Biking Family

OK, so I haven't blogged in AGES!  But life just ticks on as life does.  We went on a ski holiday, we went to England at Easter and now it is summer!  And this evening we just got back from a great little bike tour!

Before children, Matt and I always liked mountain biking and decided to save the flatter bike touring for when we were old - or had children.  So seems like we are a bike touring family now.  Last weekend we took the s-bahn to Holzkirchen and biked the 25km or so home.  Katie did 20km and Alex did 11km.  We have two trail gators so they can have an easy tow if need be and that gives us more of a work out than if we just potter along at their speed.

Snack stop in a field on our Holzkirchen bike trip

Katie and I waited for Alex and Matt to catch up

The Holzkirchen tour was a one day trip so this weekend we did a two day trip - The Chiemsee Radweg.  A flat trip round Chiemsee.  We did 60km in all.  The weather was good (otherwise we wouldn't have gone)  and we had a lovely time cycling round the lake interspersed with stops for cache finding, playground playing and food eating.

This was a good exercise for even longer trips which we have one planned in a couple of weeks.  The children are great cyclists and Katie can do 20km a day and Alex about 12km.  However we need to stop a lot and  vary the terrain.  A mixture of tarmac path and rough track is good with varying landscape and things to look at.  Chocolate and gummi bears are also very important and an ice cream stop (which we failed to do today so had it when we got home!)  I am also glad we purchased a second trail gator as we can tow them both when we need to and it gives us the flexibility to do longer routes and some small hills.  We still have the Chariot but that is a faff to transport and then whoever goes in the Chariot, their bike has to hang on the back which increases the weight even more.

As we have mountain bikes we are not used to carrying excess weight and luggage and not sure how wardrobes - aka saddle bags would look so we just use our rucksacks. It was the first time this weekend that I have carried my biggish rucksack on my bike and it was ok actually.  It wasn't over packed and was quite comfy.

So yesterday we drove down to Chiemsee and parked at Felden which is the first stop off the autobahn to get to the lake.  We parked and within a few minutes cycling we stopped to find our first geocache which was up a tree!  So I got hoisted up by Matt.  

Getting a cache

Lovely scenery along the way

Important to stop for ice cream  - or cola flavoured callipos.

And now time for a tow

Before we left I found somewhere to stay.  If it were just the two of us I might not have done but with tired children I think we need to be safe.  I was looking at somewhere to stay directly on the lake but couldn't find anywhere at the right distance, but 2.5km up the River Alz at Pullach.  Well, I think I did quite well!  On the way up there was an Edeka supermarket so we stocked up on food for today and the place we stayed was just great.  Just on the river in a lovely quiet spot, the house was huge and lovely. 

Think I did quite well for a room!

And the view too!

We had to just dump our stuff and then bike back down the road for dinner at the hotel I couldn't get a room at.  But that was ok.  As we had dinner, biked back, played outside for a bit and then went to bed.

Dinner

Set off not too early this morning and had a lovely day biking round the second half of the lake.

A tow to the start point on the lake.

Looking out over the lake

A rare family photo

And a nice bit of tarmac road -keep right Alex

A nice bit of wooded track. 

The end!

The weather was good, the children were well behaved and cycled well.  I towed Alex after about 13km and Katie got towed after 21km.  They were brill, and we had such a nice weekend.

Our next plan is the Isar radweg starting from Scharnitz, just in Austria, to back home, in a couple of weekends time.  It's a long weekend and we'll only go if the forecast is good as we don't want to get wet!