More useful items when cycle touring

A number of folks use the disposable shower caps that hotels offer in showers as seat covers when they leave their bikes. Quite why hotels offer these I don't know as we never use them. We use them as helmet covers in rain. The only problem is finding the shower caps. We use the plastic bags that German supermarkets use to wrap loose fruit before weighing as seat covers.

Secateurs

I regularly check the web using Google Alerts for bicycle topics and recently found suggestions about unusual but useful gear to take along when cycle touring, including a loop to lock the brakes when loading the bike. We invariably take a bungee along because the holding straps on German railway trains are sometimes a little short. It is embarrassing when the bikes fall over and judicious application of a bungee stops this. However an item that I often think would be useful and, I must admit have never taken with us, is a pair of secateurs. Invariably the vital signpost showing the turn we need is overgrown by ornamental creepers. If one cycles in winter or early spring this is not a problem, but for much of the cycling seasons somebody should really clean them up. In case of need we get round the problem by using our trusty Swiss Army knife or mini Leatherman®, but I suspect secateurs would be a darn sight easier.

Trier the city you can never leave

Trier is one of the all time great German cities. It is without doubt the oldest German city and offers extensive Roman remains, superb churches and the Karl Marx House where the revolutionary prophet was born and lived, before he finally ended up in Highgate Cemetery. There are bus loads of tourists everywhere. Since the city is also the most convenient spot for most Germans to start the Moselle cycle path down to Koblenz, the town and its railway station are jammed packed with the Lycra® clad and other touring cyclists. Most cycling visitors stop overnight to simply look at the place, which is a knockout, especially if you're there when there is a Fest. Cyclists are well catered for. There is a multitude of cycle tracks, well sign posted with one odd exception. The city fathers seem to have decided that so many cyclists stop overnight that they do not need to sign post the connection between the railway station and the Moselle bank. They have enough time to orientate themselves before they head off east or south.
We decided to spend a week in the Eifel hills. We travelled to Trier by train. We'd been there before. We have seen the sights and so we decided to arrive and depart. We arrived in Trier on a cold showery day and after a quick sandwich we set off for the river bank. We passed by the Porta Nigra (signposted from the station) and ran on down the cycle/footpath along Nordallee dodging groups of rubber necking French kids. Then came the punishment for not stopping overnight. We came to a set of traffic lights and there was a sign off to the left, we followed it to a spot where the bicycle signs came to an end and spent a half hour wandering through the old town. (The cure for this problem lies with the city fathers. As you pass the Porta Nigra go through the gate and pick up a city plan from the tourist office on the other side. When you reach the traffic lights at the end of Nordallee, turn off half right down the Lindenstrasse.)
We finally found the river and headed off towards Koblenz into the wind, because this is what cyclists do. If the route is downhill and with the wind, it's the wrong way. We rapidly noticed our mistake and turned round to head for Wasserbillig in Luxembourg. As we left Trier we noticed a sign pointing across the river to Wasserbillig, which is the lowest point in Luxembourg. We followed it. A big mistake, the rain blowing in from the east now was horizontal and we arrived at the Trier Exhibition Grounds, swung right and right again to end up in a large car park inhabited by motor homes packed with bored individuals making cups of tea. We could not find a way up river and turned round once again to follow the right bank to Konz where we crossed the river on a cycle/footbridge adjacent to the railway bridge. This is the best place to cross the river if you are heading upstream. After a few km on the left bank we crossed into Luxembourg and headed up the Sauer Valley to Bollendorf. We stopped in the youth hotel there having climbed up what seemed to be the North Face of the Eiger and then we went on into the Eifel Hills, but that's another story.

Bring, buy or maybe hire

Tim Burleigh, a friend of ours who writes and publishes the excellent BicycleGermany web site on the joys and possible pitfalls of cycle touring in Germany wrote to us recently about some new ideas for the website. It would appear that some airlines are demanding $250 for the one way carriage of a bicycle from the USA to Europe or vice versa, i.e. return costs of $500. At the present rate of exchange $500 is about 370 Euro. For this sum of money you can hire a 21-27 gear trekking bike for about 3 weeks. However you will need to take the bike back to the hire company, which even after a short linear trip like the Romantic Road from Würzburg to Füssen will cost you the better part of a day which for two people and bikes will cost at least 25 Euro each.
It may be more convenient and even cheaper for a longer trip to buy a cheap bike at the start of the trip and get rid of it at the end. If you have family or friends in Europe this is an easy option, otherwise it could be difficult. You could always give the bike to a church or a charity. Obviously if you are planning to come back the year and have no relatives or friends in Europe after you can try to find a bike shop to leave the bicycle there for the winter. Various of the supermarkets in Germany like Aldi, Real or Lidl, the coffee roasters Tchibo and DIY stores sell their own brand bicycles for prices that one can hardly believe. You can buy a bike for less than 200 Euro. They have one major snag however. Most bike shops won't touch them if repairs become necessary or will charge you serious sums for the privilege of repairing the bike. The best option is to buy a Pegasus bicycle from a purchasing cooperative called ZEG. They sell these bikes through local bicycle shops in Germany, not all but a lot and in the Stadler chain of bike supermarkets. These bikes can normally be obtained for between 300 to 500 Euro.

The annoyed public schoolboy

I am sorry if this piece sounds like the title of a John Le Carré novel, because it has actually been prompted by a article in our local Sunday newspaper "Sonntag Aktuell" which is distributed by our local daily newspaper, "Südhessen Morgen". The paper is published in Stuttgart and distributed all over SW Germany to the subscribers of a number of regional newspapers every Sunday. Unfortunately it is fashionable to dot one's German with English expressions these days, even if there are perfectly good German words already available, e.g. "die Story" for "die Geschichte". This is annoying but can be inadvertently amusing. There is community owned "green" electricity company (EWS) in Schönau (Black Forest). This organisation is spearheading an attempt to buy shares in a privately owned company - an E.ON subsidiary that has minority holdings in a number of communal utilities throughout Germany. The leading light in this campaign said recently in an interview "Cross-Border-Leasing is out, communal ownership is in", which is an excellent idea. Unfortunately this was reported in the "Sonntag Aktuell" as Cross-Boarder-Leasing, which rather spoilt the effect, at least for these two native speakers.

German Humour

There is this popular British theory that the Germans do not have a sense of humour. This belief has arisen because unfortunately the majority of Brits do not understand German, the language itself does not lend itself to the kind of word play that English allows and British society encourages humour whereas German society is of the opinion that one can only speak of serious matters in an earnest manner. In my experience most British after dinner speeches or lectures start with a quick one liner: I remember a distinguished professor of chemistry who started a speech one evening with "As Anthony said to Cleopatra, 'I have not come here to make a speech.'" This would be almost unheard of at a similar event in Germany. I worked for a German learned society for 15 years and during this time I must have heard between 50 and 100 speeches and lectures. Only one started with a touch of humour. However the German on the Clapham Omnibus can quite often come out with wit to make his point. One of our neighbours is looking after her very sick sister and we meet several times a week to deliver chicken soup which is a major hit with the patient. The sister doing the nursing has a line in insults that is quite remarkable. We were recently discussing her neighbours and heard them described as "…second generation newspaper deliverers".

Bicycle Hire in the Eifel Hills Part I

The Eifel is the range of hills in the west of Gemany on the Belgian border bordered by the Rhine to the east and the Moselle to the south. They peter out into the Rhine Plain between Aachen and Cologne. The area is largely unknown outside of Germany, which is pity because it offers pleasant cycling made more easy by a system of trains and connecting bus routes to help one get up to the higher bits. In all fairness these services are very useful. The Eifel hills are 500-600m high whereas the Rhine and Moselle Valleys are about 100m above sea level. There are a surprising number of bicycle hire centres which we will try to list over the next couple of weeks.

Erft Cycle Route
The Erft runs for about 110km from the North Eifel in Blankenheim at over 500m to Neuss on the Rhine opposite Düsseldorf. There are a good rail connections from Köln (Cologne) and Trier. If you hire a bike from somewhere on this route you can take it back by train. In addition to decent cycling the route offers prehistoric fossils, Roman remains and mediaeval town centres.

53947 Nettersheim
Bicycle Hire in the Naturzenrum Eifel
Urftstraße 2-4
T: +49 (0) 2486 1246
F: +49 (0) 2486 203048
eMail: naturzentrum@nettersheim.de
www.nettersheim.de (in German)

Fahrradshop Nagelschmidt
Bahnhofstraße 1
T: +49 (0) 2486 1000

53902 Bad Münstereifel
Schmiko Sport
Kölner Straße 13 (In the railway station)
T: +49 (0) 2253 543877
F; +49 (0) 2253 543878

50321 Brühl
Radstation Brühl
am Bundesbahnhof 2a (Either at or very near the railway station)
T: +49 (0) 2232 950761
F: +49 (0) 2232 950826
www.radstation-bruehl.de

41515 Grevenbroich
Radstation Grevenbroich
Bahnhofsvorplatz 1a (In front of the station)
T: +49 (0) 2181 122685
F: +49 (0) 2181 122695

41462 Neuss
Radstation am Hauptbahnhof Neuss (Either at or very near the railway station)
Further Straße 2
T: +49 (0) 2131 6619890
F: +49 (0) 2131 6619899