Which Route, Barry?

Forget the previous post about Munchhausen and tall tales, this ride really was epic.

You get one on every trip when the route descends into hacking your way through undergrowth as the vegetation closed around you.

Last year it was the canal path out of Rheims which faded away to become a grass track, with fallen logs barring the path. I made it through, carving a new path for others and avoiding the dreaded "retracing you steps".

This time the sign for the Eurovelo 15 Rhine Route pointed away from the direction shown in my cycle guide. The guide route looked more direct, so I took that.

After about 2 km you get the "Route Barree" fencing. I set off into the woods to find a way around but the trail petered out. Returning to the fence, I find that French cyclists just ignore these barriers or tear them down. So I copied them, slipped through and cycled on.

Soon you meet more obstacles like a gravel storage depot with 100ft high mounds blocking the path and ominous earth moving equipment at work.

There was more scrambling and lumping with bike, down banks and across ditches, but eventually you find a real road.

Then the final obstacle, General Motors have requisitioned a 12 km stretch of straight road for vehicle testing and, in a classic piece of corporate requisitioning, blocked the way. If you slip past and carry on then you get approach and overtaken now and then by a new GM truck with flashing lights doing brake testing. You wait to be stopped but they leave you alone.

At the other end of the track is a locked gate, high fencing and the obligatory sign warning  you off. But you lug bike over the fence to freedom and then see a Speedy Day Rider in full kit lift his bike over the fence going in the other direction.

Clearly, the straight testing track is very popular for bike training and you may not be the only illegal after all.

Lunch Break

It was a long morning riding out of Karlsruhe knowing that there was 90km to go until the night stop.

By lunch time I was wilting and in need of some rest and sustenance. I didn't need a big meal but that's all that this typical French restaurant offered. I guess I could have asked for just a starter or dessert but my French disintegrates with fatigue and English just wasn't on offer.

So I ate the Pot au Feu with fried potatoes, which was good, but then I was fighting digestion lethargy before setting off on the next stretch.

Tall Tales

This is Munchhausen, a town just across the border in what it now France. The name looked familiar so I looked it up. Apparently the real-life Baron Münchhausen fought in the Russo-Turkish war. Upon retiring in 1760, he became a minor celebrity within German aristocratic circles for telling outrageous tall tales based on his military career.

It seems worth a bit of embellishment to keep things interesting, as long as you do not mislead. So I am going to crank up the tales of this epic and heroic trek across the wilds of Europe.

Ferry Last One

You are probably fed up with photos of ferries, so I promise that this is the last one - across into France at Neuburg on the last outward leg to Strasbourg.

Never, Never, Land

You arrive at the landing stage to catch the ferry to take you across the Rhine and see it parked on the other side with very little apparent activity. There are no vehicles or cars on your side so doubt sets in.

Then you see that the ferry is called Peter Pan. So you maybe in Neverland.

You wait and finally it begins to move. That's when car start to appear on your side. Where have they been? Or do they just know the sailing times?

Eventually Peter Pan makes it across. Clearly he comes Wendy ready.

Straight and Narrow

This is heaven, a straight run on a 10km path through the Waldfeld deer park right into the centre of Karlsruhe. That means no need to stop to check the map nor anxiety that I may have taken s wrong turning. Plus the surface is great.

So look at the photos. Do you notice any difference? No? That's the point. Wonderful isn't it?

Amuse-eums

Museums must be like buses: you don't see any for a while and then three come along at once.

After the impressive technikmuseum in Speyer (I missed a pun there) I later came across both the Roadmuseum, quickly followed by a Tilemuseum. I cannot vouch for their content but, with what looked like a tarmac laying machine and a steamroller outside the former, they seem to hold to their name.

I was so intent on moving on that I failed miserably to get a photo of the Tilemuseum, but if I had called I am sure they would have been sehr amicable.