Krimml to Piesendorf on the Tauern Radweg

August 21, 2018

In keeping with tradition, today was an adventure, although part of the adventure was my fault and likely could have been easily avoided.

I mentioned in yesterday's journal entry that a former student of mine was joining me for a bit to make the hike to the top of the 3 tiers of the Krimml waterfall. But first we needed to eat breakfast! The breakfast buffet at the Gasthof zur Post was up there with the best breakfast buffets I've partaken of. Multiple cheeses, a variety of bread and rolls, cereal, yogurt, jams, a breakfast dessert thing that was really good, hard and soft boiled eggs, and probably some things I've forgotten about.

Fully stuffed with breakfast we headed for the falls. I distinctly recall it being a tough hike from the last time I was there and hiked to the top of the middle falls. It is still a tough hike. I also need to add that the path to the top tier of falls is amazingly steeper than the rest of the path. We hiked it anyway and my student Colin gets a lot of credit for being patient while i took some 150 photos. The walk took 3 hours going up and I rather suspect Colin could have done it in about half that much time The angle of the sun against the falls isn't ideal but the photos taken on the DSLR look pretty good. With 150 photos the odds seem in my favor anyway.

After the falls Colin and I parted ways. Sort of. He opted to walk the rustic bike “path” down to the station. Between the scenic vistas and me riding my brakes to stay upright on the loose gravel path, I only beat him to the station by 5-10 minutes so we ended up parting at the Krimml Bahnhof. He will be returning to his mission of seeing all the major things in Germany in 14 days while sleeping each night in München. It's a rather bold and ambitious plan but he is young and can handle going awhile without sleeping.

Along the Tauern Radweg between the falls and the bahnhof

Getting this view with a quality camera was a big reason I rode this section again

It wouldn't be a bike tour without a few bike problems. Today's round included discovering that the tachometer cable was broken straight through. How that happened I have no idea. If I'm lucky I can tape it back together, otherwise I've got to buy a new tachometer. The second issue was the always finicky real disc brake rubbing. Again. Keeping that thing working has been a pain in the butt. My initial attempt of simply backing away the pad didn't work so I ended having to fish out my multi tool and actually loosening and readjusting the placement of the braking device itself. The bike was much quieter after that.

My first trip down the Tauern Radweg has been by far my favorite trip of all the paths I've ridden. It was my first trip, the weather was great, and I've honestly been afraid that I've built up in my mind how wonderful it was and that is come back and get rained on and be miserable. And of course not get any good pictures. The path is exactly as I remember it: absolutely incredible. Minus that very brief sprinkling in spite of sunny skies, the weather today was exceptional and the brief sprinkling actually felt quite good. I was able to recreate one of my favorite photos from the first trip on a much better camera. It likely will find a spot on the wall in my house somewhere.

We arrived at the Krimml Bahnhof Close to 3pm. My plan was to ride until 6:30 or 7 and take the first reaosable accomodations I could find. I still haven't acquired an austiran sim card so I have no internet and no Google maps access to track down or phone accomodations. That added an extra layer of complications to my room search tonight. Towns usually have signs pointing towards various guest houses but they don't provide very precise directions so I spent more time than I'd have liked biking randomly through several small towns looking for hotels. The first place I tried I spent maybe 10 minutes ringing the bell and waiting for someone to come to reception. When they did finally show up they had no free rooms. I couldn't even locate the accomodations in the next 2 towns despite both having multiple places listed so I kept riding until I reached Piesendorf. Piesendorf is on a hill and not only that, the previous few towns all had notbale hills as well, one of which I distinctly recall walking up because my lowest front chainring wasn't accessible last time. This time I was able to make good use of my new 22 tooth front chainring and made it up the hill no problem. So back to Piesendorf. At this point I didn't really care what the cost of the room was. It was getting dark and I wanted supper and a shower. Up and down the hills I rode all over Piesendorf knocking on doors of various accomodations. I got turned down several times (3 maybe?) until I finally got lucky and found one. It's a nice hotel, fairly recently updated, reasonably priced, and they make a fairly good Italian style pizza. I have also showered and washed out my clothes and am ready for bed. The 600m of ascent on the climb to the top of the Krimml waterfall would have been enough for one day. I added 36 miles of riding to that and I feel like I've probably gotten enough exercise for one day.

I will likely set up accomodations for the next couple days after my frustration tonight and stick to my planned riding schedule. It appears this area has successfully promoted their area as a desirable stop for summer

Today's ride: 36 miles (58 km)
Total: 37 miles (60 km)

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