Who needs a map really?

Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen to the review coverage of this year's Tour de Donau. For those who may have just joined the coverage the path was to take riders along the Donau river through southern Germany over seven nights with 350kms of cycling coverage over 6 days.

Unlike the Tour de France where we see 19 teams with 8 riders, each with their 2 team cars, support crews, team buses, a gendarme fleet, and the related tour caravan of promotional advertisers the peloton for this tour was much more subdued. In fact pared back very significantly. The number of riders was in fact one. One solitary rider.

Marketing officials were quick to point out that the rider was in fact an amateur cycling tourist from Australia who had paid for his own sponsorship, accommodation, and support team. The support team, Radweg-Reisen were to provide services along the way including accommodation and the transport of luggage. Heck the instructions from Donauwörth hotel reception on arrival the afternoon before, had instructed to just look in the garage for the bikes, they each have a name tag and starting date, and then in the morning breakfast was from 7am. Just be sure to leave bags at reception for collection by the driver before 9am. No other tour documentation would be provided it seemed. Radweg-Reisen clearly considered the cycle race Tour de Donau a mere booking of their Donauwörth to Passau Cycle Path. It was obvious that this tour wasn't a pro-cycle tour sanctioned event and therefore there would be no doping other then that of the self administered amber variety, and Eis (ice cream).

The support team at the start line in the morning weren't aware of the official race timetable, nor of any additional documentation available. The van driver was surprised I was asking about what was meant by the "red bag tags", and questioned if I had a map. After hearing of my verbal no he said he'd try and find one for me.  It wasn't until later I learnt there was supposed to be a welcome pack of some sort with detail.

Perhaps in part due to the close proximity to the Tour de France which was to start only days after this tour concluded, and because I had booked my own way did it become clear the ride not on the world pro-cycling calendar. My pedigree of being Team Chad's GC rider (General Classification) had been lost on the tour organisers.

What wasn't lost on me though was the fact day one's itinerary of 65kms. As a casual cyclist I hadn't ridden more than 45kms in one ride. Realisation early on was that fact that equipment supplied wasn't like back home where I rode a thin wheeled road bike on bitumen roads. The bike here although rolling well was heavy set, had a pannier to hold stuff or take the balance out depending on your perspective, and a giant basket on the front which prevented the mounting the go pro as I had planned. Many of the roads outside of the major town stops would be on gravel paths through farm fields. Not just dedicated cycle paths.

Without any larger official map I had been left with the tour's vague initial information pack which was to follow the "clearly" marked Donau bikeway. Only it also become quickly clear that I wasn't used to looking in the same directional manner the path designer had intended, and nor did I have the same expectation of the word "clearly". So within the first kilometre I was already backtracking to the start on the oft chance I had missed a sign because there was no sign when I made it to a first major junction. Once finally leaving Donauwörth I was lost, and to be continually lost until I could make it to the next hotel. My guide was a mobile phone with limited juice, and a Map app for which I had discovered not enough maps of the local area were downloaded. Unfortunately I also hadn't figured out how to get my Frankfurt purchased mobile data plan to work properly. Contrary to the German salesperson I wasn't in retrospect right to go after all. Reality was I was on wifi only, in the German countryside, without a map, hopefully following enough signs to get me to Ingolstadt via Neuburg.

About 25kms along I made it into some small town along the way. Here there was a well set up small brewery with garden area and a sign. This would be the first real opportunity to just rest and take in the scenery. Until this point I had been pedalling hard just to get over 20kms an hour. I was struggling on the small rolling hills already, and knew I wasn't really following the river tightly. I did though read reviews previously warning of the first day being both fairly long, and with rolling hills so wasn't too concerned.

By the time I hit Neuburg I was about 50kms into the ride. The situation had changed. There was a section where I had not seen a sign for about 3 kilometres. So I concluded that the path had taken me down a wrong way, or was missing a few signs. Joining back before Neuburg was a relief. It suggested even if I did lose a path I couldn't really go far wrong. Neuburg itself was quaint highlight. It was pretty, with a nice sized historical centre. The historical centre was all but empty as it was separated from the commercial centre. Tourist information staff were keen to point out that tour buses were yet at peak season levels.

After stopping for lunch I started my way out from Neuburg. I realised I might need to stop the Strava app from recording my "record ride" as I had seen my battery power drain fast due to the phone data issue. So of course this was where it was all starting to go pear shaped. About a kilometre out from Neuburg the weather came in. An afternoon storm front. Not too heavy but enough to raise concern if I didn't keep going. Especially as I had 20kms to go.

Then about 10kms out I completely lost the cycle path. For about 2kms I was following the Donau which gave me some confidence. However I had then ignored a sign which in I retrospect realise indicated the bike path was closed. But it hadn't also indicated an alternative path. So I just continued for another 3kms until the path really got bad. I even had to walk a section of path which was clearly a manual diversion away from the river through the scrub. I suspect because a path bank had been wiped out or removed. In this diversion I nearly stood on a snake resting. I quickly got out of there and vowed to follow the path more clearly from then only. But my troubles weren't over there.

By the time I made it to Ingolstadt it was about 5pm. The weather was further deteriorating, although not yet raining. I was down to 3% battery power on the phone. Not good as it was my map, address recorder and photograph taker. The Gopro was already dead. I was a bit lost for a bit in the city centre without a map. However after a bit of backtracking removed myself out to the river where I was able to locate the correct bridge, and then follow my hand written directions to the hotel taken before the battery died. Thankfully I located my hotel. Unfortunately it was the least centrally located hotel of my tour. I was shattered but alive. A rest allowed recovery for a walk into town for dinner and  photo tour. Day one was marked off. I was so tired.