Month: July 2010
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Les Gets to Cambridge I made it home on my bike!
As most people know by now 🙂 I’m back in Cambridge after my mega bike trip. I managed to bring my bike back, from my apartment in Les Gets, where I left it after last years ride out there. To fit in with this years theme I decided to follow the Rhine (from its source…
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Harwich to Cambridge
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…
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Wijk bij Duurstede to Hook of Holland
[sgpx gpx=”/wp-content/uploads/gpx/20072010.gpx”] 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…
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Xanten to Wijik bij Duurstede
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.…
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Cologne (Köln) – Xanten
Today was a day of many dead ends including falling of my bike at Monheim! I left Cologne over the railway bridge which is festooned with hundreds of locks all engraved by lovers and locked to the steel mesh – be fascinating to know more about this ‘tradition’ On the other side I was barred…
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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…
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Oppenheim to Spay
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 –…
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Maximiliansau to Oppenheim
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…
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Ottenheim-Schwanau to Maximillansau
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…
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Basel to Ottenheim-Schwanau
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…