Riding Over a Mountain and a lot of Mini Mountains
Aspang Markt to Hartberg, Austria
Today was truly a magical day of riding. We worked extremely hard to ride over a 3000 ft. mountain and it was all worth it as the scenery was unbelievable. We both agree that it was some of the most awe inspring scenery and riding that we have shared. The gradients were not easy at times, Mary Ellen walked much of the way to lighten the load and the best news is that the motor behaved admirably. At the end of the day after a series of climbs all the way to Hartberg, the battery still had about 60% power.From Aspang Markt the climb begins immediately and 9.5 km later you are at the top at the charming village of Monikirchen which has 360 degree panoramic views. There were a few sections where it flattened out very briefly and a few dips down, but otherwise it was all uphill - with the best part being that the route stays away from the busy road. A tip if you ride this route - and we highly recommend it - don't follow the GPS route for EV9 or the Bikeline route as it follows the busy road. The official signage for EV9 Thermendor route is excellent and takes you on a very quiet road that leads you past farms and there are very few cars. In fact, on the ride up we saw 3 cars in total. We read an account of a fellow who had cycled on the busier road and he had a miserable time, unable to appreciate where he was.It is ironic that we ended up staying in Hartberg as we were taunted by a train throughout the day that started in Aspang Markt and its destination was Hartberg. As we left the village in the morning, we passed the train station just as it was departing - and as we rode up and up, we could see the tunnels for the train and later we waited at train crossings and saw the train pass us by. Should we have just taken the train we wondered....but no, it is so good that we didn't.
We appreciated the thoughtfulness of this rest stop provided by the people who live here. Blankets, umbrellas are few of the touches - but today we used it for shade from the sun. Thank you.
This is paradise for us. A quiet small road used only by locals farmers and a few cyclists. This is a local route "Thermendor" and we recommend this over the official EV9 as it is on a busy highway. We can hear the many trucks in the distance.
Taking a breather and enjoying the view. From the first climb, the views take your breath away. Here we are half way up and the vistas are opening up for some distance.
We had already eaten the lunch we had packed at the park in Monikirchen, but we chanced upon this amazing bakeryc/cafe as we headed out of the village. We are so glad we stopped as this family run bakery is a gem. The chocolate cake with nuts and the blueberry cake were exceptional.
Alexandra and her daughter Charlotte made us feel very welcome. Alexandra and her husband are very busy people - they run a business which features food that is exclusively made in-house, they have 3 children and a 3 month old puppy.
Dorfsetter, a wonderful bakery/cafe in Monikirchen - we highly recommend both the ride and stopping here to celebrate. We think that our friends Georg and Cora would love this place too as it rivals Garcia's!
Up steep hills to Friedberg. We knew that we had a killer hill to Monikirchen, but we didn't realize the steepness of the smaller hills once we got down.
We roared down the mountain on gradients of 13% and reached some pretty villages. In the distance we saw a Church perched way up the hill, and to our dismay, this was our route. Very steep hills took us to Friedberg and we realized that we needed to start looking for a place to stay as we could see hills ahead of us as well. Birgit (on the left) and her colleague(will add name later), phoned ahead for us for the next 20 km and every type of room was full. They recommended that we ride to Hartberg as there should be something available. So we did. Thank you for your incredible help. It turns out that the Italian holiday for much of August is the reason. Italians love to come to Vienna and this area and they travel in large groups.
We have made it to Hartberg and yes we found a room. The last one!! The proprietor told us that all of the rooms in the area are prebooked by groups of Italian cyclists.
