Corona Bike Tour 2020

This is the story of a 3-day biking trip in the so-called Mostviertel of Austria, the southwestern portion of Lower Austria, or Niederösterreich. I am fortunate of having a group of friends who love nature, are adventurous, enjoy good dining and each other’s company. This group meets twice a year, usually during Pentecost (Pfingsten) for a bike ride and then sometime in October for a hike, both typically 3-day long. The group, from all points of view, is rather diverse: we have those young and those that stayed young at heart, boys and girls, gals and lads, funny and serious, grumpy and cordial, sporty and not-so-fit. At times, it is a smaller group of just around a dozen people (yeah, when it rains...), but I have seen up to thirty of us joining.

Let me introduce the crew of this year. These tours have not less then two masterminds, Georg and Florian. They have been buddies for around three decades and they launched this tradition quite a while back. On the left is the always-calm, thoughtful Georg, next to him is Florian, who was about to get run over a train, guess because he was so tired of the organization of this tour.

Yes, organizing a tour during (or at the end of) the Corona lock-down wasn't easy - the hotels were just opening the day before our tour started, so you had to find accommodation for 20+ people, restaurants that would be open, finding the time-tables for the trains and/or buses - a lot of work, follow-up calls, tending to changes ("no, I cannot come", "I can join on the second day, but will be having a vegan menu, please", etc.), so these two gentlemen take on the heavy burden of the organization not less than twice a year - which, we ordinary group members, are were thankful for! Thanks, Georg, thanks, Florian!

This year, we have four heroes in the group. I call them heroes, as they braved the freezing cold water of Lunz am See, which even in the summer is quite chilly. Well, these four kids, with just a bit of hesitation, jumped right into the water - all of this during rainy, drizzling weather.

As you can see, they were all kids/teenagers...we have here Agnes, Georg's older daughter, then a rather "intelligent" grimace made by Jakob (son of the to-be-introduced Bernhard the Green), then there is Oscar and last but not least, we have Sarah (who we also see behind Jakob). A glimpse of the author of this blog can also be seen, sitting next to Oscar, that is me, Balazs.

Let us see the others, too.

This picture shows Karin (mother of the two heroes Sarah & Oscar), Verena and Kathrin , happily consuming their breakfast on the train. Note that they did not have face-masks (unlike the author of this blog), which is punishable by law for at least 25 euros. Very poor behavior, ladies! Next to them in Nadine, at least she had her mask below her kin, this would have lowered the fine to just 12.50 euros - but then no one cared to check.

Then we had Michi (on the right), with two of her three children joining, Lena (left) and Jonas (middle). Her third child, little Daria, with her 3 years of age, will show up in a year or two....

We also had 2 Bernhards, one on the left, the other on the right, being called green Bernhard, and yellow Bernhard.

Now for a few more children...we have here sleepy Felix and sleepy Marie (on the right), Georg's smaller kids, and Niklas ("I think therefore I am", who belongs to Bernhard the Green.

Alas, it seems to admit that I did not take a picture of Barbara, Georg's wife and the mother of Agnes, Felix and Marie...

Also missing is another Barbara, the wife of Dominik - while they did join the trip, they took a somewhat different route, arriving later than the others and also not riding in the rain, but rather took a taxi. Should anyone have pictures of them, I am happy to upload those later.

Now comes a list of absentees:

• Melanie and Stefan - were excused, as Stefan had hurt his back...too bad, get well, hope you can join the hike in the fall!
• Peter Zimmermann and Valeriya - I guess the bad weather scared them off, Peter dislikes getting wet more, then wanting to meet the gang, it seems...
• Rupert and Petzi - well, this is a difficult topic. These two friends of ours, who used to be a core of the group, are no longer with us...but they were very much in our hearts...

So, now that we (more or less...) know the crew, let us see the story of this trip.