Day 1

Starting point of the group for most of the folks was Amstetten, a rather unexciting town in Lower Austria. Many, but not all, of us live in the western part of Vienna, and a larger portion of the group planned to catch the 7:20 train from Hütteldorf, some an hour later. As it goes, Georg missed the train by a few seconds, but Karin, Sarah, Oscar, Michi, Lena, Jonas, Kathrin, Nadine, Verena and myself made it on time. We got there before 9 and a discussion started, whether we should leave or wait for the others; the latter option got the majority of the votes. As mentioned, Amstetten is not all too exciting, so we opted for a major mall with a large sports shop - as some needed to fix their bikes and make smaller purchases. The town was just waking up, we found a spot with artificial grass within the mall, on which we camped out.

An hour or so later, a second batch of the group arrived, with Georg, Agnes, Florian, Bernhard and sons, Jakob, Niklas; and yet another Bernhard. Barbara, Marie and Felix took the train to the first stop of the group, Waidhofen. The other Barbara with Dominik also were to join there. Wow, a lot of names, hope I did not miss anyone...

As with all large groups, it was really hard getting everyone in Amstetten together and once we all made it, people started greeting each other and chatting. It was hard work till Florian and I got everyone moving. Until then we were blocking the entire biking network of the town....

In case you hadn't noticed, Karin must have confused her skiing helmet with the biking helmet - anyhow, she deserves the most original outfit for this Corona-tour 2020.

We finally were on the go, close to 11 am, for me personally, the tour started with an almost-accident - I nearly ran over two ducks crossing the bike path. In my defense, I can say they came from the left. The mother hissed at me - not much of a protection against a large guy...

Florian and I were heading the group - and as always, there was a huge spread between the first ones and the ones in the back - which is fine, as we always wait for each other. This picture was taken during the first break, I can definitely make out Bernhard the Green and Bernhard the Yellow - not sure about the others.

Close to Waidhofen, I made a wrong turn and led the part of the group on a detour - we rode through a very narrow tunnel and were suddenly on the main road. Oh well, we filled up our supplies at a Billa and rode the rest of the way to town. Lena had a smaller accident, we had to cross rail tracks, her angle was too shallow - and she was on her knees. Take-away from this: always cross tracks as perpendicular as possible.

In contrast to Amstetten, Waidhofen an der Ybbs is a very pretty, romantic town. Let the pictures speak for themselves!

Here we met sometime after 1 pm and we were joined by the others (2 Barbaras, Marie, Felix, Domonic). We treated ourselves about an hour and a half of free time, we split up somewhat and "my" group found an excellent restaurant within the old castle. I had a tasty asparagus soup and a chicken - in Austria, one can find excellent gastronomy at affordable prices even in the countryside. All those around me seemed quite happy with their food. To top it off, we went to a patisserie and had some cakes.

Great food, very poor timing: a few minutes after we left town, it started drizzling, then raining, then pouring down. Jonas, Felix and myself braved the weather, but then we noticed that no one was behind us, we turned around and noticed the group fled under a shed. Oh well...we waited there for a while for the rain to die down, which it did, more or less, so it was time to leave.

We were now riding on an old rain track, which just a few years back had been turned into a wonderful bike path, following the river Ybbs. Well, this is what it looked like with grey clouds, image it in the sunshine!

Here you can see Oscar, who just rode through a tunnel and realized it wasn't raining on the other side, so he was removing his rain gear.

We then met some bisons, who wanted to lick my bike bag. No, they did not just want to do that, they actually did that, not sure why.

We eventually reached the small, but scenic village of Hollenstein, where one family had the monopoly over all accommodation. They were able to host all of us, some in their main house, others in neighboring guest houses. By the way, as you can see, there was even some fresh snow on the top of the surrounding mountains.

The family operating the hotel also provided food - and what amazing food! This was the second asparagus soup of the day for me, this one even better than the first one. Everyone seemed very happy - and we drank a toast for Bernhard the Green, who celebrated his birthday just a few days back. We rode about 50 kilometers that day - most of us were happy to retire.