day 54 - 30 km
Sankt Kathrein am Hauenstein - Haslau bei Birkfeld
It is raining lightly when we arrive in Sankt Kathrein. We decide before we cycle away to stop by the town hall, but it turns out to be two kilometers away in Ratten. Since it is the other way, we take the car. At the town hall we tell our story and exchange tickets. She is going to pass it on to the mayor. Fine. We ride back and get on our bikes with rain gear on. Richard and Nanja bike along, Daan follows with the car. Sanne has stayed at the house in Oberneudorf, doing all kinds of administrative and things for the house. After a few minutes we start climbing. And steeply. Several kilometers, we go over a thousand meters again. It goes slowly. We want to go faster but we can’t. Still, the tree bike does well and views are beautiful. We are resting for a moment to let the tree bike recover when Linda de Haan calls, she is somewhere in Friesland in front of a school class where she tells about the tree bike. The children respond enthusiastically to the story of the tree that cycles through Europe and is now in Austria after some 2,000 kilometers and ask fun questions. We arrive in Fishbach after about fifteen kilometers; it is already around three o’clock. After a cup of coffee, I walk with Nanja to the town hall of Fishbach, fifteen hundred inhabitants. We tell our story and give a forest book and a little tree. Richard exchanges with Daan and we finally cycle down a bit. The route gets more and more beautiful as we follow a fast-flowing stream. We stop to water the little trees from the river. Standing like this among the trees that have been here for decades a certain, hard to describe, peace falls over me. Unfortunately, we have to move on again. The scenery is beautiful and the hills are much like what we might call small mountains. We hear that the stuff Cargo Cycling sent for the tree bike is in, really super fast. When we stop for a moment a man stops and offers us a tree bike and gives us strawberries. The brake seems to have gotten bad again after all; he later turns out to be the village doctor and advises us to visit someone who lives a little further on, a Taus. Slowly we cycle to him. When we get there, they already know we are coming. The father looks at the bicycle and the daughter immediately goes to work taking off the wheel. It soon becomes apparent that it will be handy to pick up the sent parts so we can replace the brake pads on both sides. It turns out that the father and daughter, Reinhold and Kerstin Taus, participate in mountain rallies. Now I also understand why she can tinker so well. An hour later we have new brakes. What a coincidence? Half the village seems to know about it by now and it already looks like a village pub. Is this the power of a small community, of all knowing each other? Wonderful how helpful and what nice people. We take a group photo, give Kerstin a Forest Book as a thank-you and say goodbye. We leave the tree bike and trailer here in Birkfeld and pick them up tomorrow. Thirty kilometers we cycled today, not very much but a lot of climbing and descending. We drive to Oberneudorf and around nine o’clock we sit at the table. Enthusiastically we marvel again at the coincidence that we have harvested today and go to sleep.
Wed, June 4
day 55 - 70 km
Haslau bei Birkfeld - Plankenwarth
As we leave our shelter, Anika, our host who lives next door, gives us a beautiful loaf of bread, baked from her own grains. We drive both cars to the location where the tree bike is, where the brakes were replaced last night. Sanne and Nanja bike along and we stop at the “kindergarten in Haslau” where we give three tree bikes and take a picture. Then it’s steep uphill, where we do a “drag” to save time. At the highest point, Brandlucken, at about 1,100 meters, we drink coffee, give away a tree and the husband of the woman who got the tree pays for our coffee. Then it’s downhill, we slide downhill for miles through beautiful scenery with distant views. Around two o’clock we are met in Passail by Silke Leitner of “AlmenlandBlick,” she is taking pictures for an article. The Rathaus is closed after noon. We pause at Hexenstub’n on the little square, where Mayor Patrick Rosenberger and Deputy Mayor Robert Schaffer turn out to be sitting next to us. What a coincidence? I speak to them and tell our story. They take a picture with the two little trees. Later app contact reveals that the freedom we radiate with our Tour arouses interest and acts as a kind of mirror, like what am I actually doing myself? Isn’t it nice that our project releases that. Both our bikes are making more squeaking noises every day as we go downhill, which feels dangerous. We stop by the service point of the bicycle shop in Passail and after a bit of searching and calling around, grease is added, just like the Boomfiets these bikes need maintenance after about two thousand kilometers. After lunch in the grass, Richard and Nanja join us, but not for long, the greasing of the brakes has not worked, at least we do not trust it. Richard and Nanja follow with the car. It is almost five o’clock and we are going to do some more miles. And how coincidental, we pass the location where we slept last night, at Anika’s, and show the tree bike, also to her little daughter because yesterday she was disappointed that the tree bike did not come along. She was delighted. It is wonderful cycling, how beautiful it is here. The light is beautiful and the wind is still warm. The views only get more beautiful and we drone on a few more beautiful spots. Just like the drone we fly through the landscape, forty, fifty, sixty kilometers, it’s going wonderfully and the further we get the better, because we are still slightly behind our schedule and today, Wednesday, is actually our break day. Then another TO (coincidence harvesting) occurs. We stop by a group of men having a beer together. It’s very cozy. After half an hour and a group photo, we leave again. After a steep climb, where the police also drive by and are actually not that surprised, we turn out to be stuck and have to go back and take a detour. It is what it is. Dusk sets in and gradually it is good, enough cycling, seventy kilometers in all, up and down hills. We park the tree bike by the side of the road because we can’t find a better spot and the four of us drive in the car in the dark for another hour to our accommodation at altitude where we will stay for three nights. It is eleven o’clock when we get there, it is chilly here at over 1,650 meters. What a long day again. But a very beautiful one.
do June 5
day 56 - 70 km
Plankenwarth (Koralpe - Trum-und Prössinggraben)
Thursday is our non-cycling day and today we are taking a little rest. Also nice after yesterday’s long day. We covered two thousand kilometers. Great. The coming days are expected to be tough again with big hills and/or mountains. Tomorrow we want to do another seventy kilometers, just like yesterday. Then we will be right back on schedule. Tomorrow it will be fairly flat up to fifty kilometers and the last twenty seem to get pretty steep to above 1,500 meters. The tree bike hasn’t been that high yet. We’ll see. Even though we are not cycling today, we are still busy all day: Yoga exercises; updating socials; forwarding drone shots; adjusting routes; booking overnight stays, answering emails; planning the next few days; charging batteries; making phone calls and, of course, all sorts of small household things. And again, the day flies by. At the end of the day we take a short walk and toast to Nanja who is going back tomorrow. It was very nice that she was there. And she will probably come back again. In ten days we hope to arrive in Nova Gorica / Gorizia. And then we will have completed half the circle, two and a half thousand kilometers. I can hardly believe it but it seems to be working out. And how lucky we have been. And, of course, thanks to a great team that is well matched, helps each other and knows how to move well with the vagaries of weather, landscape, technology and other unforeseen and unpredictable circumstances. But we are not there yet. The trip to Slovenia will be tough but we are confident. We are looking forward to it.