Niederrhein - a question of "progress"?
I write this as we've just crossed into France for the first time, two weeks and 1234km into our trip. Today it's my (Rhys') birthday, normally, we'd celebrate with a long bike ride, whereas today I'm being treated to a shorter ride, with our first rest day tomorrow.
We've now ridden most of the middle Rhine, and only have a few more days riding before we hit the mountains, however, we're taking a little detour, following the recommendation of one our fantastic WarmShowers hosts to take in the Alsace and wine region to the west of the Rhine.
When most people go on a grand tour, they visit the great cities and museums of Europe, and explore the culinary breadth this great continent has to offer. Whilst our grand tour has taken in some of the great wonders of Europe, it's also been a tour of discount supermarkets, lunch on non-descript park benches and McDonalds toilets. We feel like this is a much truer way of soaking up that rich European culture.
One of our typical lunches
Enjoying a local Riesling
As we passed from the Nederrijn to the Niederrhein, the intensive agriculture of the Netherlands gave way initially to a more mixed landscape with more natural woodland and less intensive pasture. As we went further up the Rhine, there were greater stretches of industrialisation, with particularly heavy industry around the city of Duisberg (often described as the Birmingham of Germany, we'd lean towards saying this is slightly unfair on Birmingham!). We also experienced the first puncture of the trip, which didn't help our impression of Duisbourg (GravelKings SS 1 - Schwalbe Marathon 0).
Whilst the cities of Cologne, Bonn, Mainz, Koblenz were all great - we find ourselves drawn to the smaller towns and villages that little bit more. They are less stressful to travel through, it's easier to see the sights by bike and the people are that bit more eager to converse with us in the street.
Most did seem to be on ebikes, but either way it's great to see so many people holidaying on bikes (even if their handling had much to be desired!). The Rhine has continued to be a low carbon transport dream, at times with a train line on both sides and many cargo ships going down the middle, freight on road is a much rarer sight than in the UK! And with a segregated cycle path for the vast majority it really shows what transport infrastructure could be!
Our WarmShowers experiences have continued to exceed our expectations and are really making this trip, from 3 course dinners discussing the finer details of Ottolenghi ingredients and the benefits of dropped chainstay bike design to others where we became even more inspired to live a more environmental and car free life. Each stay has been so interesting and varied. We even found ourselves being invited to give a talk at a Dusseldorf bike shop about our trip!
We also stayed at our first campsite. This was adequate but we've become so used to WarmShowers we slightly resented the €28 for the campsite and were perplexed when we didnt even get offered a beer on arrival, and we couldn't quite bring ourselves to pay the extra €2 for the hot shower! However, the main thing you miss by staying in campsites is the lack of interaction with local people who are invariably passionate about bikes and travel and all seem to have amazing stories to share!
That said, campsites do offer greater flexibility, it is quite freeing setting off in the morning, without the evenings accommodation arranged and just being able to cycle without a destination in mind and stopping at the nearest campsite when you're too tired to continue. We'll continue to mix up the accommodation options to make the most of all options.
Earlier in the week we were averaging 100k a day, and we were starting to fatigue a little so did a little bit of retail therapy in Dusseldorf, we didn't take in the high fashion shops but went straight to a fancy bike shop to replace a thinning pair of bib shorts 🙈
In this stretch of the Rhine there are large cities with many sights along the way. Whilst we make the best effort to go and explore each city, we feel somewhat tethered to our bikes (and all our belongings). Without a secure storage solution, our city explores have been limited to quick laps of cathedrals and the highest rated ice cream shop on google. We are conscious to slow down and to see more of the places we move between, which is much easier in the smaller towns of the upper Rhine. Often it can be quite slow going through larger cities, and it's tempting once we are back on the open road to put our heads down and crank out the miles which isn't really the primary aim of the trip! We do intend to sample more than just the ice creams and supermarkets!
We have just arrived at Wissembourg, which is a slight detour off the main velorhein route with more varied geography and we intend to sample some of the Alsace wine and enjoy a day off the bike.
Having now done the main stretch through Germany, we have a few more days to take in the cities of Strassbourg/Basel and Lake Constance before the arduous task of crossing the Alps begins. A number of our hosts have taken much pleasure in discussing route options in fantastic detail which has been incredibly useful. There is no magic easy way through the mountains but we'll decide a plan of attack in the next few days.
So as we make progress towards the Alps, we will go less in a straight line towards Dubrovnik, but a more circuitous route through the smaller villages and towns that get recommended to us along the way. The temperature has averaged 30 degrees most days, so we also intend on doing more swimming throughout the day!
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