres before our destination. It served a combination of traditional Austrian far and Thai cuisine. We both liked the look of the Thai menu and made our selection accordingly:

So, it was actually fortunate that the place where we were expecting to have our lunch was closed when we arrived! We took our time over lunch as we’d arrange to check into our accommodation at 2:00 pm and we were a bit ahead of schedule. All was in order for us  when we arrived, but Di had a little glitch with being able to detach her cargo pack from her bike. Once we got that sorted we went upstairs and settled in and that was another day of riding done and dusted.

I’m finishing this the next morning just before we head across to have breakfast and I still need to pack up before we do so. I had significant connectivity issues again last night so that’s why I didn’t publish this post then. Better get cracking otherwise I’ll be in real trouble!