Morning came and so did the hill. 7% for 4km...Cheeky
Moving tentatively out of the campsite, we rolled down the hill that brought us to the junction with the 7% incline, that we had pinged the previous day. With shouts of "see you at the top", we set into it with myself snapping a quick picture of the sign just for proof...
I caught up early with the girls who were making good progress in the right direction, up! Ellie was guarding Charlotte's rear from the oncoming traffic with her high vis vest. Which now harbours a smell not even a mother could love...
Moving past them, I found Tom a hundred meters or so up the road. We continued as one up the hill, stopping briefly at some well placed roadworks at about the 2km mark; a welcome break. Continueing the climb I took the lead , with Tom matching me by 20m for the rest of the way.
The sight of the tree line breaking before us meant only one thing...the top! Legs burning and a big sense of relief, myself and Tom were both mirrored in our sense of achievement.
Tom felt a little bit too euphoric in getting to the top, and promptly threw up on the side of the road...good effort!
Cheering in the girls,who had equally put everything into getting up that hill we briefly took on water before setting off toward Blaubeuren. Oh and the view from the top was one of the most underwhelming sights I have seen...but there we are.
The landscape between us and our destination looked undulating but not overly daunting; but then with a map lacking contour lines you can never really tell when you rely solely on the occasional spot height. We cycled on...
As it turned out it wasn't the hang out that we had perhaps feared, with what looked like parts of Wiltshire flying by as we ate up the km.
Stopping in Zaningen, for the now infamous lunch. We ate in the only gasthaus open in town. Pork Corden Bleu....6 euros....winner....maybe not...more of that later.
Rest of the day after lunch was filled with good cycling fuelled by the hearty lunch. Myself at the front taking the wind allowed some moments of speeding to occur through the towns. The route allowed us this luxury due to its relatively flat nature toward Blaubeuren.
Eurphoric at one point, I spied an 8% gradient sign for 2km....superb....oh and its down....wowzer! The call was to tuck in and off we went, see you at the bottom.
Reaching a speed of 67km/h at one point, I had a calm moment of realisation that should my bike decide to have a fit I am as good as gone. Most likely sliding serenely into the oncomning traffic. Tom also got an indicated speed of 45mph, so we definatly were going for it...
...this downhill section was capped off by an alpine-esq tunnel in which we acted like small children shouting to hear the echos.
Beautiful scenery all around, especially the limestone crags which looked ace for climbing over...that stage is still to come down south.
Blaubeuren was meant to be our stop for the night, but seeing as we had got here at near light speed we decided to push onto Ulm. With help from a local sports shop, run by a very helpful couple, we phoned ahead and booked into a Jugenherberge(youth hostel), complete with a map and written directions. They also described the route which lay ahead of us firstly as ''hilly''!!! but it was a mix up in translation and they decided that they meant NOT hilly....ok!?
They were right, the route was flat, through a pictuesque valley.
Using what one local described as a 'very crude map' we cycled around trying to find the youth hostel. Eventually Tom got some concrete instructions and it was found not far away. All stinking to high heaven, thanks to the hills earlier that day we got ourselves sorted....the three S's. Tom and I were down in the bunker-esq basement, whilst the girls had a 1st floor pad.
No dinner at the Youth Hostel meant we taxied it down into Ulm, which turned out to be a amalgamation of medievil and ultra modern archictecture. Dinner was well worth the trip down...mostly due to the food, but also to the fantastically athletic waitress they had employed.
A few beers later and lightning in the sky told us to go home...taxi back in the pouring rain.
Tights(which had been worn at dinner, under trousers), protein and bed...for what turned out to be a most interesting night...
Rob
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