Finally back in Germany again for another leasurely ride down the magnificant Rhine.
/p
Sunday 24 April 2022. Basel to Rhinau |148 km|
[A freezing cold day (at least it was for me anyway, being Australian) – it was still only 8°C at Breisach at 2 pm -light rain and overcast throughout the day. Most of the ride today (it was all on the Rhine Cycle Route, EV 15) was on well-graded dirt track].
The ride from last night’s campground back into Basel through the industrial area was not inspiring, and then on entering the city proper I got barred from my GPSed route towards Mannheim because they were setting up for a female cyclists’ road race that seemed pretty important.
The traffic wardens and bystanders were friendly enough and we figured out I should be able to continue on to the cordoned-off part and if I asked again at ‘the next bridge’ they’d surely let me straight through. Well, OK in theory but not so easy in practice. The police at the next barrier next to the Basel Art Gallery refused me further access along the quay (I only had a mere 200m or so more to go on the race route proper, and the riders were nowhere in sight – at least another hour or so before they even started, I’d been told) and they insisted I had to cross the bridge (Wettsteinbrücke) to the ‘wrong’ side of the Rhine. It took me some kilometers before I found an access back onto the EV15 alongside the river, well past the city centre. OK, it was only a few kilometers, and looking back at my track it was all pretty straightforward, but when you’re actually riding along narrow cobbled inner-city streets it all seems a bit confusing.
And no, it wasn’t a mistake; I do mean EV15; but it shares a common route for a short distance out of Basel with the east-west EV6 ‘European Rivers’ route. This made it even more confusing because EV15 wasn’t even mentioned on the signposts (or so I thought – if you look closely, at the ‘route 2 tab’ next to the bicycle cartoon on the sign below, you can read the little number 15 inside the Euro flag.
Then it was all very industrial with a me of enchanting railway switchyards for 30 km nearly all the way to Neuenburg before you get to see and enjoy the river again. and for the next 40-odd km the bike path to Briesach I was on squishy dirt (it had been raining).
Because the Grand Canal branches off the main Rhine near the town of Weiswiel the cycle path makes a big detour and you lose the river for a while on the eastern bank. I was still on signposted EV15, but the more travelled route here is on the parallel track on the French side (that I had so much trouble figuring out on my trip south through here back in August of 2018).
Chances of finding a campground on the German side were looking slim by late afternoon, so I decided to cross the Rhine into France to try my luck, since my GPS’s ‘Campground’ feature indicated there’s one in the town of Rhinau next to the ferry landing.
I was amused by the ferry’s hieroglyphical ‘don’t throw your cigarette butt away, and park close to the car in front of you’ sign that looks like it’s straight out of the IKEA instruction manual. Who says you need words, eh?
It’s only a 10-minute free ride across the river, so I didn’t have to amuse myself for very long.
I arrived in Rhinau late, soaked and tired, and the campground office had closed for the day. So, very annoyed with myself for not booking ahead, I back-tracked into town to check into the fancy-looking (expensive) hotel ‘Les Bords du Rhin’ but they weren’t interested in accommodating me either. They said they were full, but I think they just didn’t like the look of me. They were very condecending and were quite disparaging of me dripping water all over their restaurant floor, following me around with a mop and bucket. Not my fault, since their reception was closed. The restaurant was allegedly booked out too although I did only spot one elderly couple dining – I’d thought I’d at least stay for dinner, then slope back to the campground later, find a pitch and sort it all out in the morning – and I was firmly ushered out under the watchful eye of the owner and maître’D.
So, back to Camping Ferme des Tuileries it was on an empty stomach and in the spitting rain. There were some caravan sites occupied, but I couldn’t rouse anyone to ask if it was OK to pitch tent near them and use their power stub (all the unoccupiued sites had the power turned off), so I abandoned the idea of putting up the tent and thought I’d just hang out under the verandah of the social area near the entrance for a while, maybe until someone came along. Everything, like the kitchen, ablutions, restaurant and all the buildings were firmly locked.
But on a whim I tried the office doorbell once more, and on doing so I noticed there was an after-hours emergency number to call. Well, it was an emergency, right?
The caretaker/ manager/ owner’s residence is obviously attached to the office, because a woman appeared within about a minute of my calling, and without any reference to the fact she’d been hiding from me inside for the last hour, proceeded to check me in. Regarding the question of power, because it was raining and she couldn’t be bothered coming over with me to turn it back on, she said te German equivalent of no problemo: in that case take a “petit chalet” for the same price (€11). Not bad! No dinner though. Such is life on the road sometimes.
Well, my ‘petit chalet’ experience turned out quite well. There was only a single power socket and no extension cord, no shower and no internet, but it did have a tiny electric heater. So it was the heater until 8.30 pm, then battery charging til 1.30 am and back to the heater again. I got the batteries fully charged and most of the key articles of apparel semi-dry.
Monday 25 April 2022. Rhinau to Rastatt |116 km|
[Cold and misty until 10 am, then a quick storm for ½ an hour and clearing up afterwards].
I was away from that depressing campground by 7.00 am. Look, I’m sure it’s quite nice normally and in season – it looked like it did have a lot of facilities – but all by yourself on a cold and rainy April Sunday? Nah, don’t bother.
The local bakery was open and I chowed down on a vanilla eclair and a huge chunk of quiche at the ferry landing waiting to go back over to Germany. The cycle path ahead on the French side didn’t look too promising on the map beyond 10 km or so (ie. non-existent).
And just in case you missed it – more yellow!:
Storm coming in from the south west…
…and so quickly under cover.
In spite of all the kinks along my GPS track, especially around Weisweil to Rheinhausen, I didn’t get lost and was actually still on EV15 almost all of the way.
The bike trail along the top of the levee bank was of water-logged gravel and mud, and I could really feel the drag sapping the batteries (and my legs). Consequently, the predicted full range was only 120 km and range anxiety set in from Kehl onwards.
Such was the drag from the mud that I couldn’t progress at all in ECO mode, let alone with the power OFF , unlike yesterday, so I was seriously hunting for power and accommodation from Kehl onwards in case I ran out.
I stopped at the ubiquitous suburban Turkish kebab joint and got some power back into the system, but not enough as it turned out, and by Rastatt I knew my race had run that day.
I tried several hotels but they didn’t like the look of me (can’t say I blame them, covered in mud as I was), but on the third try I got lucky at Best Western well away from the train station and the centre (where you can usually guarantee better results). For €94 I got cleaned up and dried out, and managed to forage some nice gourmet take-away food from a nearby wholefood deli.
Tuesday 26 April 2022. Rastatt to Mannheim |112 km|
[Cool and isolated thunderstorms. 50% tarred and 50% dirt cycle path most of the way].
A late start today. I spent ages searching around town trying to buy a new iPhone charging cable (they actually do fail apparently) before finding one at a tankestelle (service station) quite close to the hotel – thanks, hotel receptionist!
I was a bit down at the beginning of the day – a sinking feeling of perpetually getting lost, losing the EV15 in every town I passed through, and thunderstorms every so often. Probably just due to all that gourmet food I gorged myself on yesterday, plus the significant leftovers this morning. But there was no battery depletion anxiety today at least – I got the normal full range, so there’s nothing wrong with the bike or it’s charging. And I got my Mojo back.
A funny-enough incident occurred on main street right in the middle of Mannheim city: I got my right long-pant trouser leg caught in the crank wheel/drive belt! It happened simply enough – as I moved off from a red pedestrian light, the pedal neatly and delicately fed my trouser cuff into the cog! I stayed suspended there on tippy-toes balancing on my left foot trying not to fall over while trying to extricate myself, which unfortunately meant edging backwards (impossible, as the crank rotates and the stranglehold on my trouser gets tighter) or by taking off my trousers (also impossible to get one leg out).
So I yelled at these three young German lads standing nearby and commanded them to come over to assist – barkign orders for one to steady the front fork and the other two to lift the back wheel so I could rotate the crank to free my trouser. They were surprisingly obedient too – I wonder if they understood English.
The day progressed much better after that. I let Ziggy (the GPS) guide me to a campground on the Rhine bank and still in the city precinct. For a while it did look pretty grim. I was passing through an vast zone of heavy industry with chemical factories and foundries and the like, right up to within 2o0 m of final destination, so it didn’t look promising at all. But then I cut through 100 m of green belt and was suddenly on a beach! OK, it was a stony beach, but a beach neverthelesss and a welcome surprise.
Not only that but the owners of ‘Strandbad Camping’, Sturm and Christina, were very friendly and accommodating. For €10, they let set me up right next to their little bureau at the entrance so that wecould run their extension-cord right into my tent, with the power for free.
There was not one but two big restaurants right next door, and both open for business and both customerless. But both pretty ordinary too to be honest. At least I got a pizza and a beer from one of them.
That’s Sturm below. He’s Romanian, and he and his wife Christina had the lease on the campground and were trying to make a go of it. I hope they succeed. Highly recommended if you’re passing through.
– ends –
2022 in Europe so far: Toulouse to Mannheim 1,529 km in 15 days (13 days of cycling)
Nights in hotel 7
Nights in tent 8
eBike defects/ repairs:
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- 2 punctures rear, 4 punctures front.
- 2 new tubes bought (Montelimar).
- Rohloff oil change (Toulouse)
- Repairs to rear kickstand (Toulouse)
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