Munich→Venice Day 1 to Bad Tölz

Nathan’s stats: 72.72km, 538m climbing, 3:32 riding time

After another big breakfast, we did a few final preparations with the bikes and got ready to ride.

We left the hotel in a big group, 27 riders, just after 9am. We rode through Munich for the first 9-10 km, through many traffic lights, with the group always getting separated. Finally we got on the official München-Venezia bike path and it was easier to keep together.

The weather was perfect, not too hot and not too cold, with no threat of rain. Everyone was in a good mood as we cruised, mostly on bike paths, some paved, some gravel and even a short rooty mountain bike section through a forest. We rode alongside a river, very scenic. At some point a number of us went ahead and found our wonderful support driver, Miriam, at the promised spot, about 1/3 of the way along. She told us to go check out a nearby castle and it turned out to be a very peaceful place for a first lunch stop. We ate our sandwiches and snacked on cherries and blueberries under shade trees.

After lunch, Nathan ended up riding ahead with John and the two of us just kept cranking along, riding tiny country roads and bike paths until we were at an outdoor beer café, just down a short hill from the destination hotel in Bad Tölz. We had a couple of rounds of cold beer that really hit the spot. As we chatted, we saw most of the other riders pass by and climb up to the hotel.

After lunch, Katie rode with the larger group, often separating and reforming in different groupings. People all helped each other sharing directions and coping with/trying out various GPS systems that were sometimes non-functional.

We headed up and checked in, had showers, then headed out for a walk around the quaint town.

After a couple of hours it was dinner time; we all ate in the hotel dining room. The room was large but very loud, especially as the wine and beer flowed.

We didn’t hear anyone having other than positive experiences on this first day of riding and look forward to many more ahead.