The bike path out of Vienna towards Bratislava is a beautiful wide bike path that runs along the river. The scenery is beautiful, including or not the nude sunbathing along the river. We were cruising along almost to Bratislava when I saw some interesting cows. I called to Ian to look at the cows which he did when disaster struck…..  For twenty five years I’ve been riding mountain bikes, and for the past year covered 2000+ miles on a road bike, all over from Santa Cruz mountains to the crowded streets of San Francisco, with only a few minor scrapes. Now here we are on arguably one of the straightest and flattest bike paths in the world. It’s wide enough for pairs of bikes to ride side-by-side and comfortably pass oncoming bike pairs. This is the easiest stretch of riding we have even done, and it goes for at least ten miles. Riding along, talking and laughing, it’s a good time. Grace remarks, “Look at those cows.” so I turn to look and sure enough, nice cows. After admiring them, I look back at my path and I’m veering into Grace, about to collide. I have one rule on these adventures, “Don’t hurt Grace” so my mountain biking skills kick in, I quickly pop and jerk the front of the bike away from her. But this bike has full panniers, which doesn’t react the way I expected. The bike started a huge wobble sequence to the left, then right, then left, then down.

It looked worse than it was. Needed to see a doctor, but nothing is broken. A side note, seeing inside your leg is very interesting. A golf ball size hole where the skin tore (yet was luckily still hanging half on) allowed you to look down the into the leg. To stop the bleeding, I cut my sock which made an ideal first aid bandage. (note: we now travel with an upgraded first aide kit) 

Some very kind people drove us and our bikes to the Krankenhous.

After medical care another kind person gave us and our bikes a lift to our room in Bratislava.