First day on our bikes

Our first day on our bikes! We started out from the hotel Ibis - got off to a good start when I asked the man repairing the elevator if he had a hex screwdriver that would fit Peter bike (to add the water bottle holder), and he very kindly went and got the correct screwdriver, and installed the water bottle holder on Peter's bike. I had bought two water bottle holders, but unfortunately it turns out that my bike doesn't have a place to screw it on. But I brought some zip ties - maybe I could attach it with them.

This is how I've attached our dry bags, which is where we have our spare clothes. I thought I would need something more complicated, but the regular clip on the rack, combined with the dry bag attachment, seems to work.

I was a little worried because I wanted our first stretch to be much shorter than it ended up being (about 50 kilometers). But I wasn't able to find a hotel where I wanted to end up, so our daily distance was longer.

The first part of the ride was through the outskirts of Innsbruck. It was a beautiful section of the trail, very green and cooled by the river, and it seemed like there were playgrounds every minute or so.  The playgrounds here are so much more interesting for older kids than in the US. Probably because of the issues with lawsuits in the US.

We saw many cherry trees, with ripe cherries, along the way. But this was the only one that had cherries within reach. The cherries were very small, but tasty.

A very interesting metal recycling facility

A cool covered bridge

We passed through many fields, this was a particularly scenic field with different types of lettuce.

This whole field of apple trees was covered with nets, against birds.

We ended up being a LOT slower than the app we're using (OMSAnd) thinks that bike riders should be. Early on, it was estimating that we'd arrive by noon (we started around 10), then gradually it got later and later, as we took breaks, and biked slower. Then around 2 PM, we were in Schwaz, it was really hot, and we were exhausted. Plus there were headwinds - especially in the big open fields. There were about 20 kilometers left till we got to our hotel. We stopped at a cafe for some Almdudler (kind of like a herbal cola), and to get out of the sun, rest, and use the restroom. I looked on Google maps, to see what options there were for train or bus, and it turned out there was a train going very close to where we needed to go (Hotel Landgasthof Gappen in Kramsach). Went to the train station, and the person at the info desk locked his office up, and walked us through buying the tickets at the ticket machine. We got 2 tickets for Brixlegg for 10 Euros, and were there in about 15 minutes, saving us probably one and a half HOT hours of biking. We still had to bike a ways from the station to the hotel, but it was much better than it could have been.

There have been lots of other bikers on the trail - nobody seems to be very chatty, though. Many people have ebikes, they zip along quickly and effortlessly.

For lunch we bought some semmel (rolls), a sandwich, and a yogurt from a small grocery.  But we didn't eat until around 3 - I think the heat took away our appetites. And the yogurt was a bad idea - it would have been great had I eaten it immediately, but after a few hours in the heat, it was not appetizing.

The river Inn, that we're riding along is extremely high. The water looks fast and dangerous, and there's many half-submerged trees along the river bank.

Peter's favorite part of the day was not the bike ride, but the post-ride walk up a nearby hill with a great view, kind of like the Sound of Music intro scene.