Before leaving home I had carefully plotted and loaded into my GPS a Harwich to Cambridge route on Bikely, avoiding all towns and main roads.

It proved an excellent route, although one part was down a track, but I was used to that by now!

What a pleasure to have fellow cyclists, passers by etc to smile, wave even say hello! It certainly brightens up your day to have a cheery smile rather than the ‘expressions’ you get in Germany & Switzerland which give you the uneasy feeling that they would mow you down rather than recognize your existence! I think life over there is VERY serious! I cannot say that I felt the same way when cycling in France last year. Although it has to be said the futility of marking cycle lanes on the roads which disappear when you actually need one is extremely frustrating for all road users.

This is a very pretty route if quite hilly, taking me past many of the places I have walked with Sally on the Cambridge Rambling Club walks. In fact I had a lunch break in one of the pubs we have used on our walks!

The ride was 67.6 miles which I cycled in 6hr 3min

Total ridden miles since leaving Les Gets was 1072.69 No punctures or breakdowns just one painful cracked rib!

Heres my Everytrail off the trip :-

Harwich to Cambridge at EveryTrail

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Today was the final Rhine day where The Rhine meets the North Sea, although a long time ago it met the River Thames and wound its way through what is now The English Channel to meet The Atlantic.

I did 90.5 miles in 8hr 13min making a near record 11mph! The smell of the sea beckoned!

For the first time I met a local cyclist who chatted to me on the Wijk ferry , telling me about how their royal family’s home was in Buren, home of William of Orange which I was about to bike through! Not quite as glamorous as Windsor but very pleasant place.

I dashed on past the intriguing barns where the roof moves up and down on pulleys. Past the poignant memorial of Sylvia who never made it to her 16th birthday, yet another road death.

I crossed the river again in Gorinchen, a very pleasant place full of canals. Eventually making it to Rotterdam where I had the first experience of taking my fully laden bike down a long elevator to cycle through the long cool tunnel under The Rhine (Nieuwe Maas) then to hang onto the bike for grim death on the up elevator!

It was then, in what seemed like an eternity cycling down an endless path to the ferry! The lady at Stena said that only Comfort 2 berth cabins were available at €156 no breakfast but you could empty the mini bar! To wrecked to argue (apart from the additional €6 they wanted for the bike!) I sailed at 10.30pm with the big surprise of free open WiFi.

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Today I finally made it to The Netherlands leaving Germany behind when I crossed on the ferry at Millingen aan de Rijn.

I did the 77.6miles at 10.1mph on another really hot day, consuming 1 litre of Apple juice in just about one gulp! The countryside is pretty flat and uninspiring with no industry either. Although at Kalkar I came across a huge power station type of building which on close inspection revealed itself as Wunderland Kalkar some sort of Euro Disney/Butlins fun park I think.

There was a lot of uprooted trees and branches so obviously they have been having summer storms. It was good to see that all those modern windmills could be put to a useful task – as mobile phone towers!

I went through Arnhem thinking of all that lost of life trying to capture the bridge here. The cemetery is on a beautiful hill but I didn’t explore, but pressed onto Wijik, a lovely city sporting only one hotel, a quite expensive one at that! I couldn’t face searching around for b&bs so booked into the De Oude Lantaarn for €73.50 a night and enjoyed cheap mussels & chips around the corner at De Veldpoort!

Two things I hate about The Netherlands are (a) Scooters and small motorbikes are allowed on there otherwise fantastic cycleways. (b) The drivers get really agitated very quickly if you find yourself on their road instead of the cycleway hiding on the other side!

Having said that, the only other cyclist to have spoken to me whilst travelling along was here

Here’s the Everytrail of the day:-
Xanten to Wijk bij Duurstede at EveryTrail

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Today’s 68.8miles at 10.4mph was the classical Rhine trip as advertised to thousands by coach and river cruise companies. Cycling through the German Rhine gorge with the vine’s extending up the sides of the river, beautiful schloss etc perched on hill sides.

I felt pretty wrecked especially by the time I arrived in Mainz – as someone told me last year if you hear the word vines you know it means hills! and a couple of sections had taken me up those hills. Plus the heat really gets to you when biking.

However, things picked up in the afternoon once I was on the tourist trail. I chatted to the Crusader coach driver who was cleaning his coach, whilst his group doing the Royal Bavaria tour, were swanning down the river to Boppard. I even managed a river crossing myself between Rudesheim to Bingen, so my cruise was €2.50

By the time I arrived in Spay I was wrecked, so stopped at the first hotel, even though there was no internet to be had except from the passing barges and cruise ships.

Here’s the Everytrail of the day:-

Oppenheim to Spay at EveryTrail

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The Vater Hotel managed to screw up the internet connection on my Eee, by making the default gateway on the Eee their own server   so after staying there I was unable to access the internet! coupled with T-mobile not allowing me to use their Euro Internet Booster package on my iPhone which is on their fixed contract (I know its crazy the booster works fine on Pay as you go). This with the lack of open WiFi throughout Germany, meant I couldn’t sort out the Eee until I had a working internet connection on another machine. Once home I found the solution on this post on the eHow website!

Today once I got going was a long one at 91.9miles but quite fast at 11.2mph on good tarmacced paths. I found it interesting biking alongside the Mercedes plants, BASF and other large chemical works. The Technical museum in Speyer looked pretty amazing as well! At Mannheim they were building an enormous new coal fired power station so I guess the Rhine will be full of coal barges for some time yet (I spent a bit of time thinking about the sense of transporting coal rather than electricity and which incurred the biggest energy losses per mile). The signage was much improved, although it was hard getting through Ludwigshafan due to the various detours.

My nights stop at The Hotel  Oppenheim was truly excellent. The owner plied me with free beer on my arrival! and the omelet with chips was only 6euro plus there is an ice cream parlour just down the road!

Here’s the day on Everytrail:-
Maximilansau to Oppenheim at EveryTrail

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A day in the blazing heat riding along the exposed top of the dam that holds The Rhine into a navigable river, its all very reminiscent of fenland rivers, alongside the main river are poulders which  are flooded when the water flow is to high for the river.

The German’s struggle with the signing so that in the main centres like Kehl (Strasbourg) you get a proliferation of contradicting signs! I also love the sign covered in German & French text that forbids entry but fails to give you any information as to where the route has been diverted too! These guys need lessons in the use of simple signage like the Swiss and French GR5.

I drank about 10 litres of water/beer/apple juice yesterday but still felt dehydrated with an headache. Hopefully, today will be overcast

Oh yes why do German hotels only have wired internet and all WiFi is locked down?  and why can’t T-Mobile sort out my internet – instead of sending me messages that an error occurred and try again To me its pretty obvious the glorious days of open internet have gone for ever..

Here’s my route yesterday:-

Ottenheim-Schwanau to Karlsruhe at EveryTrail

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My first day without having to engage the lowest set of gears Pretty well flat and alongside the river most of the day. The first part was wandering through the container port and industrial area of Basel. Then I entered Germany which was rural apart from the huge aggregate workings. Stopped for a supermarket lunch in Breisach, noted in modern history for where the first meetings of what became the EU in 1950!

After lunch I had to turn away from the river and ended up in Rust which has an enormous Disney / Alton Tower type theme park. I then made a total hash of getting back onto the river – best not to look to closely at the gpx trail The German waymarking is not a patch on the Switz!

After 79.8 miles and over 7 hours of cycling with an average spped of  11mph, I ended up in Ottenheim at the delightful Hotel Gasthof Erbprinzen above Toni’s pizzeria ( 21 Euro for two beers, water, salad, pizza, ice cream & coffee). I asked the landlady if she had internet – she presented me with a shoebox!!

Here’s the route and pics.
Basel to Ottenheim-Schwanau at EveryTrail

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Sorry, Sally, I’m doing these posts direct from the WP control panel

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>Today’s 73miles in 7hours brings me to the end of the first Rhein Radweg book, only another two to go! From now on the Rhine runs pretty well due North rather than going in the mega loop I’ve just done plus the terrain is a lot flatter, I hope! especially after todays climb into Teufen.

Another hot day only partly alleviated by a little swim in The Rhine and copious, but expensive cold sparkling waters! The water mark up is horrendous less than 1F in the supermarket anything up to 8F in a cafe

Tomorrow I’m going to use the right bank rather than the left I’ve been using the last day or so (The handedness is taken looking downstream) as it seems to keep the waters edge better.

I’ve been eyeing up the ginormous barges which have now appeared in the river – maybe I will take a rest day on one

The bike is holding up well although it took an almighty bang when I failed to notice that  the bridge had a step getting onto it! plus the saddle is now loose due to the vibration of all the off road riding I’ve been doing.

We are getting heavy thundery showers right now so hopefully tomorrow will be cooler. I’m going to celebrate by staying for the 7am breakfast rather than setting of at 6am

Here’s today trail:-
Ellikon to Basel at EveryTrail

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Today was yet another scorcher, last nights lightning made no difference.

I did 64 miles in just over 6 hours making it 10mph! Some of the places I went through were simply unbelievable eg Stein am Rhein a real postcard town!

Its pretty amazing to see folks been carried along in the current at 6mph, they just get out and walk back to the start! I did it outside my hotel in Ellikon – great fun they also have a cunning ferry crossing too, basically its like a giant pendleum that swings across the river on a slider wire! The hotel itself, Hotel Zum Schiff dates from 1541 so is an interesting place although a fan would be useful.

Apparently the river is navigable all the way to Rotterdam now – so maybe I will just float down.Its at 272m altitude so compared to The Amazon its a pretty fast river.

Here’s the route and statistics:
Rorschach to Ellikon (Rhein Radweg Day 3) at EveryTrail

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Perfect Cycle path

As The Sun would say – Phew what a scorcher! The temperature was well into the thirties today, so just as well I started at 6am to get all the hills out of the way before 8am. I had an excellent section along The Rhine embankment with the wind behind me, amazing to see inline skaters going at well over 15mph the surface was that smooth

I had a slap up breakfast in Buchs with a fish soup lunch at Rohcspitz campsite the campsite wasn’t to my taste so I ventured on, couldn’t find a hotel until Rorschach. It has to be said that there seem to be very view zimmer frei signs around. Even more amazing that the waterfront has loads of industrial buildings rather than hotels..

Managed a quick dip in The Bodensee before my hotel then a longer one from the rather quaint  Badhutte on stilts in the sea.

Todays statistics where 71.6miles in 6hr 42min  about 10.7mph Heres the route:-

Zizers to Rorschach at EveryTrail

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According to my  Bikeline books I have 11 more nights to get to Rotterdam, if the bike and me hold up

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