Engen

There was a general plan for today's route, but some details were known only to our leader. A visit to the town of Engen. A steep climb to the what's left of a castle.

It was a long day.

We stopped at a café (Jägermühle an der Aachquelle) alongside the Aachtopf, where I was delighted to enjoy a slice of laktosefrei cheesecake. That's a treat I've not seen before, and something I certainly wouldn't expect to find in a small-town bakery/café. The Aachtopf feeds a tributary of the Rhine, the Radolfzeller Aach. I was fascinated by an adjacent covered bridge with some sort of apparatus for managing the water's flow.

Our little group was strung out as we approached Engen, each following the rider ahead, when somehow, somewhere, the number two rider lost sight of the leader. The rest of us followed blithely along—for miles—before stopping to admit that he was certainly not ahead of us. He must have taken a turn that he assumed we would take ... but we didn't.

The other folks in the group were veterans of these European tours, well-versed in navigating with paper maps. But a paper map can't tell you where you are, unless it's detailed enough and you're standing at some recognizable spot. I pulled out my phone, opened Ride with GPS, and pressed "Show My Location." A blue dot confirmed that we were well off the planned route, having continued too far along the bike path.

The next question was: what to do? My preference was to head back, re-join the route, and continue on our way. We had already lost a lot of time, and I was looking forward to exploring the remains of that medieval castle (Hohenhewen). Our leader didn't answer his phone.

The others kept trying to call. When we reached the turning point (so close to the castle!), they made contact with the leader's wife, who told us he was waiting for us in Engen, which we had passed many miles ago. The rest of the group wanted to find him. I reluctantly agreed, because it seemed better for us to stick together.

“He's waiting at the highest point in the town,” she said. [We didn't find him.] We waited there. We split up, scouring the old town on bike and on foot. [We didn't find him.] Not surprisingly, he had given up on us by then and had left.

Having lost too much time, we could not visit the promised castle. I studied the detailed map on my phone to find a sensible route back to Ramsen. [Thank you, Google Maps.] A complicated confluence of streets in Gottmadingen confused me and I led the group astray, but we were able to loop back and navigated it more successfully on the second try. [I was carefully upholding that tradition of getting lost.]

Hungry, we stopped at a market near Hilzingen. I picked up two rolls, a package of sliced salami, a peach, and a chocolate bar for €3.24. [That will be the cheapest meal of this trip.]

Several mistakes were made today. When he mentioned that we would stop at Engen, our leader assumed we understood that meant the old part of the town. This visit was not on the pre-planned route, so once we lost him, we couldn't guess where to find him. The critical error was that he made a turn without ensuring that we were still with him. Then we rode much too far before accepting that we had lost him.

I was disappointed to miss the main attraction, the ruins of the castle. Had I been alone, that's where I would have headed. Instead, I saw the hill only from a distance.

Still, it was a good day of riding (40 miles, with a scant 1,400 feet of climbing), with only a touch of rain.