Cycling in Austria - Vorarlberg

[paddyirish]

Planning a few rides in Vorarlberg with different requirements - one is a family ride/boat trip round the shore of Lake Constance from Bregenz and I also hope to do a ride myself over the Silvretta High Alpine Road and maybe back via the Arlberg Pass with a train bail in St Anton as a backup.

Can anyone recommend a bike hire place in either Bregenz or Bludenz - would need children's bikes/tagalongs as well as for adults.

Also looking at the map, the Arlberg Pass especially from the E seems to go through many (in some cases long) tunnels.  Has anybody ridden it?

Also the second week looking for a good bike shop in Innsbruck or any of the towns East of it, again offering children's options.

[T42]

I've been up to the Silvretta Stausee, starting from Kappl, but no further.  No tunnels on the climb that I remember. Done a few tunnels elsewhere, though: horribly noisy, and if you run into roadworks with traffic lights on a climb it's pretty hectic getting through before the traffic starts coming down at you.

[fimm]

We hired bikes in Bregenz from some place down fairly close to the lake shore. I have no recollection one way or the other about children's bikes, but our bikes were fine.

[paddyirish]

Thanks both, will take chances with bike hire in Bregenz (Fimm's experience sounds promising)

@T42,  that tallies with my research on Silvretta.  I can do this and can always bail on the Arlbergpass if tunnels are too unpleasant.

[fimm]

Just to add that the path round the Lake is lovely and there were loads of cyclists on it.

Mr fimm is from Innsbruck but we've never hired bikes there - I must have been past a bike hire shop at some point but I just don't remember! I'd be more use if you were interested in ski hire...

[paddyirish]

In Vorarlberg, the infrastructure was outstanding. We based ourselves in Bludenz, the home of Milka chocolate (My kids had obscene amounts of chocolate during the annual festival, but that is another story). It is located at the junction of 5 valleys and I was able to explore 4 of them. 3 had outstanding cycle paths, 20-30km long, 3m wide, mainly asphalt with a little (<10%) gravel. They were all well used by a variety of cyclists (local commuters and shoppers, tourists with panniers and those out for long fast rides), even when I was out at 6am. Also they fed a huge number of MTB trails off the paths.

On top of that we hired bikes as a family ride from Bregenz for a trip on the Bodensee path. My 9yo and I did the  ride to Rohrschach in Switzerland where we caught the ferry for Lindau in Germany. A quick return to Bregenz meant 3 countries in 30 miles and a tired but happy 9yo. Interesting that on the ride the Austrian infrastructure was far and away the best, Swiss lagging a bit behind and the 8km of German was equivalent to Scottish. 

I also did a quick foray into Liechtenstein on another ride and would like to go back and explore the whole area a lot more

My annual holiday day pass was well used to follow some of the 2018 road world championships courses in the Innsbruck region. I was staying in Alpbach in the Tirol and descended to join the men's time trial course in Reith. Then joined the road race course through the villages before climbing steeply to Gnaderwald and then descending to Innsbruck centre to try the finishing circuits. The first one climbs 500m at 10% to near Paetsch and then drops super fast back to the city centre. Fine to do once, but not 6 times!

The final circuit is extended to include the road to Hoell which climbs 400m at consistently over 20% and hits 28%. I had to walk the last 50m of that section. Another fast descent to the finish and a gentle following of the Inn trail made for a lovely ride. The sting in the tail was needing to climb 600m in 10km to get back to Alpbach. These world champion will get worthy winners, I'd guess Nibali for men and van Vleuten or van der Bruggen for women.

The route was lovely, but the roads did suffer some aggressive drivers.