Arriving in Berlin years ago I was
bemused to discover there were Austrian restaurants, which were
perceived as foreign and exotic by the German locals, themselves no
strangers to permutations of Schnitzel. But the Austrians were seen
as having a lighter touch, possessing a flair with diverse
ingredients and spicing it all with a knowing, sly humour.
A few years ago Horst Watzl
and fellow enthusiasts Martin and Michl, admittedly inspired by
Tuscany's great L'Eroica retro-ride, felt that that own country
offered many of the same features that made the Italian ride so
wildly popular: superb tarred roads; bad gravel roads; the odd
cobblestone and nasty climb; and really excellent wine and food.
Test runs were carried out with increasingly large groups until the
first In Velo Veritas (IVV) was officially run in 2013, attracting
291 cyclists on old steel bicycles from 14 countries. Here is a video of the 2013 event:
News of the
event spread and in 2014 well over 400 cyclists, representing 17
nationalities, came to ride one of three courses: the Epic (210 km);
the Ambitious (140 km); and the Pleasurable (70 km). The majority of
the riders are local but 40% make the trip from Germany.
The event is spread over two
days on a June weekend. On Saturday registration was set up and the
area around Korneuburg's Hapsburgian Rathaus on the Hauptplatz was
given over to the arrival of cyclists, who came not only to sign in
and get their numbers but also to look at the Flea Market, check out
the display of some of the truly ancient bicycles brought over from
the Bicycle Museum in Retz, enjoy an Eiskaffee in the
afternoon sunshine the adjacent café,
chat with other cyclists and admire a lot of cool racing bikes.
The
rules are straightforward: you need a pre-1987 classic racing bicycle
with downtube shifters and pedals with toeclips and straps. My participation was with my glorious 1975
Rickert Spezial built in his Dortmund workshop by the great Hugo
Rickert with classic Reynolds 531 tubing, a SunTour Cyclone
drivetrain and with slightly shakey pinstriping applied by Frau
Rickert. I really need to do a post about Rickert's bicycles. And “a suitable outfit for the riders would be very much
appreciated” which meant wool jerseys for sure. So I had my favourite RSV Vagabund '13 jersey to show off.
Besides
the usual Colnagos and Peugeots one sees at these events there were
there were many interesting Austrian bicycles—Puch, Austro-Daimler,
Select, RIH and Steinmayr. (For
more about Austrian bicycles, check out my review of a book about
them here .)
One of the unusual twists of this event is that you are photographed
on Saturday in a “before” photo and then again on Sunday in an
“after” version as the organizers were hoping for the gaunt and
sweaty style of true “convicts of the road.”
At
4 pm the cyclists present were organized into the In Velo Veritas
prologue and the group of about forty happy riders churned off
westwards and soon reached the mighty Danube, A wide bikepath
brought us along the river for 8 kms before turning northwards at
Stockerau where we began what was first a rather gradual climb that
became progressively steeper until it topped out at Km 21.6. A
super-fast downhill came next, accompanied by the usual squealing of
ineffective vintage brake blocks and we continued downhill more or
less until we returned to the Hauptplatz after riding 32 kms in all,
with a gain of 270 m. Time for dinner!
At
our table was the Guest of Honour, former pro Rudi Mitteregger, a
Very Cool Guy. Three-time winner of the Tour of Austria and an
unmatched quadruple winner of the King of the Grossglockner
competition, Herr Mitteregger is a very very fit 70 years old and he
rode the prologue with us on his newly-restored green and white Puch
bicycle. One of Austria's cycling legends, he is famous for a quote
when leading the 1974 Tour of Austria he was left holding a wheel at
the side of the ride when his team car was nowhere to be seen and
shouted (in enraged and frustrated Austrian dialect): “Where are
the monkeys? Still at the start?” He lost the stage but won the
overall and immortality.
After
dinner he took the stage for a Q&A and showed himself to be a
gracious and entertaining speaker. A highlight had to be the arrival
of a bike collector with one of Rudi's old Tour of Austria bikes, a
silver Select (actually a relabelled Alan from Italy). It was
carefully researched and restored and Herr Mitteregger
enthusiastically agreed to sign it. And the very fit Austrian ace
was looking forward to the 70 km ride the next day which was
appropriate given his age!
Also
at the dinner table was Hannes Weitscheider who is the manager of the
Weinviertel tourism agency and he explained to us how his
organization has been keen to work with IVV to develop the entire
program to encourage visitors to come to the region. The routes were
chosen to highlight the lovely scenery of rolling landscapes,
historic small towns and villages and impressive castles but also to
show off local products, of which wine was the most obvious but not
the only one by far.
The
evening program ended with the showing of a 15 minute experimental
video, “In Velo Veritas,” which was shot on 16 mm film last year
by filmmakers Milena Krobath and Johannes Schrems. Accompanied by
the sounds of spinning spokes only, the video was in black and white
and sepia and reversed images and had a timeless if fey quality.
Sunday
and time to get serious, although I had plenty of time for breakfast. Startlingly, someone in my little B&B at the next table recognized me from "Travels with a Tin Donkey," the first time this has ever happened. A thrill to start the day!
The Epic riders had already assembled and
ridden off from the Hauptmarkt at 6:00 am and headed northwards on a
route that would take them into Moravia and the Czech Republic. The
more modest Ambitious riders set out en masse at 08:00 am in what was
claimed to be a neutral start but some of the more antsy riders were
pushing the pace. The Rickert began to shift strangely as we almost
immediately began to climb but the real problem was when we reached
Stetten 13 kms into the ride and suddenly turned onto a “Weingasse.”
This is a unique feature of the Weinviertel, an alley of small
buildings that are used by vintners to store wine but also are opened
up to serve wine and simple food during special events. The
Weingasse in Stetten was paved with flat stones with surprisingly big
gaps between them packed with earth. This was very difficult to ride
and not helped by the steepness of the grade. But we pulled through
and we rewarded with, oops, another long climb but one on dirt and
gravel tractor path before a nice descent on smooth asphalt to
Grossrussbach and the first control point at Km 37.
This
had to be one of the highlights of the day. Unlike the usual
organized long-distance rides where you can really only expect some
bananas, energy bars and fluids, we found ourselves in a real
restaurant. There was a fantastic variety of food, from three
different soups to cakes, all-natural apple cider and grape juice,
fruits and hot savoury strudel, either spinach or meat. Little signs
explained where the products originated: for example, the milk for
the coffee came from a particularly family farm.
We
all sat together in the shady garden enjoying ourselves but
eventually realized we had to go or else explain to friends how we
had gained so much weight on a single ride. And in the parking lot
was stationed a friendly mechanic, a cheerful Berliner, who put the
Rickert shifting to rights in about 30 seconds. So no excuses now!
We
had a bit of a laugh that the next control/food stop was only 15 kms
away but laughed a bit less when we began to feel the effects of a
headwind, coupled with a gradual but relentless climb. A very cool
thing was crossing railway tracks and seeing four people using a
draisine, a self-propelled railcar named after but not invented by
Baron Drais, the generally accredited inventor of the bicycle.
We
rode by the first castle of the tour, Schloss Niederleis, which dated
back to the 12th
Century but had seen a number of reconstructions due to war and
fashion and even served the Russian occupation administration from
1948-1955. But we were now climbing more steeply.
Some
hard turns and we found ourselves, breathless, at the highest point
in the Weinviertel, the Buschberg, which towers, relatively, 491 m
ASL. The hut where we had our cards stamps and enjoyed a cold drink
is the lowest-situated mountain hut maintained by the Austrian Alpine
Club at 484 m.
Blasting
down the descent of the Buschberg at 70 km/h with not-so-useful
brakes was fun on the superb road and we rode through the green and
lush landscape into the northwest headwind. But the sun was shining
and we were having a great time. We passed another Weingasse near
Mailberg, the third for the day and thankfully not involving
cobblestones before pulling up to control point No.3, Schloss
Mailberg at Km 78.
This
castle has been owned by the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta
since 1146 and, like most castles, has had many periods of
reconstruction following numerous wars. It presently is an
impressive hotel and we were treated to soup, yogurt and juice or,
for those indulging, wine. We were joined now by the Epic riders
heading on their way back and coming to Mailberg for a second time on
their loop.
We
had more climbing and descending, with not much of the hoped-for
tailwind as we also turned back on our loop and by the time we
returned to Grossrussbach at Km 114 the Rickert rider was feeling a
bit rickety. We had already reached the amount of climbing claimed
by the organizers for the whole route but fortifying ourselves with
coffee and cake we attacked the last 30 kms of our route.
The
organizers clearly had not wanted us to miss any chance to do more
climbing before we saw a road sign showing the way to Korneuburg was
only11 km. Of course our route took us a different way as we needed
to ride another long stretch of gravel and then a nasty short climb
of perhaps 16% grade through what appeared to be someone's
backyard—oh! It was a backyard! Wrong direction! Finding the
correct 16% section took us over the top and now, mercifully, we were
on the main road from Leobendorf for a fast, flat straight-in ride
back to the Hauptmarkt.
Greeting
joyfully by those who had arrived before, we happily if sweatily
posed for our portraits before receiving a bag which had lots of
printed material (promos for retro-rides in Italy, a very good
Austrian bike advocacy magazine, bike route maps, tourism information
and a nice certificate personally signed by organizer Horst Watzl,
the Mayor of Korneuburg and Rudi Metteregger) but, most thrillingly,
a bottle of local white wine which made up for the fact that the
promised 1400 m of climbing were more like 1800 m.
We
had had beautiful weather, fine roads with little traffic, great
company and the Austrians are even organized enough that you can take
a shower at the end before heading for home. The small team that
runs the event has built a total package in a remarkably short time,
with community buy-in, enthusiastic sponsors, professional graphics
and a useful website. If you register early enough you can enjoy
Horst's entertaining build-up e-mail newsletters. They ignored their
own rules (no mechanical check to see if you had spare tubes, or time
stamp at the controls) because, well, somethings are less important.
One had the sense that everyone was there to have fun. The
organizers are aware of the dangers of letting an event get too big
and lose its charm but I don't think there is much risk of that at
IVV.
Getting
to Korneuburg and the Weinviertel from Vienna is very easy (almost a
suburb of the capital) and for those planning to visit there are
excellent wines to sample and a whole range of events around
them—even for children! Of course, the area is rich in history and
lovely architecture and there is a whole lot more than schnitzel and
strudel so be prepared to be charmed at one of the best retro-rides
yet.
 |
| Riding with my new friend Bernd |
For
more information, go to www.inveloveritas.at.
The attractive website is multilingual.
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