Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Category: Personal

Spay to Cologne (Köln)

Today was the first day I encountered rain. It was very heavy in the night but when I set off it had turned to drizzle. Fascinating to start off next to a foundry that made huge boat propellers bought back memories of my time at Renishaw ironworks fettling shop. Its interesting the amount of heavy industry you see everywhere alongside the Rhine.

I then cycled past many attractive villages before going through the German Koblenz,which was quite disappointing as the riverside area is going through a major development programme, so I quickly moved on over The Mosel.

I came across one of the few reminders of WW2 at Ludendorff with the remains of the famous railway bridge that allowed allied troops & tanks to cross for 10 days before its collapse.

Then to complete the days 76.6 miles at 10.1mph I arrived in Cologne. Here the waterfront has been redeveloped in much as the same way as the latest developments I saw on my Thames Walk on The South Bank.

Here’s the day Everytrail and photos:-

Spay to Cologne (Koln) at EveryTrail

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Andermatt to Zizers

I left the pub at 6.25 after the mother of all sleeps. Just as well because the first part is straight up 2000 feet! I got to Oberalp Col in under 2 hours 🙂 and had a celebratory frustuck at 2045metres above sea level, this is also the watershed for The Rhine and The Rhone rivers.

I thought it was going to be all downhill from there but as a fellow diner at my lunch in Ildnz took great pains to point out there were going to be a series of whoppers until I got to Bonadoz. Through spectacular scenery – The Swiss Grand Canyon as its called locally. The whole of the ride so far is through stunning alpine scenery and the railway follows the route closely so for lazy sods you can dip in and out 🙂

I did 69miles in 7hr 40mins  about 9mph plus over 3 hours of stops. Goodness knows the total ascent but must be over 3000feet. A fair bit of the way is over rough tracks so to be kind to the bike I had to slow down a fair bit 🙂

Andermatt to Zizers at EveryTrail

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Photos are going up on Picasa and Hopefully route on Bikely and everytrail – watch this space!

Day 1 Les Gets to Martigny then to Andermatt on the train

With much trepidation and a loaded up bike I left my apartment in Les Gets at dawn break (06.30) to try and beat the high temperatures (30 deg) today. I made it to Evian by 8.30 getting frozen in the process! as its mainly downhill in a sun shaded valley.

I soon warmed up on the road to Martigny stopping for a 10quid sandwich at St Maurice and arriving in Martigny at 2pm after a 67mile ride. Once in Martigny I decided to take Michaels advice and get the trains upto Andermatt where the Rhine Radweg starts. So 47 pounds and three hours later that’s where I arrived.

It has to be said Switzerland is expensive but then again you get something for your money! Superb cycle lanes on the roads and along The Rhone, the railway is clean punctual with special places for the bikes and the ride from Brig to Andermatt is stupendous on a narrow gauge with new track viaducts and tunnels.

Here’s the cycling bit of today:-
Les Gets to Martigny at EveryTrail

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Tomorrow starts with a mega 600 metre climb up the Oberalp pass to Sedrun after that its mainly downhill and 1000miles to Holland!

I’m getting to practice my German  too 🙂

auf wiedersehn

Do I or Don’t I?

I have this set of magnificent maps and guides all in German of The Rhine cycle route. The question is at 1kg do I take them tomorrow? The route is in my GPS and on my Eee ( the iPad is staying at home since it’s incapable of syncing the Etrex and geotagging my camera 🙁 )

So I should be OK but then…. >

this is also an experiment in posting via another Posterous http://posterous.com account I’ve set up.

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