14 Aug 2011

Freudenstadt to Oberndorf am Neckar (66 km)

Sometimes 1.8 km equals 7.7 km and you can almost guarantee that on a bicycle tour, that will not make me happy. After a tough afternoon of hills and headwinds, the sign pointing to Bochingen gave me hope. Hope of a possible gasthaus. Hope of a lovely restaurant for dinner. Hope that the next 1.8 km, as the sign indicated we had left to go, would all be downhill. And there it was, my last wish being granted. We were cruising effortlessly down single-lane country roads, down toward the hamlet of Bochingen, down toward that cozy room and fried schnitzel. Only what’s that sign say? Willkommen to Wittershausen? Where the hell is Wittershausen? And why does my odometer now show that we have coasted 3 km, not the expected 1.8? Crap. Somewhere we missed a turn, somewhere that little white sign with the green bicycle, the one that’s been pointing the way since we left Heidelberg four days ago, the one that can be counted on to better guide our way than that 1:150000 bicycle route map in my handlbar bag, has failed us. It was either missing or we missed seeing it. And now we are grimacing down at the bottom of those hills that had us smiling mere minutes ago for we are officially off-route.

Now sometimes it’s cool to go off-route and sometimes we even intentionally go off-route, but this was not one of those times. This was one of those late-in-the-day-and-I’m-getting-tired-and-cranky times. Which meant it was also time to break out the “sprechen sie englisch” phrase and see if anyone out here on the streets of this sleepy hamlet can point us in the right direction, and by right direction I mean not that autobahn that’s buzzing along in front of us with the name of the town that we thought we were in boldly displayed as 3 km away but the direction in which a bicycle can be ridden into that town. After a few kind folks gave us directions predominantly in German, which were about as good to us as our missing sign and crappy map, we stumbled across the route we came down and back-tracked. And not the kind of back-tracking that’s the oh-it’s-so-pretty-here-I-really-want-to-see-it-again back-tracking but rather that back-tracking version where you are mostly swearing to yourself inside your tired head about how irritating this is that the dang sign was missing and now you’re going back up a dang hill and so help me that Bochingen town better be obvious and for gawd’s sake, we’ve nearly made a 7 km detour and we aren’t even there yet.

Now the really sad thing about our misdirection is that when we did finally find the town, there wasn’t a bed to be had. And not because the beds were sold out. No, because there are no guest houses or pensions or zimmers in the entire town. What there was, however, was a helpful proprietor of a gasthof who directed us to the much bigger village of Oberndorf am Neckar where there were rooms to be had, and even went so far (with a little nudging from Gina) to call one such establishment and tell them we were coming. Hallelujah, I can stop taking the Lord’s name in vain now and focus on my blessings instead, in particular my blessing for a room in Oberndorf am Neckar, which is just a few kilometers down the road. Now what’s that ahead? Is that a steep steep hill that just keeps going for kilometer after kilometer, no longer on the bike route, no road shoulder in sight, and no way in hell I’m pedaling back up it tomorrow? Why yes it is and I’m flying down it, front wheel wobbling under the strain of my panniers, hands straining at the brakes after a day of descents, eyes straining to work out the possible train options on that same crappy map strapped to my handlebars before we reach the bottom of this hill or I will surely have a meltdown and oh boy, look up, there’s a tight corner ahead and a train station (hallelujah!) on my map so whoa Nelly, let’s slow this down a bit because I need to make this corner in order to make that train tomorrow.

Finally coming to a full stop at the bottom, I look around to see that Huh, this off-route town is super cute, nestled down here in the Neckar River valley. And what’s that across the street in front of us but a Neckar River cycling route sign. Guess I won’t need that train afterall. Maybe just a new pair of brake pads.