Ride Day 3: Fussen, Germany to Nassareith, Austria

Continuing the upward trend (vertically, at least) we cross the border from Germany into Austria today and our route takes us over the Fernpass.  There is a shuttle that will take bikes over the pass, but we are riding it (OK, we amended that.  See below).  We've heard mixed reviews of the route but would feel shortchanged if we skipped the pass.  Besides, it isn't nearly as long or as steep or as high or as challenging as many of the passes we've ridden in the past few years -- thinking of the Furka Pass (Switzerland), Col de Couise (France), Sunwapta and Bow Pass (Alberta).  Should be a cinch!  (As I said, "Ok, we've amended that!  See below.)

As far as I am concerned, it is tough to have a bad day on a bike.  What could possibly be bad about riding a bike?  But today I came close to thinking it might be a bad day.  We had a good sleep and a huge breakfast and were on the bike by 0730, heading to Nassereith, Austria.  Soon after leaving Lechbruck we came across a VCA signpost.  It wasn’t much, but to us it felt a little significant.

Not sure what it says, but it is important I am sure

Das Bike and VCA

Further down the road Lorie wanted to go to see the famous Neuschwanstein Castle, which is a few km outside of Fussen.  The castle was easy to find but as with most castles, this one was built on top of a hill.  Something about fighting off the huns with boiled oil and the like.  We rode the whole way up, about 600 meters of climbing at 16%.  Ouch. We passed tons of folks who were walking (but we were not going much faster than them) and several horse-drawn carriages full of people.  That was hard but fun, as the road surface was very nice.

The castle is actually pretty amazing.  Photos explain it better than I do – but I will add that it is said to be the inspiration for Disney’s Sleeping Beauty castle.

From the Valley below

Here's what the huns saw (minus the boiling oil)

The front door, as it were

After we came back to town we got incredibly turned around and spent an hour trying to figure out where we were.  We knew that we wanted to follow the river – the Lech – and that seems easy enough.  But it was really tough and frustrating.  With a couple of maps and a GPS with several routes pre-programmed into it we still were really goofed up.

Finally, we just jumped onto a road that paralleled the river and rode upstream direction.  The GPS was screaming at us with its annoying little “off route” chime, but we shut the damned thing off.  Better to just look at the mountains and intuitively go upriver.

We made it to the next town OK, but lost the route again and ended up on muddy single-track trail through some kind of a nature preserve.  We muddled our way through that and finally found a highway after we squished a ton of really big slugs.  Sorry guys.  We headed south and, luckily, found the next village, Reutte, and there were even VCA signs to follow.  Excellent.  We followed the VCA and came to a gravel, rocky section.  That’s not bad, but we came around the corner the trail tipped up.  Steeply.  When the GPS read 18% we had to climb off the bike and push it.  Das bike is super heavy and it was a chore.  We both slipped several times.  And the path got steeper.  At 20% I was grumbling, and stumbling, trying to keep moving forward.  At 22% there was nothing to be done but push.  But then some German woman with an E-bike went cruising by, not even really peddling.  I am not sure whether I was envious or sad.  Made me think of Dougie P. back in the Sherm.  No matter though, as we had to push about 1 km uphill.

Eventually we got to some kind of a castle-type thing that was a huge tourist attraction, as there was a parking lot with lots of buses and lots of people to fill them.  We were both too tired to even think about what the castle was.  Maybe we’ll figure it out later.

The misery continued.  We had another long stretch of 18% climbing.  At least this one was paved.  But riding a fully loaded tandem that is probably 175 kg with both riders included up an 18% gradient is like some kind of bad dream where you are trying to walk uphill in deep sand.  We had to climb off the bike and push it.  It is totally silly for that to bother me, but there you have it.  We topped out, then started hitting rollers where the down was super steep, in between super steep ups.  And it was all gravel.  I nearly lost it on a corner when the front wheel slid out.  We were going about 30 kph and it would have left a lot of gravel to dig out of the hide.  Glad we dodged that one.  Lorie says that she thought we were hitting the dirt!  I want to avoid that if I can.

We eventually made it to a ski town called Lermoos, but not after riding through Pflach three times.  Really!  But everyone had told us to NOT ride the Fernpass.  It isn’t that it is so high or so steep.  We’ve done far bigger passes.  The problem is the traffic.  The road is the major route from this part of the Tirol into Italy and Switzerland and it is heavily trafficked.  We went to the Tourist “I” in Lermoos and asked about shuttles.  They said that there was one next door.  We checked in and they said that they’d shuttle our RV, disguised as a bike.  We’re waiting right now to see if they’ll actually do it.

Mr. Shuttle Guy showed up and I am going to nominate him for the next revote for Chancellor in Austria.  What a guy!  He hooked up an RV trailer to his VW bus, loaded our RV in (i.e., Das Bike), and off we went to go over the Fernpass.  

I'm not sure it'll fit....

Mr. Shuttle Guy's bus

Mr. Shuttle Guy’s English was great and he said that he’d heard of Oregon and that it had better beer than Austria.  I let him know that Oregon’s beer is number 2 to Austria’s, but that when he comes to visit that I would show him around.  He said that he wanted to avoid the East Coast of the US because everyone that he has met from the East Coast is uptight.  I agreed with that, too, and said that in any case Mr. Trump is from there.  Enough said!

The Fernpass would have been a nightmare to ride.  The gradient and the height were nothing but the road was so very narrow and the traffic so very high.  Argh.  I am really glad that we decided to ride with Mr. Shuttle Guy.  (So much better than Mr. Happy of last year’s shuttle ride from Bozeman, Montana, to Big Sky…).

Not much room for a wide tandem, especially considering that on this downhill section traffic is going 100 kph

A few hairpins to slow things down..

Our shuttle driver normally drops folks off at Fernsteinschloss, which is a fancy hotel across from a castle about 1/3 of the way down the south side of the pass.  But he said that we’d hate the gravel path from there to Nassereith, so he took us straight to there.  OK, my bad bike day was looking better.

We easily rode another 10km to a campground and got set up.  

Home sweet home for the nacht

Then to town for food.  Tomorrow’s a fairly long day, but only one big pass, so we’re pushing for a bit longer than we’d originally planned, to Reschen.  We’ll see how that works out.