More Circling ... from Sauerlach to Grafing
Tuesday, April 3, 2018
The warmest and springy-est day so far and we are off, dressed in layers that we hope we can peel as the day warms up. Again I have planned a route to follow and uploaded it to my Garmin. The app I like best for planning routes is Bikemap.net, but even with the information it provides such as bike routes, a heat map showing the most popular bicycle routes and a google hybrid map, I can't really know what we will find. My top priority is avoiding traffic, second is steering clear of mud and gravel. And if the surface is really bad - much mud and gravel - I might change my priorities.
The circle is taking shape - today's segment is in orange and we travelled from west to east.
Now a familiar sight to my readers - We are in the S3 this time. We just missed the previous train and had a wait of 19 minutes.
We arrived in Sauerlach and had a lovely road, slightly downhill and a tailwind. We whizzed along. A village appeard with a sweet little church and we stopped for a few photos, at which time we noticed we had missed our turn off.
We were here in no time, but unfortunately we had to backtrack to get on our planned route.
We rode back against the wind to the path through the woods that we had missed. Well, the paved road was nicer than this path but it wouldn't have taken us where we wanted to go. We started pedaling.
The woods are still brown and the path is bumpy. If you look carefully, you can see a raised hide for hunters on the left side of the path. We saw many in the course of our ride.
The sun wasn't out yet, the path wasn't interesting. When our path intersected a paved road that would take us in the right direction and it had a separate bicycle lane, we decided to take it. Unfortunately, the lane soon disappeared and we were confronted with a road with no shoulder. We found our way back to the route through the forest.
Now it was time for setting priorities - traffic or mud? We went for the mud instead of backtracking a second time. This was a commercial forest we were cycling through, trees here are grown for the timber industry. It is sad to see how the heavy machines used for felling, cutting and stacking the logs tear up the earth. They do immense damage to soil organisms and also cause soil compaction and subsequent runoff and erosion. Not to mention the esthetic damage resulting from the lumber industry.
Now it was time for setting priorities - traffic or mud? We went for the mud instead of backtracking a second time. This was a commercial forest we were cycling through, trees here are grown for the timber industry. It is sad to see how the heavy machines used for felling, cutting and stacking the logs tear up the earth. They do immense damage to soil organisms and also cause soil compaction and subsequent runoff and erosion. Not to mention the esthetic damage resulting from the lumber industry.
Not a pretty sight
I pushed for a while and then the stretch used by the heavy vehicles came to an end and I got back on my bike.
I was happy when the path ended in Peiss - and it was time for a lunch stop. I saw a sign for Gasthof zur Post, a nice Bavarian pub with an Italian proprietor. And what did I have? Pizza! The pizza was more than enough and we took what we couldn't eat with us.
Pizza funghi - my fave!
Back on asphalt. Janos is now carrying pizza on his rear rack.
From here on we had the roads that I love - low traffic connections between villages, going up and down over the rolling landscape. Since we are in the reach of the city train system which makes the commute to Munich easy, the villages are expanding as farmland is sold for residential development. I hate to see it but people have to live somewhere I guess.
Farmland
Church with onion dome in Kreuz, only a few farms here
The village pond
And one of the pond's inhabitants sends greetings to Kermit.
"Road closed to traffic between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. because of toads crossing" - Someone is taking our environment seriously!
Looking south from Kreuz we had a view of the Alps.
From here in Taglaching it's only a few more kilometers to Grafing where we get our train home.
That was probably the last post for a week or two since we are now headed for a short trip to Italy. Without our bikes! I'll miss them.
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