You Might Want To Have Your Shades Handy

June 4 – Kißlegg to Kressbronn

I just want to start by putting this out there…I don’t wear shorts. I don’t put my wonky legs and knobbly knees on public display for fear of frightening small children and wildlife. So, I don’t wear shorts. The only shorts I have with me are usually worn over leggings when it’s cold. But…due to the beautiful hot weather we’ve been having and the fast approaching Code Red laundry situation, those shorts have now been brought out and used for the purpose for which they are intended, that is to leave legs and knees uncovered. As a result, there will be some photographs of me in said shorts, sporting my “Tassie tan” and accompanying wonky, knobbly bits. Also, because my legs never see the light of day, on a colour chart they are “Dulux Ageing Polar Bear”, so you may want to have your shades handy so as not to be dazzled or temporarily blinded by the glare emanating from my pedalling pins! This is an official ⚠️visual alert⚠️ for those of a sensitive disposition, those who do not have the recommended safety eyewear available or those who may have small children or wildlife in the vicinity. If not, the alert may be ignored and you have full permission to just plain laugh! 

We pedalled out of Kißlegg under a clear, blue sky, with the sun beating down again. Oh, if only one could sing, it was worthy of bursting into sun loving song. But I didn’t, because the legs were enough to be scaring the locals with, without my tuneless warbling adding to the trauma. We were again in rolling countryside, with the green fields around us, the vast sunny sky above and the snow capped mountains before us. It was splendid. 

Last night Steve had shown me the elevation profile for today’s ride. “Look at that,” he said with some excitement, “it’s nearly all downhill!”

“I can see some hills on there,” I said.

“Well, there are a few lumps along the way, but it’s mostly downhill.”

As we rode through the countryside, we rode up, then we rode up again, then up again.

“Where’s the downhill?” I enquired of the master salesman who had sold me a downhill ride I was yet to experience.

“I said there’d be some hills,” came the explanation that sounded like back pedalling and flip flopping to me.

The scenery was beautiful and the “rolling” continued. Yes, we had some downhills, but they were just your usual, get to the top of a hill and then get a bit of downhill, sort of downhills. They were not the “mostly downhill” coasting without effort sort of downhills I’d been sold. 

We rode into the lovely little town of Wangen for Steve to stock up on his bakery needs for the day. This was another pretty town, with gorgeous buildings, cobbled streets and a quiet, laid back feel. 

 

We pedalled on and huffed up a 14% hill, the sun beat down and with every little downhill, it was matched with another huffing and puffing climb on the other side. I’d been sold a dud story about this magical “mostly downhill day”, but it wasn’t a dud ride. It was still spectacular.

We rolled through more countryside and little villages and then stopped for elevenses. Now, I need to add to the earlier visual warning here. As we have established, my legs generally do not see the light of day. Steve, on the other hand, lives in shorts. So, in this elevenses photo you may behold my “Dulux Ageing Polar Bear” legs alongside Steve’s, which on a colour chart are “Dulux Mug Of Ovaltine”. I at least tried to spare you the visual torment of the sight of my knees, by making a valiant, but unsuccessful, attempt to cover them. With the sight of those legs, you have, once again, full permission to laugh heartily. For the record, Steve couldn’t stop laughing when he saw the photo. “Look at how white they are!” he roared between guffaws and laugh-tears welling in his eyes, as he stated the bleeding obvious. So, behold your elevenses source of entertainment, a.k.a. Me. Also for the record, having legs the colour of a cocky in a blizzard and wonky and wobbly bits bothers me not one fig. On the grand scale of things to be concerned about, those don’t even rank, but one must consider the welfare of the general public, so I am providing these alerts as a public service! 

We spent more time on and beside roads today than we did yesterday and as we rode on, we had some time through forests, then through farmland again, then on some roads and all the time we were up, then down, then up, then up, then up, then a bit of down. We did get a couple of downhills that were longer than others, but then we got more of the ups to go with them. Climbing the hills is, I’ll admit, a whole lot harder than tootling along a flat river path, but it does pay off with the scenery. The hills give you views and changes in the landscape and the huffing in the heat paid off, because of what we could see around us. We rode on through green hills, hop fields and orchards. Beautiful.

 

 

We were aiming for Bodensee, otherwise known as Lake Constance and we rolled into Kressbronn, the end of the Danube to Bodensee Cycle Route and had our first glimpse of the lake as our reward. We ended up doing the route in three stages rather than four and that was no great effort to achieve.

We considered finding a park for lunch but then thought we might as well luncheon on the terrace of the Nylon Palace, so we found a campsite, chose a pitch in the shade, set up and had a bite to eat. This place is one of those great enormous campsites, so we use the bikes to get around. It’s located on the shores of Lake Constance, so we took a ride down to the lake to have a closer look. Weeeellll, it wasn’t quite what we were expecting. The lake looked splendid with the hills and mountains behind but I guess when I thought “the shores of Lake Constance” I was expecting either some green or the sand of the water’s edge. It did have a shore but it was a thin strip of pebbles. This, of course, is all perfectly fine and the lake was very scenic, it just didn’t quite match the image in the head, which can happen when you have no idea about a place so you just make it up for yourself. The real thing wasn’t the same as the image in the head, but still nice. 

 

Today was another top ride, with another nice little town and the scenery was grand. Despite his denials, I reckon Steve was holding the picture of the elevation profile upside down just to mess with me, because I don’t know where the “mostly downhill” or the “long downhill” was, because it wasn’t anywhere under my wheels. My wheels were going mostly up! That didn’t matter, the rolling scenery was worth the puffing in the sun. Oh, the sun! To have it blazing on us yet again, was just sublime. Sublime I tell you! We think we may stay around the lake for a couple of days, to see some of the towns around here and explore the general area, before we take off and begin riding the Rhine. We’ll see. We’re winging it as we usually do. We’ll find out when we get there, wherever that is. These legs of ours, whatever they look like, could take us anywhere!

TODAY’S STATS

Distance ridden: 50.4 km

Time in the saddle: 3 hours 27 minutes

Weather: sunny, hot, …wait for it, wait for it…30C!!! In fact it’s currently 7:35 pm and it’s still thirty degrees!

Our route: