The weather turned on us by the time we got to Vienna, so the bicycle rides represented in this post consist of:
1. Two short rides on our CityBike rentals, split by at least an hour while we watched the bikes get soaked in a hammering downpour while we had cakes and coffee in a café.
2. A 30 second rental half an hour after we turned the first pair of bikes in, just to verify that we could rent another bike the same day and return it within an hour at no cost.
3. A ride we borrowed from UC Davis Professor Mont Hubbard, who visited Vienna earlier this summer and took a long ride into the country at our suggestion.
4. A drive by visit to the Bike Kuche (Kitchen) located in Vienna.
The sky was threatening when we first decided to rent from CityBike at the famous Stadtopern that is a must-visit for tourists. In the summertime, the regular theater company leaves Vienna for two months to mix some light touring with holiday for the actors. While they leave the opera house vacant, the area around it suddenly populates with clipboard-carrying costumed Mozarts and princesses selling tickets to an attractive alternative. There are nightly shows that are basically a sampler platter of highbrow stuff well suited to a peasant like me: a few arias, some opera bits, orchestra pieces, and classic Viennese comedy sketches. You can even get standing places you claim by looping a scarf over your section of railing. These are quite cheap, and let you unobtrusively tiptoe away if you would rather go find a loud punk band in a cheap dive bar.
Anyway, as described by Emily in the Vienna Bike Rental post, the system is not hard once you fumble through the initial registration. Unfortunately for us, that registration process consumed half an hour that we could have used to ride bikes. Our first goal was to play with the counter-flow bike lanes that are all over the one-way streets in the city center. They were a breeze to use, and allowed us to take short cuts not available to cars. Without fail, drivers respected our right to ride against the flow, raising our comfort level. The core of Vienna has a messy maze of narrow streets, many of them one-way and most of them clogged with cars parked half on the sidewalks and half on the streets. The ability of a cyclist to cut directly through this area riding against the flow of traffic on one-way streets makes biking the most attractive option for getting around the city center.
Not five minutes into our rental, a cloudburst began soaking the streets and anyone out upon them. We ducked into a café we knew had wireless service and settled in at a window table to wait it out. That means 45 minutes of our first (free) hour was spent watching our poor bicycles sitting in the rain two feet away.
Once it cleared up, we used our handy bandanna to dry the seats and wandered aimlessly around the city core for a while. Eventually we dismounted at the big pedestrian zone, and walked the bikes to the plaza in front of St. Stefan’s. It took a while to find the CityBike kiosk, though, because it is off a rear corner of the cathedral, partially obscured by a hedge. Finessing the bikes into the locking mechanisms consumed more time. With experience that will come more easily. But we can say that running at it full speed and using a hard slam don’t work as well as a gentle nudge at the correct angle.
We immediately tried to rent bikes again, but were blocked out of the system because we had just used a free hour. This feature makes it impossible to string multiple free hours together for a longer rental at no cost. That’s understandable, since the purpose of this system is to eliminate short vehicle trips and provide access for visitors. It does that beautifully, as we were able to use the system again half an hour later and pull a bike out of the Mozart-rich kiosk next to the Opera House.
Let’s contrast this bicycle access to our experience driving into Vienna with our car. I know the city fairly well, and thought I would be tricky and navigate to the neighborhood inside the outer ring and northwest of St. Stefan’s cathedral. Unfortunately, when I crossed the Danube on the way in from Georg’s I took a bridge too far (slap me). This put me outside the outer ring, and I compounded my error by turning away from the city center when I thought I was already inside it. After half a mile under heavy tail-gating pressure to get off the street, we came upon an underground parking garage. We found a space, and surfaced at the top of the stairs completely disoriented under a cloudy sky. We did walk off in approximately the right direction, but only got to the city core after help from a local, a long walk, and a streetcar ride.
The last bike rental I’ll discuss here we have second-hand from UC Davis Professor Mont Hubbard, who attended a conference in Vienna early this summer. I had suggested to Mont that he ride out to Uferhaus, a restaurant that sits directly on the banks of the Danube about 20 miles downstream from Vienna. It is owned by Georg Humer, a friend since 1973 who did an exchange in my home town a few years after I went to live in Upper Austria with AFS. I got the Sound of Music and Georg got a blistering wasteland in the California desert. His website is at www.uferhaus.at
There is a 13 mile long island in the Danube that extends the whole distance of metropolitan Vienna. Mont took his private all-day rental bike from his hotel out to that island, and rode downstream all the way to the southeastern tip. Then he crossed to the north side of the Danube, but there encountered a gate across the bike path. (Georg later surmised that the path had been closed due to recent flooding.) He was pondering what to do when another cyclist appeared who was attempting the same route. In a fine example of post cold-war cooperation, the Russian cyclist left his bike and climbed the fence. Mont handed the bikes across then climbed over himself.
Next Mont rode onto an abandoned rail line atop a levee that has been converted to a riding and hiking trail through a national park along the river. Fifteen miles later he was sitting on the patio at Uferhaus chatting with Georg. At the end of a great long meal, Georg loaded Mont and his bike into his van and delivered them back to the hotel in Vienna. Mont said it was the best experience of his week-long trip.
Mont was the third Davis resident I have sent out to Uferhaus on bicycles in the past few years. This is something we can easily do with the more adventurous clients when (not if) Vienna is included on the tours. The return trip to Vienna does not need to rely on Georg's good will, either. You can take the train, assuming the post-meal doldrums have one disinclined to ride back the 20 miles. There is a ferry that crosses the river from Georg's restaurant to the village on the other side of the Danube, where a short ride gets one to the train station and a quick trip back to Vienna. This bike path system Mont used extends on both sides of the Danube the full length of Austria, from Germany to Slovakia.
Because of the constant rain that set in after our first day, our final bicycle related activity was not by bike. On our way back west towards Switzerland we stopped by the Bike Kitchen near the museum quarter in Vienna. This radical, pro tolerance, feminist cooperative/repair shop/café is in an unremarkable location that seemed pretty obscure. Then we noticed that all the half-basement windows in one building on the street in question were plastered with stickers and slogans. They were closed, but the bike rack out front had a bunch of home-welded creations that would be at home in Peter Wagner’s collection in Davis. See Peter's pictures for examples. We’ll come back another day for a discussion with these folks.
In all, I was very surprised at the advances in the bikeway system in Vienna, and the different bike rental options. The CityBike system is wonderful for the casual tourist cyclist, and there are several longer term rental options. CityBike can be zero cost if all you do is take short rides. The bikeway system is wonderful, and drivers show a high level of respect for cyclists. This is a city to visit and ride in.
1. Two short rides on our CityBike rentals, split by at least an hour while we watched the bikes get soaked in a hammering downpour while we had cakes and coffee in a café.
2. A 30 second rental half an hour after we turned the first pair of bikes in, just to verify that we could rent another bike the same day and return it within an hour at no cost.
3. A ride we borrowed from UC Davis Professor Mont Hubbard, who visited Vienna earlier this summer and took a long ride into the country at our suggestion.
4. A drive by visit to the Bike Kuche (Kitchen) located in Vienna.
 |
| A Mozart and a Mozart-ess selling tickets to the opera. |
Anyway, as described by Emily in the Vienna Bike Rental post, the system is not hard once you fumble through the initial registration. Unfortunately for us, that registration process consumed half an hour that we could have used to ride bikes. Our first goal was to play with the counter-flow bike lanes that are all over the one-way streets in the city center. They were a breeze to use, and allowed us to take short cuts not available to cars. Without fail, drivers respected our right to ride against the flow, raising our comfort level. The core of Vienna has a messy maze of narrow streets, many of them one-way and most of them clogged with cars parked half on the sidewalks and half on the streets. The ability of a cyclist to cut directly through this area riding against the flow of traffic on one-way streets makes biking the most attractive option for getting around the city center.
 |
| Bicyclists are allowed to ride counter-flow on most one-way streets. |
 |
| Hiding from the rain in a cafe. |
Once it cleared up, we used our handy bandanna to dry the seats and wandered aimlessly around the city core for a while. Eventually we dismounted at the big pedestrian zone, and walked the bikes to the plaza in front of St. Stefan’s. It took a while to find the CityBike kiosk, though, because it is off a rear corner of the cathedral, partially obscured by a hedge. Finessing the bikes into the locking mechanisms consumed more time. With experience that will come more easily. But we can say that running at it full speed and using a hard slam don’t work as well as a gentle nudge at the correct angle.
 |
| The CityBike kiosk at Stephansdom. |
Let’s contrast this bicycle access to our experience driving into Vienna with our car. I know the city fairly well, and thought I would be tricky and navigate to the neighborhood inside the outer ring and northwest of St. Stefan’s cathedral. Unfortunately, when I crossed the Danube on the way in from Georg’s I took a bridge too far (slap me). This put me outside the outer ring, and I compounded my error by turning away from the city center when I thought I was already inside it. After half a mile under heavy tail-gating pressure to get off the street, we came upon an underground parking garage. We found a space, and surfaced at the top of the stairs completely disoriented under a cloudy sky. We did walk off in approximately the right direction, but only got to the city core after help from a local, a long walk, and a streetcar ride.
 |
| View of the Danube from an upstairs window at Uferhaus. |
There is a 13 mile long island in the Danube that extends the whole distance of metropolitan Vienna. Mont took his private all-day rental bike from his hotel out to that island, and rode downstream all the way to the southeastern tip. Then he crossed to the north side of the Danube, but there encountered a gate across the bike path. (Georg later surmised that the path had been closed due to recent flooding.) He was pondering what to do when another cyclist appeared who was attempting the same route. In a fine example of post cold-war cooperation, the Russian cyclist left his bike and climbed the fence. Mont handed the bikes across then climbed over himself.
Next Mont rode onto an abandoned rail line atop a levee that has been converted to a riding and hiking trail through a national park along the river. Fifteen miles later he was sitting on the patio at Uferhaus chatting with Georg. At the end of a great long meal, Georg loaded Mont and his bike into his van and delivered them back to the hotel in Vienna. Mont said it was the best experience of his week-long trip.
Mont was the third Davis resident I have sent out to Uferhaus on bicycles in the past few years. This is something we can easily do with the more adventurous clients when (not if) Vienna is included on the tours. The return trip to Vienna does not need to rely on Georg's good will, either. You can take the train, assuming the post-meal doldrums have one disinclined to ride back the 20 miles. There is a ferry that crosses the river from Georg's restaurant to the village on the other side of the Danube, where a short ride gets one to the train station and a quick trip back to Vienna. This bike path system Mont used extends on both sides of the Danube the full length of Austria, from Germany to Slovakia.
 |
| The entrance to Vienna's Bike Kitchen. |
In all, I was very surprised at the advances in the bikeway system in Vienna, and the different bike rental options. The CityBike system is wonderful for the casual tourist cyclist, and there are several longer term rental options. CityBike can be zero cost if all you do is take short rides. The bikeway system is wonderful, and drivers show a high level of respect for cyclists. This is a city to visit and ride in.
A clarification: The gate I encountered wasn't technically across the bike path.
ReplyDeleteWhen I crossed to the North side of the Danube there is a chemical plant there. Although it is easy to enter the plant and the paved roads inside the plant boundary roads are good, and they go to within 10 m of the bike path on the other side of the plant, there is no egress, probably because the chemical plant doesn't want it to become a through route. I, and then the Russian and I, rode back and forth like caged rats until we decided to collaborate in scaling the fence.
This experience could have been avoided (but I'm glad it happened because it was one of the highlights of the trip). On the island in the middle of the river just a few km earlier I had chatted with an Austrian runner. When I showed him my "foolproof" route on my printed Google-Earth map, he was surprised that it went through and said he always bypassed the chemical plant with a 2-3 Km detour around it to the NW, going back up the Danube. The problem was that the wire fence wasn't obvious from GE and it seemed inconceivable that a paved road within 10 m of the bike path would be closed off. GE ain't foolproof. But I'd do it the same way again to avoid having to ride the extra 3 km.