Bike hire in Salzburg

If you are looking for a hire bike in Salzburg, then check out "a velo rent-a-bike" on the Mozartplatz near to the Salzburg-Info. Prices range from 12€ a half day to 55€ for a week. The company offers MTBs, road bikes, recumbents, e-bikes, children's bicycles, trailers, helmets, bags and rainwear for hire. The website given on their flyer: www.a-velo.at does not work for me. Maybe the telephone number does: +43 (0) 676 4355950.

How do bike years compare to people years?

We went by Brompton to Lorsch to a rally about the line of the new high speed railway line from Frankfurt to Mannheim. The plan is to run the line east and parallel to the A67 autobahn through a forest. In addition Deutsche Bahn plans to run goods (freight) trains along the line overnight. Many locals object to this project because of the damage to the local woods which are an important leisure area and because of fears about health problems due to noise pollution. There is a serious suggestion to submerge much of the route in a tunnel. We understand these fears, but also support any move to move goods transport away from roads to rail.
While we there we met various friends who are members of the ADFC (German Cycling Club), chatted to the odd soul on the stands, enjoyed Kaffee und Kuchen (coffee and cake) and listened to an excellent local amateur big band. It was a fairly typical summer afternoon in Lorsch. We set off for home and in the Viernheim Woods Judith got a stick caught in the chain tensioner. The chain left the pulley cogs and the drive train jammed. We had no choice but to turn the bike over, loosen the chain tensioner and get oily. We had almost finished when two of our ADFC friends appeared and enjoyed a little Schadenfreude. One of our famous Bromptons was giving us problems. We pointed out that the bikes were twenty years old. Then came the question, "How old is that in people years?". This we couldn't answer, but it struck us that if the Bromptons were cars, and both are about twenty years old, they would more than likely be sitting on a scrap heap rather than being ridden about.
 

Danube Cycle Way: Hire bikes for a one way trip between Passau and Vienna

We've just spent a few days in Austria cycling down the Tauern Cycle Path from 1100 or so m down to Passau on the Danube. As usual I took the chance to check out bike hire facilities on the way. In Passau we found the Fahrradklinik (www.fahrradklinik-passau.de) in the old town not far from the Danube Suspension Bridge.  This shop has an innovative bike hire policy and rents high quality bikes with puncture proof tyres and in part Rohloff 14 speed hub gears. These are better bikes than we have at home. The company also offers bike trailers, Ortlieb panniers, tandems and e-bikes. Prices seem reasonable to us starting at 13€ a day for one day hire and 70€ for a week for the normal bikes. E-bikes and tandems cost twice as much. The real clincher though is that the shop offers one way hire to the edge of Vienna for 29€ extra. The shop also offers repair and service of your steeds.

Fahrradklinik,
Bräugasse 10
94032 Passau
T: +49 (0) 851 33411

eMail: info@fahrradklinik-passau.de

There is a second shop in Passau in addition to Fahrradklinik offering one way hire bikes for the trip down the Danube as far as Vienna: Bikehaus. This organisation will pick up bikes from hotels and B&Bs along the route. Prices are much the same as those from Fahrradklinik: One Day: 13€, One Week 70€. Pickup prices are slighly higher than Fahrradklinik at 35€ per bike, but the company will pick up their bikes from any hotel or B&B en route between Passau and Vienna whereas Fahrradklinik uses one hotel near Vienna. The bicycles have only 8 gear Shimano hub gears rather than the fourteen speed Rohloffs offered by Fahrradklinik. The hire base is in part of the Hauptbahnhof (railway station) in Passau. Opening hours in season are surprisingly long for Germany: 9am to 1pm and 2pm to 6pm every day of the week including public holidays! The company also offers a repair service and sells spare parts, tyres, maps, panniers, clothing and drinks.

Bikehaus
Bahnhofstraße 29
94032 Passau
T:  +49 (0) 851 - 966 25 70
Mobile: +49 (0) 151 - 1283 4224
E-Mail:  info@bikehaus.de

Cycle Tours in and around Mannheim

For those of you who read German, we have contributed to the Mannheimer Morgen's "Rauf aufs Rad" a guide to seventeen tours in the Heidelberg-Ludwigshafen-Mannheim metropolitan area. This all came about by accident, as we went to a meeting of the ADFC with the MM to see if we could pick up some tips on publishing and suddenly found ourselves responsible for three tours. We wrote up the tours in the telegraph style preferred by various bicycle touring guidebooks and these were translated into something more similar to the language of Goethe by the MM. The book is available from all good bookshops in the metropolitan area. The definition of a good bookshop is one that sells our books.

Interesting free German Cycling Magazine

If you read or teach German it would  be worthwhile checking out "Fahrrad News" available free as a digital download from http://tinyurl.com/pkel28w, from App Store: http://tinyurl.com/myx2vhh or from Google play: http://tinyurl.com/m37fozy.

Surprisingly, the magazine is as good as any of those costing five or six Euros with a good mixture of reviews, travel tips and news of new products. The only giveaway is that about 90% of the cyclists shown in photographs and advertisements are wearing helmets.

I picked up a printed copy at one of those big shed bike shops on the edge of Mannheim where oddly enough there is a parking area for hundred cars or so, but only bike racks for about twenty bikes.

Things don't always improve

We travelled to Zell on a DB (German Railways) EuroCity train. These trains along with the InterCity trains are the fastest trains in Germany that take bikes. We were on the train for six hours or so and I noticed that DB has replaced the tough grey heavy paper towels formerly used in the toilets/restrooms with much lighter, thinner, smaller, whiter, more absorbent ones. These may well be pleasanter to use and may be do not block the WC vacuum systems when oafs throw them in the WC rather than in the bin provided. However they are nothing like as useful to clean one's bike. 

Changing trains with a bike in Austria or the tri-international incident on Schwarzach-St Veit station

We took the EC train from Mannheim to Klagenfurt on our way to Zell am See. I had booked the tickets three months before to obtain two of the contingent of the cheap Eurospezial tickets. My pleasure at obtaining these blinded me to the fact that we had but three minutes to change trains in Schwarzach-St Veit. We arrived in Schwarzach, left the train, looked up the platform and saw the IC that we should take to Zell am See. We pushed the bikes along the platform, looked for a bike storage slot and saw a bike logo on the window. Unfortunately ÖBB (Austrian Railways) model their trains on the Eiger North Wall and there were three or maybe four steps into the train. I staggered up the stairs with each bike. We discovered there was only one hanging space for one bike. At this point a guard appeared and explained to me in what I felt was a rude tone that I should have gone farther along the train to hang up the bike(s). It was not clear whether there was one or a pair of hooks farther along the train. I was not gruntled and so expressed my displeasure with the design of Austrian railway carriages, his tone of voice and the lack of  signposting on the station to allow bewildered foreign cyclists find somewhere to pop their bikes. I have lived in the Fatherland for forty or so years and so can on occasion rattle off an acid phrase or four in German. The guard fell back somewhat surprised and left us. Judith squeezed her bike into a corner and my bike blocked the entrance to an out of order WC. The train climbed through territory that resembled the Canadian Pacific routes through the Rockies. We cycled it a few days later and it is well worth visiting. The guard was very helpful in Zell and helped us dismount. Probably he wanted to see the back of us.

Epilogue
When we arrived at our hotel, our friends were surprised to see us so soon. They had travelled down the day before from Germany on an Intercity train, but had changed along the way to a local train which had very easy access. It left Schwarzach 20 minutes later and stopped at more stations, but was a delight to load the bikes. If only we'd waited.

ALDI

Like many people who live in Germany, we regularly shop at ALDI, one of the leading discount stores in the country and in Europe. We are generally very satisfied with the goods the company sells, but… ALDI sells not only its core grocery goods, but also has a series of special offers that are on sale over a number of weeks. It appears to be habit for some customers to break open sealed packets to examine what is inside them and then leave the opened packets behind. It is definitely weird. Not all the goods are handled in this way. ALDI-Süd is selling a filled pepper mill at the moment and various of the packets in our local branch had been opened today. For goodness sake, it's a pepper mill with a clear plastic cylinder and you can see the contents, What more do people want? Maybe there is a PhD or at least a Master's degree in retail sociology to be written here and maybe even a cure for the problem.

Get me to the station on time!

We cycled from Viernheim to Mannheim at the start of our recent holiday. We took the direct route along the B38 main road thereby increasing the CO levels in our bloodstream and coating our lungs with unburnt polyaromatic hydrocarbons rather than following the fresh air route by nipping off through a series of green and leafy Schrebegärten (allotments) and then running along the bank of the Neckar into the centre of Mannheim.

I am not too sure whether the direct route is quicker. There are a number of roads to be crossed with pedestrian/cycle traffic lights on the direct route and these can add up to ten minutes to the journey. Under German law a red light for cyclists or pedestrians is a red light and one should stop and wait. If the gendarmes are about it can be an expensive pleasure with fines of up to 60€ for ignoring red lights. However I suspect these are for many of my two wheeled colleagues rather like speed limits for motorists advisory rather than mandatory. Cyclists arrived at the lights, cast a quick glance left and right and stamped on the pedals to cross the road pronto, whether the lights were red or green. 

There is seemingly a little known aspect of German traffic laws that unless it is specified otherwise cyclists should travel along cycle paths adjacent to roads in the direction of the traffic on their left. The path on the right side of a road should be used by those cycling in the same direction as the motorised traffic. German cycle paths are laid out fairly economically. These are constrained by the need to have wide enough motor roads. The poor Mercedes drivers need the room for their safety protection features, electrical mirror adjustment devices and foot wide tyres. These heroes of the economy cannot be made to drive more slowly. This could mean them arriving a few seconds late at work or having three minutes less to visit an Einkaufszentrum (shopping centre/mall) thus causing a a 0.000001% drop in the DAX stock exchange results. This means that there is often not enough room for two cyclists to cycle alongside each other. Amongst the massed ranks of cyclists there are determined individualists who if given their head could transform the economy and they too like those sitting in high powered automobiles wish to cut through the red tape stopping us achieving our best. They are prepared to cycle on the wrong side against the flow of traffic on the cycle path. We had a train to catch and so put the pedal to the metal. We were not pleased to meet those wishing to shave a microsecond or two off their journey time to the uni cycling towards us a path wide enough for a bike and a half. 

Then we arrived in the city centre and met the worst problem of all: pedestrians. The cycleway across Mannheim runs along pavements/sidewalks. Along the pedestrian zone by the congress centre groups of youths practised progression on the drunken sailor random model. It is de rigeur not to look where one is going and rapid changes of direction without checking if there is anyone behind are par for the course. 

It seems to be beyond the capabilities of the average German pedestrian to notice that he or she is walking on a red path marked as a cycleway. When one politely warns them that one is approaching they turn round and  are very surprised that they are on a cycleway. Perhaps they too wish to get to the shops in time to save the economy. 

As we headed across Mannheim I was amused while waiting at a red light to observe a car whose driver was cuddling a small dog as she drove. Perhaps all classes of road user have their problems with sensible behaviour. 

Where Marmots dare

We have had several requests to republish "Marmots" our guide to Swiss Route 3. It has been out of print for some years. The route is covered in slightly less detail in "Cycling in Switzerland" From Cicerone, along with all the other Swiss National Cycle Routes. Finally we gave in to the requests and we updated the accommodation, bike shop, bike hire and transport sections; checked the route cartographically and modified the page layout of the book to produce an e-book. It is available for US$ 8.99 from Smashwords. We will also produce a version for Amazon, one of these days. Kindle users too should remember that one can download a Kindle compatible formated file from Smashwords.

Cycling commuters, a rant in a minor key

We recently took part in a Mannheim ADFC tour. The ADFC is a German cycling club - similar to the CTC or the League of American Bicyclists, campaigning for better cycle facilities and organising tours of various difficulty. Our tour was on a Wednesday morning, so the majority of the riders were old fogeys, like us. We had four e-bikes amongst the dozen or so riders. It was fine day and it was good cycling through the centres of Mannheim and Ludwigshafen through heavy traffic. There were no problems motorists driving both cars and heavy trucks treated us with respect. We cycled north along a series of lakes and arrived at our destination an Italian restaurant at a tennis club. Lunch was taken and enjoyed. In many ways Italian restaurants in Germany offer the best of both worlds: good Italian food and German beer. What could be better? Well fed and replete, at peace with the world, we cycled round the edge of Frankenthal and swung south along cycle paths next to the B9 federal road into Ludwigshafen. At the start we cycled parallel to the B9. We could hear it but it was two or three hundred metres away. As we approached the dreaming spires of the BASF plant, we found ourselves on a narrow cyclepath almost rubbing elbows with 18 wheeler trucks. We still had no problems. We nipped through Ludwigshafen's centre like a hot knife through butter and climbed up the approach road to the Konrad Adenauer Bridge. There were roadworks for the fossil-fuelled on the bridge, so we passed them on the cycleway, feeling to be not only on the high moral ground, but on a more sensible means of transport. The group split up in Mannheim and we followed a series of cyclepaths along the Neckar, through a Schrebergarten (allotments) and through a former US Army residential area until we reached a cycle path along the edge of the Viernheim Forest adjacent to a busy road, but separated from the road by a thick hedge. The path is narrow and bushy and shortly after crossing the border from Mannheim the path gyrates a little swings left and right over a hummock. It is place we take care, because cyclists can come the other way. We were pleasantly gruntled. We were almost at the end of our first tour of the season, had cycled 60km in good weather, seen a few mates, heard the odd joke and eaten garlicky spaghetti, then this idiot  on a mountain bike dressed in gear more suitable for a downhill race in the Alps or a bank job with face mask shot up behind us, realised that the road narrowed, because of the aforementioned 'S'-bend, braked hard and very noisily, swerved round us out into the possible path of anyone coming the other way, pushing us towards the hedge, almost giving me a heart attack and accelerated away to cries of "Idiot" from my Mrs. I have no objection to getting a move on, but at the same time it is necessary to cycle taking account of the road conditions. We were definitely disgruntled. Under German Law cyclists should have a bell on their bikes and even if the idiot had taken his bell off his velocipede he still had a voice unless his face mask made conversation impossible. I wonder what he will do do with the microsecond he saves, write the doctoral thesis hat will deliver a cure for the common cold or a solution for world peace. Typical that the only impolite expletive-deleted idiot we met on this very pleasant day was from the ranks of the cyclists, our people. 

From Weizen-Bier to vino rosso: Over the Alps from Munich to Venice by bicycle and train

Obviously you can, if you want,  swing your leg over your mountain bike at Munich Airport, tighten your rucksack and set off on stony trails toward Italy across the Alps, risking life and limb on MTB routes, but the good news is that you don't have to bounce around on single track trails to get from Munich to Venice by bike. There is a signposted road and cycle path route with the option of taking the train up the Brenner Pass by train or bus. This means that all of us have the option to make what may well be the trip of lifetime through three countries, with two languages and through three climate zones. It is 560km (350 miles) from Munich to Venice via Innsbruck and the whole trip can be cycled in about a week though you may want to take more time. There is information available on:

•  www.tirol.at/a-muenchen-venezia The English version of the tirol.at website does not mention the Munich - Venice route at all, however the German version has downloadable gps and gpx tracks bottom right.
•  www.muenchen-venezia.info, but the English language portion is largely in German. Persevere and you can get some information. You could also use Google Translator to get more information. 
• http://www.italybike.info/en/cycle-holidays/munich-venice/  This website is the best laid out of these three websites and gives you all you need to know about the route. It is a commercial site for companies offering guided and self-guided tours. You can book the whole trip for about 800 Euros per person from Munich to Venice for an eight day trip. This is the comfortable option.

You may choose to use the information on the websites to organise your own trip. There are youth hostels and B&Bs along much of the route, which could cut your costs considerably.

Draisine/Pedal Trolley

We invited a friend along to today on a Draisine trip in the Pfalz. It was our and her first draisine trip. A draisine is small open pedal-powered railcar that runs on former branch or industrial lines. It would appear it is known as pedal trolley in US English.  In this case the line ran from Bornheim near Landau to Westheim about 12km. It crosses a number of minor roads on in part traffic light controlled crossings. Unlike normal railway lines we did not have right of way over the majority of roads and so had to switch on the red light for road users, lift a barrier and push the draisine across the road. We pedalled to Westheim, ate an excellent lunch in a local Italian restaurant and pedalled back. What we did notice was that the seating position was fixed unlike on a bike where you shift the bottom about. If we do this again I think we will wear padded underpants. The 24km there and back were quite hard on the bottom. It was good fun with lots of wildlife - birds of prey, storks and worth trying.

Hiring bikes in Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Fulda, Giessen, Wiesbaden

To mark the European Day of Cycling;
We have updated the Frankfurt page of the Cycling/Useful stuff/Bike Hire/Germany chapter on http://www.bicycletouringeurope.eu/.
We have written new pages for Darmstadt, Fulda, Giessen and Wiesbaden in the Cycling/Useful stuff/Bike Hire/Germany chapter on http://www.bicycletouringeurope.eu/.

Thoughts on High Speed e-Bikes

Friends of ours have recently spent a week or so tootling through the hills in the middle of Hesse on hired e-bikes. It is a seriously hilly district and our friends were very pleased to be able to cycle in comfort without having to get off and push or arriving at the summit of a climb out of puff, unable to speak. We have ourselves been thinking if we are ever asked to update our "Cycling in Switzerland" book from Cicerone that we'd try to scrounge or hire a pair of e-bikes to check the routes. However I don't think we wish to own an e-bike as long as the floor of the Rhine Valley in our part of the world stays flat.

I am less than gruntled though about the proposals for a Radschnellweg (High Speed Bike Path) in various conurbations in Germany, especially in combination with the desire to run High Speed e-Bikes with maximum speeds up to 45 kph. The bikes are selling like hot cakes in the Netherlands. In Germany these can be used, but are treated as mopeds. The "drivers" of these bikes need a moped licence, must wear a helmet and the bikes themselves have a licence plate. These vehicles can only be ridden on bike paths where mopeds are allowed. I am pleased about this because we normally cycle around 15 to 16 kph and the vision of sharing a bike path with vehicles going three times as fast is not a happy one.

I have heard recent comments that these restrictions will delay the development of high speed e-bikes in Germany. I can only say thank goodness!

Bike Hire in Mannheim and Middle Hesse

We've just updated our Bicycle Touring Europe website with a chapter on bike hire in middle Hesse (NE of Frankfurt am Main) and an addition to the bike hire possibilities in Mannheim: http://www.bicycletouringeurope.eu/cycling/useful-stuff/bike-hire/germany/index.html.

The Romantic Road yet again

Judith has written an interesting article about the Romantic Road which has been published by Cicerone on its Cicerone Extra e-magazine:  http://www.cicerone-extra.com/article/index.cfm?articleid=235&title=Cycling-the-Romantic-Road#.VVJgVlnEZWQ. It is worth reading if you get the chance. This is our opinion and maybe we are biased.

Wörnitz Cycleway

We spend some time in winter visiting travel fairs ranging from the giant CMT event in Stuttgart in early January to minor, very minor events in shopping centres. We pick up brochures, too many brochures and sometime later when we start spring cleaning we look at what we've got and maybe find a topic for a blog or it's the bin.
Recently we found a map published by Ferienland Donau Ries, the regional tourist office for the Wörnitz Valley in western Bavaria, between Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Donauwörth across the ancient meteor crater. This shows a new route following a similar route to the Romantic Road Cycle Route. Much of the line of Romantic Road is shown on the printed map and on the website: http://www.ferienland-donau-ries.com/wege/romantische_strasse-931/ but for some reason unknown the printed map does not show the stretch of the Romantic Road which runs through Feuchtwangen. We assume it is a mistake. This is a pity because Feuchtwangen itself is a little jewel and near by  is one of our favourite pubs/hotels: Gaststätte-Pension "Zum Grünen Wald" in Thürnhofen. The Wörnitz Valley would be a good area to have two or three nights and explore this new route in addition to the Romantic Road.

World-Klapp le 24 Heures de Schopp

The 24 Heures de Schopp, latest event in the rapidly growing SW German Klapprad racing scene was held last Friday and Saturday in the Schopp-o-drom aka the bike track in Schopp, a metropolis (1389 inhabitants) between Pirmasens and Kaiserslauten in Rheinland-Pfalz. A Klapprad is either the epitome of folding bicycle manufacture or one of those small wheeled folding bikes that were designed to be used to nip round to the baker's for couple of Brötchen (Rolls) for breakfast as long as the baker's was not more than 500 yards away.  Anymore than that and you spent the day crosseyed from the pain in your lower regions. 

Klapprad racing is a fast growing sport. The rules of 24h racing are simple:

• The bike must be an at least 30 year old, single geared Klapprad with the original handlebars.
• The hinge must still function.
• The rider must wear an outfit from the 1970s with moustache. Think Jason King.
• The Klapprad must be fitted with two functioning brakes. 
• Because the race was to be held in part in darkness, the bikes needed lights, either battery powered or with dynamo.
• Fake moustaches or full beards are verboten. Ladies can obtain a Bartwuchsunfähigkeitsbescheinigung (beard growth inability certificate) from the official race hair stylist.
• Each team has four members. 
• The team that cycles the farthest distance wins.

So what do the bikes look like?

Well originally something like this:

To get them to have a decent turn of speed you need to replace the wheels, fit narrower tyres and a bigger chain wheel (almost as big as the wheels):

or

You slipstream the field and let someone else act as windbreak. This photograph also shows the bar codes worn by the contestants that allowed automatic counting of the number of rounds:

Another view of the same technique showing the field and the Klapp-o-drom:

Not all the contestants seemed to address the race with the necessary earnestness:

Thirty eight teams from all over Germany took part and the winner was the Capri Sonne team:

who covered 1860 laps of the .45km track, i.e. 837km in 24h at an average speed of just under 38.9 km/h. (This is not much under the fastest speed we've achieved cycling down the Gotthard Pass with a following wind - 45km/h on bikes with good brakes and gears. That was terrifying.) Second was Klapp Sabbath at 1843 laps. Third  place was taken by the Early4Birds Team with 1828 laps. Even the tail end Charlies: Team Honnecker, we take it from the former East Germany or at least their bikes were, managed an average speed of 18.4 km/h. 

On a personal note we visited the event on Saturday afternoon almost at the end and should have introduced ourselves as members of the international press as we had to cough up 5€ a head to get in. Coffee and cake though were a very reasonable 1.50€. We also missed the riding in rain and darkness the night before which does not look as though it was enjoyable. We also wonder how much of the Pfalzer scenery the contestants saw in the dash round the circuit.  We'll see you guys in Kalmit or maybe in the Pfeiffertal on Whit Monday. Can we get a Press Ticket next time?

Public holidays and weather in Europe

I have spent many a pleasant hour or so reading "Crazy Guy on a Bike" - a website run as a place where cyclists can recount their adventures and pick up advice where to stop, cycle, eat or find the best beer in town (http://www.crazyguyonabike.com). Recently I was looking for information on cycling in the Netherlands and North Germany. Various of the articles mentioned difficulties with finding accommodation, somewhere to eat, shopping and the weather. I suspect there a few steps to take and a few facts to realise before you swing your leg over your bike and set out for the European Continent.

• Accommodation: Check out accommodation before you go. Either use a search engine to find tourist office websites along your route, try to go to a tourism fair, check out our "Cycling in Europe entry" entitled "Cyclist- and bicyclist-friendly accommodation in Europe" or drop a line to the national tourist office of the country of interest. 
• On the web you may well need to wade through a number of hotel booking websites to find an official tourist office website, where you can also find B&Bs and or holiday flats. You can also try using Name of City.de or .dk or .fr,  etc. which will lead to the official sites. There are also regional tourist offices. Checking these sites will give you a feel for the average price of accommodation in the towns and villages on route. 
• If you are writing to the national tourist offices, once you get the addresses of the regional or city offices write to them. Normally you will be showered with information. Read it all. As an example, we found some years ago that the average price of hotels in a string of French towns could vary by up to 50%. This will also give you a feel for how much accommodation is available. This will help you save time when looking.
• Once you are underway, if you are not booking ahead, try to start looking for somewhere to stop at 16:00 (4 o'clock). You will rarely find anything at a reasonable price much later.

• Eating: If you find a place way out in the country that is super remember you might want to eat in the evening and if the house concerned is 5 or 10km from the near restaurant or inn, that's what you will need to cycle to get some food. It might be worth enquiring whether your landlady can prepare you an evening meal.

• Public Holidays: These are taken more seriously than in the UK. Shops and tourist offices will be closed on these days. Public transport will still run, but may be with a restricted service.  It is definitely not like the UK where shops are open on public holidays, so make sure you have enough supplies. Public holidays do not match those of your country.

• The weather: It can be as cold and wet in the Netherlands as it is in East Anglia, so take appropriate gear.  The wind is your constant companion in the Netherlands, Denmark and much of Northern Germany. If you are cycling in hilly country you are unlikely to climb more than a few thousand metres per day, i.e. hills come to an end sometime, however a continental head wind can last several days and can easily reduce your normal speed by 20 or 30%. The prevailing winds come from the west. Bear this in mind when you are route planning. Just as an example if you want to cycle along the Elbe then cycle upstream with the prevailing wind behind you, rather than cycling downstream. The major continental rivers have few gradients along much of their routes.