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Oberreute is a small village in the Allgäu just a few kilometers  from the Austrian border and about 40 miles from Lake Constance AKA the Bodensee. It is an outstanding touring area close to beautiful mountains, consisting of pasture land, full of lakes and famous for the castles of Ludwig II. Schloß Neuschwanstein (see above) is the most famous castle. It took 20 years to build and was completed towards the end of the 19th C. King Ludwig beggared the land to build the castle and other monuments inspired by the Niebelungen saga and the music of Richard Wagner. Ludwig was found dead in lake Chiemsee under suspicious circumstances. Ironically the myriads of tourists who now visit Neuschwanstein have more than paid for it.

As it turned out, the owner of the holiday house, Heiner Oßwald, was a cyclist and belonged to the cycling club in Memmingen. Heiner and Gabi’s hospitality was quite extraordinary. Not only did they invite us to lunch, but also did two cycle routes with us – one to the Basilica in Ottobeuren (about 15km from Memmingen) and the other to the Pfänder (a 1000m high mountain overlooking Bregenz and Lake Constance) from Scheidegg and back. Should they read this, many thanks again!

By Iris Buckler

This year the Birthday Rides were at Framlingham in Suffolk. Bryan and Anna and me from Plymouth and Grace and Richard from South Brent  travelled across the country to take part.

The rides were based at Framlingham college where we were accommodated. The campers were on the sports field which was an improvement on previous years ,when the camp sites have been some distance from  the centre of activities.

The college was in a superb position with excellent views across the grounds of the magnificent Framlingham castle where Mary Tudor was proclaimed queen. Most of the birthday riders took the opportunity to look around the castle, I certainly enjoyed the opportunity.

On previous years the numbers at the rides have been dropping . Not this year , there were 600 there taking part in the various suggested rides. What a pleasure for us Devon cyclists to have the undulating countryside, so much easier than our Devon hills and of course we could do more miles.

Every evening there was something arranged from a Jazz concert to slide shows to the final barn dance.

We all like the W.I. teas and this year we were treated to a cream tea Trifles! at Ashfield. So great was the demand that we had to book in advance.

The highlight of the week on the final day was the church service followed by a massed ride back to the Birthday tea at the college. The local Rotary club had made arrangements for the traffic  to be stopped to allow 600 cyclists  ride back to the college

The Suffolk CTC organisers must be thanked for what  was a very  much enjoyed week.

Next year the Birthday rides will be in Shropshire. The details will be available in January 

Thursday turned out to be not quite such a nice day as fore-casted. Even so I had my sights set on the canals linked by the Falkirk Wheel – an ingenious piece of engineering designed to allow boats to drop and rise a distance of about 100 ft between the Union Canal above and the Forth-Clyde canal below.

The union canal goes as far as Edinburgh (33 miles) and has a cycle path alongside. Because of the weather and domestic arrangements I had only two hours to explore. The path was pretty squelchy in the rain. At one point there was a very long tunnel with rain water gushing through the roof. Even in that weather there was a runner and another cyclist, who caught me warbling in the tunnel as I tested the acoustics.

Friday, my final cycling day in Stirling, turned out to be as hot as all the other days this week. The route took me via Dunblane and Braco to Gleaneagles and thence to Glendevon (after a long but gentle ascent).

I avoided the main road returning to Stirling and took the lanes on the other side of the valley – much quieter and very pretty.

” … another fine old mess you’ve got me into Stanley!”

Today’s route took me through the Fintry Hills past Carron Valley Reservoir through Kippen, Thornhill, Doune and Bridge of Allen back to Stirling. It was a  generally hillier ride than Monday’s effort but well worth it terms of views. Bike Friday performed well after repairs to the gears and back hanger. In places the road surface was very bad, which meant that I felt every bump owing to the small wheel-size on the bike. After a grey start the day day turned out fine and hot again.

 <Photo Album -Fintry Hills>

Loch Katrine in the Trossachs

£10.50 return on National Express beat British Rail hands down and since Bike Friday packed into a carrying case it went in the hold as an item of luggage. The very cheap fare was due to my OAP concession and special deal NE was running for people booking at least a fortnight before the departure date. I left Plymouth at 5.30 in the morning, arriving in Stirling at 7.10pm. The journey wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought

Stirling is in Central Scotland, half way between Glasgow and Edinburgh. My first bike excursion was over the Ochil Hills. The ride up was steep but thereafter it was easy riding with one more steep climb after Dunning. Just outside the village was a monument to Maggie Wall, who was burnt at the stake in the mid-seventeenth century for witchcraft.

About half way round I discovered the rear changer wasn’t working anymore, leaving me with three gears on the front and top gear at the back. Bike shops seem to be few and far between, but fortunately there is one just round the corner from where I’m staying. So it’s worth giving the details in case anyone else sees this page: http://www.StirlingCycleRepairs.co.uk 2 Alloa Road, Stirling, FK9 5LT (Tel.: 01786 451 559).

Turned out the rear gear cable was damaged. It also turned out that the rear triangle was bent, so the changer was misaligned. Getting Bike Friday into its case is a bit like getting a ship into a bottle. But the damaged could have occurred somewhere in transit.

Between the mountains there are vast plains, so cycling here is a good deal easier than in Devon in Cornwall unless you really do want to spend all your time cycling up and down mountains. At the moment everything is remarkably lush after a lot of rain and the summer flowers in the hedgerows are stunning. While Glasgow conjures up pictures of industrial grime and dirt, in fact this area is well spaced out with excellent opportunities for cycling.

<Photo Album - Ochil Hills>

I joined a CTC tour to Albania this summer. There were 14 of us and we cycled a clockwise perimeter route in the south of the country starting from the capital Tirana. Here are a few of my photos to give a feel of the country.

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As the CTC tours for my distance  only went to France, I fancied some change this summer and scanned my German brochures. Masuren appealed to me, a guided tour with bikes available.

Warsaw

Masuren is in the west of Poland; a moraine formed the countryside after the ice age. It is hilly with over 3000 lakes all sizes, some of them connected by canals.

One of the 3000 Polish lakes

This part used to belong to Ostpreußen, but was settled by Poles from their eastern borders after the last war.The group assembled in Warsaw, Swiss Austrian, German and me.

After a sight seeing tour in Warsaw, we travelled by coach about 4 hours into the heart of Masuren. We were dropped off in a car park, where we choose our bikes, a selection of 8 hub gear bikes with back pedal brake and 21 gear bikes. It was about 10 miles to the hotel, where the mechanic waited to iron out some problems.

In the first 3 hotels we stayed two nights each and in the last one night. They all were in the middle of nowhere, next to lakes and with enormous grounds. Our luggage was transported on.

Our guide, a Polish student was an endless source of knowledge, history, politics, religion, social problems, transport ect.We visited a museum of country life, a Russian orthodox church and a nunnery of the “Altglaübigen”, apparently they split up from the Russian Orthodox Church in the middle ages.

Typical tiled over for cooking and heating

“Old Believers’” Monastery

 We saw how they made ceramic tiles for their traditional corner oven. We had a guided walk through Ketrzyn with the pastor of the protestant church.

We cycled through woods, large cornfields with cornflowers and poppies, nature reserves and heath land and storks everywhere.

Funny -we saw more storks than babies!

We had a 2-hour kayak trip on the river Krutinia and went on a boat from Sztynert to Gizcko, which went through 3 lakes.

Cycling leader demonstrating kayaking

We saw ruins and still standing castles of the Deutschritter. They were formed at the crusades, but conquered Masuren in the 13^th century, were they built castles and towns.

“Deutschritterorden” Castle

We admired enormous churches and visited “Heilige Linden” a pilgrim’s church .

Heilige Lindenkirche with moving figures on the organ

Here we listens to an organ concert. The church was founded by the Jesuits and contains an organ with 12 moving figures, reminding me a bit of a street-organ,  e.g. the archangel Gabriel bows to the Virgin Mary.

We had a guided walk around the “Wolfschanze” Hitler’s bunker for the eastern front. Here happened the attempt on his life by Fürst von Staufenberg, alas unsuccessful.

Four-course dinner was the norm and the food was surprisingly varied.

Sounds ideal ? Well it would have been if it were not for the cycling. Not many roads are tarmac ked, lots are sand roads with very loose sand, slipping and sliding.

Most roads off the beaten track were just sand

I came off on the second and they made me very nervous. Or there were the cobbled roads with enormous round cobbles, high in the middle and sloping towards the edge with loose sand again. Most of the ladies hated them; the men took them as challenge.With all those lakes, there were a lot of biting insects and we creamed ourselves endlessly, they still managed to sting.The guide tried to teach us some Polish, but I am afraid not very successful, it is such a strange language.

All in all a very interesting holiday, but not for the timid.