What a fantastic bycicle stage!

The 7th stage from Donauworth to Bad Mergentheim has been probably the best stage of our tour (so far), for the landscape, the bike track and for the way we rode together.

We followed for a large part the track of the famous Romantische Straße with several gentle uphill and downhill that cradle the landscape of grass and forests. The Romantische Straße is also famous for the beautiful villages and cities of the area. We had not time to visit them as deserved but just the chance to ride through Dinkelsbühl gave us the possibility to perceive the flavor of what this area can offer to any cyclist.

But the original track of the Romantische Straße was too much for us (more than 180 km) with our heavy bikes full of lugagge. Therefore Paolo introduced some variations that made the way  even more interesting and fascinating.

But we enjoyed the stage also because we rode together as a single body. It is not easy to do it when you ride with people that you don’t know on the bycicle and in particular when the numbers and faces of riders change continuously. We have to remember that during the first stage we were around 100 riders, than 30 to Bolzano, 21 to München and now 14. Some of them are people that rode together to Paris or to Turin, but others are new comers with different athletic skills and attitudes to the way you use the bycicle. But today we rode together in a very natural and easy way for 137 km and more than 900 m of global uphill. A significant amount (always remember the luggage…) of global difference af altitude composed by several gentle uphill and downhill and a couple of steep uphills in the final part of our track.

But when we got to our hotel we received a fantastic gift. Bad Mergentheim is the most important thermal area of the Baden-Württemberg and a warm swimming pool and sauna is a kind of dream after an entire day on the bycicle.