Auntie Helen's Third German Rivers Cycle Tour

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
OP
OP
Auntie Helen

Auntie Helen

Ich bin Powerfrau!
Hi TwoInTow,

My only experience is from two previous tours with my recumbent - I haven't travelled with a tandem before.

As I'm using the Schönes-Wochenende ticket I'm only allowed to take the RE, RB and smaller trains, not the ICE or IC. This is no problem for my route anyway.

When I did my second tour last year (in September) we took the train from Hoek van Holland to Bamberg which involved eight trains in total. There was only one train where there was a potential issue - and this train was choc-a-bloc as there had been a suicide on another line and all the passengers were piling into this train. In the end I just took the seat off the trike and laid it on its side so it was smaller and that was fine. A Pino wouldn't have seemed as large, I imagine (I cycle with someone with a Pino so I know what it is).

The trains all had very different bicycle facilities, ranging from an entire carriage for bikes and their owners, to squeezing in smallish cycle areas (Dutch trains had lesser facilities, generally). The only problems with the German trains tended to be that the carriages were quite high up from the platforms so I had to lift my trike up, plus they had poles in the middle of the doorways which made it a tight squeeze. These wouldn't be an issue with the Pino, IMO.

Do you speak any German? If you can that would probably help as they're so pleased when you speak to them in their language, especially as the conductors probably don't speak English. With my four sets of journeys on German trains there was only the one possible problem (which didn't become an issue anyway) and I'm very confident in future Deutsche Bahn travel. The trike is a much bigger issue than the Pino would be, so I would say you ought to be fine. I don't know about the IRE trains though - perhaps you should consult Deutsche Bahn's website or PM Andy in Sig on CycleChat as he lives in Sigmaringen and rides a recumbent (he has written an article about the very cycle route you are doing and so might send it to you if you ask him!)
 

Andy in Sig

Vice President in Exile
There's plenty of space on IREs for a Hase Pino.

Helen, you've just reminded me: we never got the mag sorted out. Still interested?

Incidentally, if you want I can PM you some restaurant recommendations for Dusseldorf.
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
Bergstrasse said:
A few more:
The Bread Museum in Ulm: http://www.brotmuseum-ulm.de/index_english.php

The Potato Museum in Fussgoenheim in the Pfalz west of Ludwigshafen: http://www.pfalz.de/de/freizeit-und-erleben/tolle-knolle-das-kartoffelmuseum-in-fussgoenheim (Open on the second Sunday of each month between 13:00 and 18:00) You will learn more about the spud than you thought possible. Sometimes you can also buy exotic spuds and the longest chips in the world.

The Mustard Museum in Düsseldorf: http://duesseldorf.de/eng/tourism/discover/museen/index.shtml

The Banana Museum in Sierksdorf on the Baltic Coast Cycle Route: http://www.bananenmuseum.de/

Ok, you've done it now. It was an idle fancy. Now, I'm starting a proper list....:smile:

I SO have to visit a kartoffelmuseum!:biggrin:
 

Bergstrasse

New Member
I helped someone on Frankfurt station load his Pino onto an IC some years ago and enquired about tandems being verboten on some trains and problems with train guards. He replied that since Pinos are shorter than a normal tandem, they were often mistaken for a normal bike anyway.
I suspect if you travel by TGV if you book all four places in the bike compartment and put the PIno at the back nobody will probably notice. Don't forget to reserve beforehand. You could go to Karlsruhe by TGV and then take an RE/RB to Donaueschingen.
 

Bergstrasse

New Member
Arch said:
Ok, you've done it now. It was an idle fancy. Now, I'm starting a proper list....:smile:

I SO have to visit a kartoffelmuseum!:tongue:

Have you also thought about cycle routes named after food. There is a cycle route called the "Grünkern Route" up near the Tauber Valley south of Würzburg. Grünkern is unripe Dinkel (a cereal like wheat).
There are a couple of beer routes in Bavaria.
I have been thinking about these for some time, but I think we will cycle the Rhine from Rotterdam to Koblenz in a few weeks time. We are are also hoping to follow the Iron Curtain in Germany from Lübeck to Hof in Bavaria.
 
OP
OP
Auntie Helen

Auntie Helen

Ich bin Powerfrau!
Deep joy. There are engineering works between Boisheim and Viersen on the stretch from Venlo to Mönchengladbach with replacement buses - upon which one cannot take bicycles. So we're going to cycle the Venlo to MG section (23 miles) in preference which will obviously slow us down a bit. We may not reach Trier until 9:10 in the evening, but if we're lucky with trains we might get there at 7:10. Original schedule had us arriving at 4:30pm so this is quite a difference - all because of a 7km stretch of railway that's closed...

Some nice people on a German cycling forum have sent me some GPX files of suitable routes between Venlo and MG so hopefully we will have an enjoyable ride.

Otherwise we're all pretty sorted for our trip which starts this Saturday. Watch this space!
 
We're really looking forward to this trip. Although Mrs. Wow and I have done lots of touring on our tandem, we've never been properly abroad (an Irish end-to-end doesn't really count as abroad). We did have one day last summer in which we cycled from Clais to Boulogne and then found that we had missed the last train back to Calais by about 10 minutes. That cost us an extra 40€ getting a ferry direct from Boulogne to Dover.

We're really grateful to AH for doing all the spade work. Plus - the Mosel route will be all downhill!
 
OP
OP
Auntie Helen

Auntie Helen

Ich bin Powerfrau!
I haven't been yet - I'm going tomorrow!
 

Andy in Sig

Vice President in Exile
:blush:Nice to see I've got my finger on the pulse!

Incidentally there is also a Bikeline book which covers the entire are. It's called the Niederrhienroute and I'd be very surprised if you couldn't pick up a copy at Venlo station or at one of the bookshops in the town. You should certainly be able to get it in the first decent sized German place you get to.
 
OP
OP
Auntie Helen

Auntie Helen

Ich bin Powerfrau!
Day 1: Ferry (16,3 miles)

Wow and Mrs Wow arrived at 5:45 and had a cup of tea and piece of cake before we set off. It had been raining but was dry for us as we rode the 13 miles to the Cherry Tree in Little Oakley for dinner and a drink or two. It rained whilst we were eating so we put on our macs for the final three miles to Parkeston Quay, Harwich.

The shiny new ferry was looming enormously at the quayside. Our cabin was decent and we watched a bit of Eurovision before going to sleep.
 
OP
OP
Auntie Helen

Auntie Helen

Ich bin Powerfrau!
Day 2: Hoek van Holland to Trier

We were off the Ferry at 7:45am and cycled all of 200 metres to Hoek van Holland railway station, at which our train awaited. Unfortunately the train doors had broken and only one door was open (with an annoying alarm going the whole time). So everyone had to get on the train through that door, which involved squeezing past my trike. In the UK I wouldn't have been allowed on, and in fact the train wouldn't be permitted to run with only one door working - and not working properly - but this is Holland where things are a bit chilled out so eventually we set off, just a few minutes late.

Of course, each stop took MUCH longer because people had to go in and out of one door (fortunately a different door - the driver's door - for most of the stations as the platform was the other side) and it soon became apparent that we would miss our connection at Rotterdam. Not a great start to the day, but couldn't be helped. I was also impressed that, when the conductor discovered two Brit mountain-bikers didn't have bicycle tickets, he just asked them to buy one when they got to Rotterdam, rather than chucking them off.

Despite missing our connection the trains are every half hour so we only had to wait 20 minutes for the next train which gave us time for a cuppa and a mysterious marzipan-pastry biscuit thing.

The train to Venlo had a much smaller bike space than normal and another chap had already put his bike into it. We managed to squeeze my trike in, Wow dismantled his Tandem and stacked it around the trike and the other chap's bike, and James put his bike across the doors of the train, waiting with it to move it if we arrived at a station with the platform on that side. When the conductor came along he was very jolly and happy, rather than chucking us off for making it almost impossible to pass through the train, as well as blocking the door. The chap with the bike was getting off at Eindhoven, about half an hour before us, so we sat and chatted to him (he had a shiny new singlespeed bike of which he was very proud), taking turns to look after James's bike in the doorway while the rest of us sat down in the seating area a little way away.

At Venlo we got the bikes out, crossed over the track, squeezed through the door and set off. The route supplied by a chap from Rad-forum.de worked really well and we followed it without any difficulties.

It was a bit windy and the rain came and went, generally reasonable conditions to ride in. Our average was 9.2mph which we knew meant it would be cutting it fine to get our connection at Mönchengladbach (we originally had 3 hours to do the 21 miles but now had 2.5 hours, which didn't leave time for punctures or food or getting lost). We saw some nice sights on the way, such as several hares in a field, lots of carrots, potatoes and asparagus being grown, etc. The landscape was very flat (reminiscent of our corner of Essex, in fact) and all the shops were shut as it was a Sunday. The border between Holland and Germany was just a bollard and some old, closed-up buildings.

It seemed like we were making good time to reach Mönchengladbach but traffic lights, as we approached the city, slowed us down badly. Our 10 minutes spare turned into about 2 minutes by the time we'd carried up the luggage to the platform. I took the trike in the lift but it was too short for the tandem so Wow had to carry it up the stairs. There was a large bike area on the train and we were able to sit nearby. However, having no food or tea was a bit of a hardship for a 2.5 hour journey that we now had on the train.

We got to Koblenz and had theoretically a 9 minute gap between trains (in which we needed to carry out bikes down the stairs from the plaform, along under the platforms and then back up again to platform 9, there were no lifts). The train was already there, however, and the bike carriage was almost full - there were already 13 bikes there. There were four people sitting by the bikes who looked most perturbed as we arrived and carried out bikes on - they were getting off at Cochem and wanted to be sure they could get out. I said that I would take my bike off the train if necessary when they got to Cochem. A big pile of mountain bikes, belonging to chaps sitting upstairs, were staying on till Trier, where we were getting off. We stowed our luggage by the door to the driver's bit of the train and found some seats.

At Cochem we let the four people off and another two got on, one of whom (a roadie chap) was most interested in my Trice and talked to me at length about it. It turned out he wanted to buy an HP Velotechnik Skorpion, and was asking about the similarities and differences. We discussed Rohloffs and more in German, until his friend appeared (who was American) and they talked in English.

We arrived in Trier at 5:45pm, left the station, went straight across the road to a cafe and had tea and a bread roll, our first proper food since breakfast on the ferry at 7:00am. I also discovered that Germany won Eurovision - how is this possible?????!!!!!!!

We then cycled all of 1.5 miles to Hotel Römerbrücke which was over the bridge over the Mosel. It's a very nice hotel with a cracking shower (in which I washed my clothes). We then set out to explore and find some dinner. Wow was photographed standing outside Karl Marx's house as his profile is remarkably similar. Food was a great pizza but we got utterly drenched walking back and a bit cold so had to turn up the radiators to dry out our second set of clothing.

So, four trains, 23ish miles, tomorrow the tour proper starts...
 

Scoosh

Velocouchiste
Moderator
Location
Edinburgh
Cut off in her prime :ohmy: ? What has happened to AH ?? :biggrin:

A great read thus far AH, thanks very much and enjoy the rest of your trip. :biggrin:
 
Top Bottom