Alps 2024 — Day 1: Welzheim to Singen (192km)

I woke up at 4:45 as per schedule and tried and failed to do some mobile video editing. Eventually I gave up and decided to pack up. We were planning to leave at 6:00 am.

A five minute ride over and we were ready to go. Anticlimactic, no pictures or fanfare but down the hill we headed! Of course, it started to rain, as per the forecast. About 30 min in we had scheduled a bakery/coffee stop and or was really starting to rain hard when we arrived so we were glad to chill there and wait out the small storm.

I won’t go into excruciating detail on the rest of the day. It was long, the  rain came, went away came back again. We arrived in Singen dry and mostly intact. Beautiful scenery and a lot of trails and otherwise protected cycling. Oh, and largely a light headwind but it was tolerable!

We did have one major incident, where we turned onto a metal bridge cyclebridge that was ungodly slippery and we both went down hard on our left sides. I think I sprained my ring finger and Harald injured his wrist a bit. Minor bruises and cuts too but otherwise intact and the bikes were mostly ok too. I had to repair my bar tape with duct tape. Needless to say, it took a bit of the wind out of our sails!

We stopped for lunch at a countryside restaurant just as the rain was coming back.

The weather forecast showed that the rain would continue for awhile, so we just continued in the rain. We’ve got the gear, it’s not a big deal and it was pretty warm!

About 30km from Singen, just after a brutal climb out of  a valley, Harald flatted and realized that his bike had sustained a bit of damage during the crash that ended up slowly ruining his rear tire. Luckily we carry spares, but diagnosing and fixing that on the road took time and energy. Thankfully the weather had cleared up and eventually we could enjoy a spectacular descent into Singen. A bit later than the original plan, but we were super happy to roll in with about 120 miles under our belts.

Harald quickly headed to a bike shop to pick up another spare tire, and I went to Lidl to buy some calories. Here’s a small selection of what we ate. There was a lot, including some N/A beers!

Tomorrow we’ll check ourselves and our bikes over and decide what to do next. I’m also having a bit of pain in my left knee, probably didn’t get my seat height quite right. I don’t think it’s related to the crash and I fixed the seat height mid-ride. Just something I’m keeping an eye on along with the finger.

Most certainly we’ll head to Switzerland, one way or another!