The hills were getting a lot steeper as the road stretched before me. I had left the little city at the foot of the mountains a few hours ago and hadn't traveled more than a few miles since. Damn, this getting older sucks. It wasn't that many years ago I would have considered these hills as mere bumps in the road and now I was puffing up a storm with the bike in its next to lowest gear.
My plan was to ride until dark, at which time I would have traveled close to sixty miles although at the rate I was going would be lucky to make a fraction of that. My entire plan was to cycle for the next month from Munich, Germany over to Vienna, Austria making a ton of side trips along the way to see anything of interest. The country road surface out of Munich was excellent but narrow and without bike lanes, which made riding a little treacherous in any kind of traffic. Well, at least the weather was nice. My saddlebags straddling the rear wheel held a great little two-man nylon tent along with three days of clothes and I had a sleeping foam in a plastic bag tied to my handlebars. It was my hope to be able to camp out most nights, only staying in hostels in bad weather or when my body odor was so bad I not only needed a shower but also deserved one!
This trip was one I had dreamed about for a few years. I went right into college after high school and now that I had my degree and wanted to see part of the world before becoming entrenched in the day to day existence of the corporate world. Our local cycling club arranged for me to rent a bike in Munich and drop it off in Vienna a month later. The price was reasonable and they promised a nearly new bike.
The flights from Newark to Paris and then over to Munich went off without a hitch with the exception of I can't sleep on overnight flights. I looked around the plane and people were zonked out and snoring up a storm everywhere I but not me. Consequently, I must have looked like hell going through Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris going from one gate to the next to catch my connecting flight to Munich.
I knew beforehand this was going to be a problem so I had reserved a room at the airport motel in Munich with plans to sack out there on my day of arrival and not get going on my trip until the following morning. I was able to get a shuttle into town to pick up the bike that afternoon so I was ready first thing the next day to start my odyssey.
I am a fairly athletic guy who works out a few times a week. I have my own apartment in Saddle River N. J.. Saddle River has the reputation of only being for the rich and well-known but I'm living proof that isn't true. My folks passed away while I was in college and left me with enough to finish school, rent a decent apartment and get started with a career. An understanding company who agreed I wouldn't have to start work for a couple of months after graduation recruited me in my junior year of school. Hence, my bicycle tour of a part of Germany and over to Austria.
Oh, one other thing ... I don't speak any language other than English; and some of my professors would say I wasn't too well qualified even in it!
The first few days by went without any trouble at all other than I wasn't making the kind of mileage I had thought I would. No problem; I had a whole month and even that could be extended a bit if need be. I was able to manage the small hills with some ease but the backcountry roads gave me a bit of trouble. They were narrow and the road surface wasn't as good as it was near Munich.
Salzburg, Austria lay ahead but I wanted to make a side trip to see the town of Berchtesgaden, the town Hitler and his cronies made so famous. There was a bus trip up the mountain I wanted to take to see the actual building he used while in residence.
The way the driver handled the curves on the bus trip up the mountain left the passengers a little breathless but I just resigned myself to the fact he had made the trip a thousand times and I was fairly certain he didn't have a death wish. The tour of the place was very interesting and the polished brass lined elevator sort of gave you the chills when you realized Hitler had ridden in the exact same car. Anyway, it was a worthwhile side trip. They only allow the tour busses on the road up to it and the road is so narrow they make it one way for a period of time and then reverse it. The busses would never be able to pass each other if they didn't use that system.
Back at the parking plaza I retrieved my bike and headed out to my next stop ... Salzburg, Austria of The Sound of Music fame. I crossed the border between the two countries with no more of a fuss than we would experience going from one state to the other back home. The hills were now a lot steeper and since bikes aren't allowed on the Autobahn, I had to stick with the rural roads but that wasn't a problem for I really enjoyed them more. I got a better feeling of the life styles of the locals as I passed within a stones throw of them and their homes.
I was pedaling my butt off up one rather steep hill and as I crested the hill there was a female cyclist off on the shoulder of the road in some obvious difficulty. She must have hit something hard for her front wheel was bent way out of shape. I stopped and asked if I could be of any help. She spoke English very well but with a slight German accent. When I asked her how she spoke it so well she answered that school kids in Germany must take English as a second language and then her mother had to speak it on her job and that was all they spoke around the house so she would learn it even better.
She, like me, was a recent college graduate and, again like me, had promised herself a bike tour of the same part of Europe as I had. Her name was Cornelia, Connie for short, and lived in Munich with her mother. She was twenty-two and a very pretty gal with what appeared to be a magnificent figure. My name is Bill, but she preferred Villy. It's a German thing. I HATE Villy but I didn't want to start this relationship off on the wrong foot so I bit my tongue.
After removing the front wheel I thought I could get it back to somewhat round and flat with the aid of my spoke tightener and a little brute force. It would at least enable her to ride it down to the next town where she could get it professionally straightened or replaced. One thing about bicycling in Europe is that with the popularity of bikes, there are a ton of repair shops.
By the time I got the wheel off and partially straightened it was almost dark. Like me, Connie was traveling on the cheap and had a tent and a couple of bags of clothes strapped to her rear luggage rack. I suggested we walk the bikes over the crest of the hill and down to where there was a copse of trees that looked like a good place to pitch our tents. It would give us some privacy and protection from the wind. A half-hour later the tents were up and we were sitting out in front of them simply looking at the stars and just making conversation about all we had done in our lives so far.
We munched on some of the goodies we had stored in our knapsacks and then sacked out around ten and I slept the night through with no trouble. She was up at the crack of dawn and was embarrassed she had to go off a ways into the woods to handle a call from nature. When I saw her coming through the trees she had let her blonde hair down from the bun she had it tied into the day before and it was swishing back and forth from one side of her face to the other. Talk about good looking, she was it in spades.
"Connie, I need to do more work on the wheel before you will be able to ride it very far."
"OK, no problem. I'll just look around." she replied.
I spent another half-hour bending and tightening until the wheel was at least halfway straight and wouldn't hit the front fork as it rotated. She got up on the bike and rode around in a few small circles to see if it could be ridden. We both agreed it was OK as long as she went very slowly and didn't hit anything on the road.
Sure enough there were at least three bike shops in the first major block we came to. The first one gave her the bad news that the rim couldn't be straightened to the point where it would be safe or satisfactory. He could offer her a choice of a brand new one or a used one for half the price. One used wheel coming up. An hour later we were on the road again. Sometime during the time we had already been together we had decided to travel together for awhile. We had each planned our trips separately and were surprised how closely they matched one another's.
