58 miles ridden – 413m climbed – temperature 23C average 26C maximum.

I have said previously that a perfect bike ride is dictated by road surface, wind, weather, and geography. Most often two are in your favour, occasionally three, but almost never all four. Today we had all four in our favour and boy did we all enjoy ourselves.

We had a noticeable hill about 2 miles in which was very frustrating as we weren’t warmed up so nearly everyone struggled a little more than they had expected. However for most of the ride it was flat, wide open with a big sky.

Our morning tea break was in Leuterhausen which had a very interesting sculpture where we stopped.

It reminded me of one of the aircraft in ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’ – we didn’t manage to find out anything about it as it was an extremely quiet Sunday..

We passed through many attractive little towns, none more so than Herrieden which in addition to an attractive large church had a really good example of why no one wants Storks nesting on their roofs.

We think pigeons make a mess!!

We didn’t have a picnic today as on Sunday it’s difficult for the guides to get fresh bread and produce so we had lunch at Biergarten an der Insel just outside Ornbrau. Wonderful place absolutely inundated by cyclists, motorcyclists, and kayakers.

The final section into Weissenburg was more of the same in terms of scenery and due to a chance of a thunderstorm we got our heads down to arrive in this very attractive little town. Tonight we eat together at The Goldener Adler due to an apparent shortage of open restaurants on a Sunday evening. The rest of the town centre looks pretty appealing too.

Tomorrow we have a climbing morning and a flat day – I will eat well this evening!