Danube Bike Tour Day 19: Aschach to Linz
Posted by Cassie, November 26th, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Distance: 28km
We had complimentary breakfast at the bakery down the street, and it was really good. However, the dining area was full of smoke. Half of the people in the room were smoking up a storm. When we left the bakery, my clothes and my hair smelled like smoke, and it was really gross. I was surprised at the number of people that smoke in Europe. They even have cigarette vending machines, and a pack of cigarettes was 5 euros! That is a very expensive habit. There seemed to be even more people that smoked in Austria, and it seemed more acceptable to smoke inside restaurants.
As we were packing up to get ready to go, Jonathan noticed that my back tire was a little a low on air. However, as he pumping it up, the pump broke! At the same time, the tire valve leaked a bunch of air, so my back tire was lower on air than it was before he started pumping up the tire. It was too low to ride on with all the weight on the back. We had seen a bike shop when we were walking around town yesterday, so we went over there to try to get a new pump. However, the only day of the week that the bike shop was closed was Wednesday, and of course it was Wednesday. We could never predict when places when be open in Europe. Before we got to Austria, it was usual for places to be open during the week and closed on Sundays. Now, in Aschach, the places were open on Sundays and closed on random days during the week. It was very strange. Fortunately, we found a sign for another bike shop, and it was actually open! We found a replacement bike pump, but it was very expensive. The bike pump we brought was having problems before we left, and we considered replacing it. We learned that it is better to replace your old equipment before going to Europe because it is much more expensive to replace it in Europe. But, we had a new bike pump that was much nicer than our old pump, and we were able to fill our tires with air.
We had a short ride to Linz. It was still very cold, but it was pleasant ride along the river and through the farms. The last 10km to Linz was not very enjoyable because it was along a bike path next to a busy road going into the city. Once we arrived in Linz, it started hailing! We took shelter under a covered walkway, and it hailed for a long time. This was such crazy weather for October!
Hail in Linz!
Accumulated hail on outdoor seating
We got very cold, and it was a long way to get to the hostel. Fortunately, they had a double room available for the night, and we basked in the warmth of our room before heading out into the cold again. We also had our own bathroom and shower in our room for the first time at a hostel. This hostel was run by Hostelling International, so it was in a converted office building on the outskirts of the city. Once we were warmed up, we walked around Linz, and we had dinner in a nice, warm pizzeria. Originally, we were planning to continue riding tomorrow, but the weather was going to continue be cold and unpleasant for the rest of the week. So, we decided to stay in Linz for another night and spend the day in Linz. Linz had lots of museums, so we figured we could spend most of the day inside a warm museum. When we returned to the hostel, we asked the woman at the reception if it would be possible to stay another. However, the woman was very grouchy. She was a smoker and was coughing constantly while speaking to us. When she wasn’t coughing, we could barely understand what she was saying because her voice was so gruff from the smoking. She said to us that she speaks very little English and there were no rooms for tomorrow night. We asked about dormitory rooms, but she just yelled at us again that there were no rooms available. We gave up and decided to ask another person in the morning. When we talked to another woman in the morning, she was very nice and told it was no problem for us to stay in a dormitory room.
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