“Stop! Doping control!”
We turned our heads to look at the cyclist passing us, laughing all the way. Obviously he decided these words were as good as ringing his bell when he pulled out to pass us on the trail leading out of Würzburg – a funny take on the Tour de France and so many of the riders being caught taking drugs.
When we stopped for a coffee just a little further down the path our attention was drawn to the sorry state of the Tour de France once again, with front page picture of one of the cyclists on the front page of the Bild newspaper with a headline that roughly translated as “Just doping and silly games”.
We have to agree. Undoubtedly there are some great riders in the Tour de France, but you have to be exceptionally stupid and selfish to take drugs, try and get away with it and then make your whole team suffer when you are found out. Why haven’t the competitors got it through their heads yet that this is not the way to earn cycling fame?
No doping here on our tour though, unless you count the cup of strong coffee we had by the Main river. It was nice to finally find a simple little cafe with cheap but good filter coffee instead of frothy cappucinos at high prices.
After our morning “drug taking” we carried on up the river path, which like the Danube trail, was packed with cyclists out on holiday. Around every corner was a pub, B&B or cafe all hoping for a bit of bicycle business. Although we found the trail a bit crowded and touristy for our liking, it would be great for a first tour and the cycling was certainly easy enough. The paths in Germany, like Austria, are well marked and in good condition.
Around lunch we stopped for a little nap on two benches in a children’s playground. At the time the playground was empty but half an hour later our “alarm clock” went off as all the kids showed up to play, giggling and screaming. No chance of sleeping too long there!
We dawdled in the afternoon, taking time out for a beer in Lohr am Main and then pushing on just a bit away from the river and into some woods north of the town where we found a field next to a rushing river to stay for the night. We have to try and get to Frankfurt tomorrow so we examined our map this evening and decided that maybe we will actually backtrack a bit to Lohr am Main to get to a main road which offers a more direct route to Germany’s financial capital.