Düsseldorf-Bonn

The 'no bikes' sign we didn't see

In the centre of Düsseldorf is a wide, traffic free promenade which is perfect for cycling . Unfortunately someone has set up a street market and put barriers on the promenade with “No Cycling” signs. This on a major pan-European cycleway. Would they block an Autobahn without giving an alternative route? Worse, the signs point south, so by the time we realise we’re being naughty, we aren’t any more.

Following the band in a village near Düsseldorf

At the southern end of Düsseldorf, we cross the Rhine for the 3rd time, and take the straightest route on the map towards Köln. In the outer suburbs of the city, I fall into conversation with a local who gives the useful information that a triathlon in the city and many of the roads are closed. Sure enough we find people directing traffic, but they are more than helpful and wave us past.

Cities are resolving themselves into a familiar pattern: fields; sudden, nondescript industry; well-heeled centre; industry, sudden fields. Köln is the same: we’re rolling through a picturesque farming village, and suddenly we turn a corner and we’re surrounded by heavy industry. On the plus side the road alongside us is closed for the triathlon, so instead of trucks delivering to the factories, we’re being passed by Lycra-clad triathletes on super-light racing bikes. What we don’t have is a way to the river: it’s blocked by a large complex owned by the Ford motor company.

Eventually we find a gap in the buildings, ride down it, and there is the river. And then as suddenly as it began, the industry stops, and we’re riding through a park on a wide avenues end seeing the first glimpse of Köln cathedral. We ride along the embankment, past houseboats and flanked by more triathletes, under the massive rail bridge, and climb up into the city square. 330 kilometres after leaving Amsterdam, we are in Köln.

Xtra and Köln cathedral

We spend about half an hour in Köln, trying to photograph the cathedral and the bikes together and looking about the square, but  I’m a lousy tourist and I want to press on to Bonn.  Travis is keen to see the city and have a beer, so he elects to take the train to Bonn and meet us there.

Bridge (fourth Rhine crossing) and Cathedral, before we hit the chaos

The centre of Köln is chaos: along the river people are running back and forth along carefully constructed routes and everywhere there are barriers, along roads and across them, which we have to negotiate. Out of the city all this careful control disappears, and we find ourselves riding along another avenue with people running in different directions each side of us. At this point Alex is riding the Bakfiets, and the sight of him squeezing between runners is quite amusing. At the turning point even that doesn’t work, and in an attempt to avoid hitting a someone, he ends up crossing the checkpoint and triggering the automatic counter. There’s nothing to I can do except follow him, so we become official participants in the Köln 2009 Triathlon, if only for a few seconds.

Alex in the Triathlon

After this, the roads seem rather empty. We follow a wide promenade along the river, and once we’re realised that the signs for the bike route are now red and blue, not blue and yellow, we make good progress, except when we follow a sign saying “Short cut”, which isn’t. Soon after this, we find a sign showing “Köln 18km” and “Bonn 18km”. This is reason enough to stop and eat some celebratory Abendbrot, watching the ships labour their way past.

The short cut that wasn't

Half way

We’re noticing changes. Buildings are gradually changing from the brick of the north to the wide roof eaves I’m more familiar with in the south, and as we approach Bonn, we can see hills silhouetted to the south, reminding us that we’re leaving the flood plains and tomorrow we’ll be in in a land of gorges and steep-sided valleys.

Arriving in Bonn, fifth Rhine crossing

Bonn is roughly half-way between Amsterdam and Stuttgart, and by way of celebration Alex has booked a night in a Youth hostel. To our eyes the Maxx Hostel seems very luxurious, although it’s possible that we’re just ridiculously excited at the prospect of beds and electricity, and even warm showers. After meeting Travis and eating a pizza at a local restaurant I come back to our room early, call Beautiful Wife, play with the lights for a bit, and go to bed. We’ve covered just over 100km today, and we’re half way home: we’re feeling fit and we’re back on schedule. Things are looking up.

Dodgy shot of youth hostel

A grand day out

I don’t know what is wrong at the moment, the work keeps coming. Unfortunately it’s usually annoying stuff like the health insurance asking how much we earn -for the third time this year. So todays post is a photo essay/copout, showing a fairly typical afternoon with the bikes…

Trusty steeds awaiting family. The Bafiets didn’t poop: that’s sand dumped on the drive for some reason. We were going to pick up Eldest Son from Circus School in the next town, so I’m hauling his bike and carrying Youngest Son on the Xtracycle, while Beautiful Wife has a go carrying Middle Son in the Bakfiets.

And away they go. The Bakfiets is heavy so it obviously goes faster than the Xtracycle downhill. That’s my excuse anyway.

Heading home, Middle Son now with me and smallest with Beautiful Wife as the way back is partly uphill. As far as I know there isn’t a single metre of dedicated bike lane in Ostfildern, and this is shared with pedestrians. It also becomes a gravel road in a few metres, but at least we’re away from the traffic to the right. Considering Eldest son has been learning circus skills for the last two hours, including tightrope walking and unicycling, he’s riding well.

The ‘big swing’: one of the best places in the boys current universe, and only accessible by bike or on foot. As an added advantage there are friendly goats to watch in the field alongside. What more could a small boy want? Perhaps a pack of chocolate dips, such as Middle Son is quietly finishing off in the on the swing.

Last part of the ride home on traffic free streets. Riding conditions like these are the reason we could get the bakfiets, as Beautiful Wife is very nervous about using it in traffic. Eldest son is a speck in the distance. Several parents in his school have remarked that he’s pretty fit compared to their kids. I don’t point out the obvious reason why this is: I find it’s not worth the effort.

We had to cross two slightly busy roads, but the journey was direct, straight, and 99% traffic calmed or traffic free . And this is  Ostfildern, (“Four wheels good, two wheels baaaad”) so you can bet very little money went into making this happen. Most of the time we were on field roads, although to be fair they were signposted for bikes. A few improvements would be nice, like smooth surfaces on a couple of sections (Gravel is fine as a surface, but why the potholes?) and parhaps a set of lights on the crossings so we can stop traffic instead of having to wait in the centre refuge… sorry, a bit radical for Ostfildern there.

Ah, well. Beautiful wife is getting the hang of the Bakfiets and the boys think it’s the best thing since Christmas, so on balance I’m happy.

Time to fill in the form for the health insurance…

Wild camping

Writing tweets on the village green...

Technically, you should find a real camp site before putting up a tent in Germany. This works fine when there is a camp site nearby, which there isn’t. Besides, you technically shouldn’t cook dinner on an open stove on the village green directly in front of the fire station when they are having a party, but no-one seems to mind. We move on with our eyes open for overnight possibilities. A patch of woodland, preferably well away from any houses, would be favourite, but we’re stuck in suburbia. It’s not like we can camp in someone’s front garden without them noticing. Then while we’re riding along a track in a woodland Alex disappears through a hole in the hedge, (the location of which I obviously can’t disclose for securit… never mind). When we follow him we get the bakfiets stuck in the undergrowth of what was probably once a carefully tended orchard. It doesn’t look promising, as the only ways through the seeds are trails left by dog walkers, but Alex doesn’t know when to give up and finds us a small Garden of Eden which looks like it hasn’t seen humans in years.

The morning after.

We don’t want to attract attention, and nothing attracts attention like people whispering, waving torches about and falling over in the dark, so there’s a rush to throw the tent up while we have some light. We’re feeling pretty smug about our improvised campsite  when we hear voices through the trees to the east. We all stop and listen, wondering if we’re about to be pounced on by mad axemen or the residents association, but they don’t come any closer. There are some lights showing about 300m north but the woods are thick so we don’t expect anyone will notice the tent. We roll out the bags and go to sleep, hoping there are no insomniac dog walkers in the area.

We are woken suddenly at seven, not by angry natives but by someone’s cell phone. It takes us some time to find and extinguish it. We all slept well. My jet-lag seems to have been cured by the riding, and Alex reports the best night so far: he was lying on a tree root which was perfectly positioned  for his back.

We take the tent down, Alex expressing disappointment at leaving his orthopaedic tree root behind, and Travis goes to make breakfast on a car park half a kilometre away. I carefully pack the bakfiets and park it, whereupon the stand-with-the-missing-foot sinks into the ground and the whole bike sedately rolls over onto its side, spewing everything onto the wet grass. Thank goodness for well-padded computer bags. We repack it, creep out of the orchard, get stuck in the gate again, and somehow manage to get away unseen. We join Travis who is boiling water in the middle of a car park, and find about ten motor caravans have had the same idea as us and are parked around the tarmac, curtains shut. After celebrating the fact we are alive and haven’t been arrested yet with coffee, tea, and cereal bars, we set off to find someone who can tell us where the heck we are, and which way to get to Düsseldorf.

Maiden voyage

My goodness but its been a week since I wrote anything here.: as you’ve probably gathered it’s been a busy one.  This week, Beautiful Wife decided it was time to master the Bakfiets, and that the best way to do this was to go out for the evening with me alongside on the Xtracycle. Even  Ostfildern manages to have sufficient cycle lanes to avoid running along a road much, and we followed these to a restaurant in the next town.

Beautiful wife getting used to the Bakfiets.

Her verdict: great bike, but a bit of a pull on hills, and probably not good to ride wearing a short skirt. She also found it awkward to make corners in a hurry. This we discovered when we missed a turning and she had to do a 240 degree turn to fit into the cycle lane. This was in no was due to my bad navigation. Not at all. And the driver of the car following was very nice about waiting for us to manouvre. We made the restaurant comfortably and parked the bikes be the hedge.

Bikes onna date.

They are locked, although it’s not obvious. local bike thieves wouldn’t know that this is, let alone have a market for it, so we felt pretty safe, especially as we were sitting on the other side of the hedge. The meal was punctuated by overheard conversations like this:

“What is that?”
“Is it a bicycle?”
“Can’t be…”

Husen to Duisburg

The morning after. Tent still upright.

The weather has improved. This is good news. Even better is that my camera battery survived the storm in the night, wrapped up in a ziplock bag. My shoes didn’t do so well though: despite being wrapped thoroughly in a large rubbish bag, my shoes feel suspiciously heavy and before putting them on I pour enough water out to make a small puddle on the floor. Squelch to the unheated shower hoping that’s not the way the day will continue.

Dyke racing.

We leave a bit earlier than the previous day, in sunshine, and with a strong tail wind. Everything looks great although we all know we’ll probably get at least one soaking by lunchtime. We’re following dykes again. I’m fascinated by these as they are almost unheard of in the south, certainly on this scale. They provide a dual purpose of protection against the river and a flat means of communication between villages, and all we have to do is stay on the top and they bring us where we need to go. Or that’s what we think until the road stops abruptly in a farm. We see a group of walkers appear from behind a woodland, and the path they are using appears to be bikable . More to the point no-one wants to ride against the wind so we manhandle the bikes straight down the bank -I’ll say this for the Bakfiets, it has good brakes- squeeze through a wood, and find ourselves under a signpost for the Rhine bike way. Unfortunately we annoy the walkers who don’t hear the bike bells, and shout at us that we should whistle. That’s a new one.

Soaked again.

We cross flat countryside and roll through small villages with brick built houses which still remind me of the UK. We’ve learned that the showers are short lived, and we’ve been soaked and dried off so many times in three days that no-one even mentions it when a particulairly violent squall hits when we are about a kilometre away from the nearest cover. True to form, the sun emerges straight after the rain and we’re dry in minutes. I suggest to Alex I could have saved myself a shower if I’d known. He grins.
„I’m sharing a tent with you, so I’m glad you didn’t know“

Fair comment.

Blast furnace as village ornament

Duisburg creeps up on us. We’re riding through a picturesque village when we turn a corner and there is a blast furnace at the end of the street. A few kilometres later we reach the river once more and suddenly we’re in one of the centres of German heavy industry. Duisburg exists by an accident of geography. It’s where the Ruhr meets the Rhine.The Ruhr isn’t the biggest tributary of the Rhine, in fact it’s the 6th largest, but when the only option was hordes over some pretty steep hills, it made a handy route across the north of the country. The fact this link also led directly to the longest river in Western Europe, giving access to the sea and the cities to the south was an even greater bon us, so so there has been a harbour in Duisburg since records began, and probably long before. In the 19th century someone a few kilometres along the Rhur noticed that if they dug down a bit, there was lots of coal for the asking. Coal is heavy stuff, so this would have been of limited use, but with a but with a nice big river to take it away on, there was money to be made: the Rhine/Ruhr area became the centre of German heavy industry, and Duisburg, at the junction of the rivers, thrived.

Why Duisburg exists. Rhur meets Rhine.

More recently the city has become known for its enlightened approach to cycling infrastructure, as we cross the Rhine into the city we find ourselves on the sort of infrastructure that you dream about when following narrow painted ‘bike lanes’ through the door zone: segregated from traffic, bright red, wide and clean. Even better, we get a great view of the point where the Rhine and Rhur meet, so we stop for a few minutes to look at the meeting point of these two rivers which have affected the history of Germany so much.

A real bike lane being ignored by Alex.

A few minutes later I lose a foot. Not personally you understand, but from the Bakfiets. I stop to take a photo, and when I lift the stand the foot falls off onto the road. On closer examination it looks like the bolt holding the foot was overtightened and split the rubber. The bike wobbles a bit on its stand without the foot but that’s the only difference, well, that and the fact that for the rest of the journey my progress will be shown by small scratch marks wherever I stop. I’m literally making a mark wherever I go.

Edge of the Rhineland

We get a lot of time to appreciate the infrastructure in Duisburg, mainly because we get lost. I don’t know what it is with cities on this trip, we don’t seem to be able to leave without making a grand tour. After following the road we think is correct for several kilometres, we stop to ask for directions. The pedestrian we meet is helpful and gives detailed advice, but clearly can’t understand the map we’re using, which leaves us none the wiser. Finally after some more asking around we meet a restraunt owner who not only tells us where we are (on the Rhine cycleway) but also how to get out of this maze of streets and south. It doesn’t look promising. We end up on a road bordered by some pretty shabby apartments on one side and a massive steelworks on the other, but then we cross the railway, go through some woodland, and suddenly we’re in fields again. Duisburg has stopped as suddenly as it started.

And out in the fields again... Long way to Düsseldorf though.

However, all this getting lost and then finding the way means it’s now mid-afternoon and we’re a long way north of Düsseldorf, which itself is north of our campsite on the banks of the Rhine. Either we have to ride through one of the biggest cities in Germany in a few hours, or we have to try some wild camping.

Bakfiets overload

Life is moving so fast at the moment I’m pushed to keep up with it, let alone blog about it. Apart from the bike tour, which I still need to write loads on, I’ve  other people powered stories to tell. And I’m supposed to be writing a guest post for another blog, and…

In the meantime I’m trying to live in the real world, where both the Xtracycle and the Bakfiets are seeing a lot of use. Someone asked me to fetch and deliver an empty box which will soon find a use in a community theatre production or on some other project. Ironically the piano this box transported was made in Hamamatsu, Japan. The person who asked me to move this was convinced it wouldn’t fit on the Bakfiets, on the basis it wouldn’t fit into a car… Mwahahahaaa…

That's better...

All this schepping stuff about can wear a chap down, so here’s a new use for the Bakfiets. Shortly afterwards it was comandeered by Beautiful Wife to ride home. I was hoping she’d let me ride in the box, but she made some excuse about carrying the boys instead. I ask you…

Day 2: Wijk-Husen

First decent pic of the Bakfiets

Today everything is different: the rain has been replaced by sunshine, the sky is blue, and even the yesterdays side winds are behind us, literally: we’re riding due east so they should be pushing us along today. There is one thing missing: Travis. To lose what is effectively 33% of the group by day 2 may seem careless, so let me explain…

Where we camped. The source of much hilarity for the farmer next morning.

Alex and I set off from the campsite at about 1000 for a relaxed detour around Wijk. I wanted to think deep thoughts about our journey where the Rhine-Amsterdam canal meets with the Rhine, and I’d promised Eldest Son I’d take a photograph of the ferry. Travis, on the other hand, wanted to think deep thoughts with his coffee and journal. We didn’t have mobile phone coverage in the Netherlands, but I was on the Bakfiets, and Alex was on my Xtracycle, and we were going around three sides of the village whereas he would be going directly east, so we were pretty sure Travis would get there before us.

Wijk ferry

I didn’t get any deep thoughts at the river. We loafed about at the junction taking pictures of the ships, I went down to the river for the promised ferry pictures, and, then we found ourselves on the old side of Wijk, and stopped and wandered into the town to take some photos of the streets and the windmill, and some of the house boats in the harbour, one of which I’d buy tomorrow if I had the money, and could swim.

Space saving ideas at Wijk.

If only I could swim...

Dyke road. no sign of Travis, but is that Darth Vader in the distance?

So that’s how you find us on the dyke road towards Arnhem missing one of our group. Not that we were concerned about this. I’ve long known people have different riding styles. Mine is to hit about 18km/h and keep churning out the kilometres. Travis rides in a series of sprints, stoppng every few kilometres to enjoy the view, and racing on. We  typically pass each other several times during the day, so we figure he will pass us, or we’ll find him on a bench. He knew where we were going and the route was well signposted. We keep going at a sedate 15-18km/h through pretty villages, remarkably like villages in the UK, without the traffic, and along the dyke of the Rhine towards Arnhem, stopping periodically to take pictures, get lunch, check for mobile phone coverage and on one occasion to send a postcard.

Like a British village without the shunting 4x4's.

The bridge at Arnhem. The bikes are where some of the fiercest fighting took place.

Arnhem is the destination for the morning. It’s the site of one of the hardest fought battles of the Second World War. On the 17th of September 1944, British, Polish, Canadian and American airborne troops landed around to capture of the bridges and hold them long enough for land-based troops to come and relieve them. Operation Market Garden was supposed to allow the Allies a route over the Rhine, directly into Germany and end the war within a year. Apparently some soldiers, believing they would be part of an occupation force in Germany, packed leisure things in their kitbags. The Allied troops met far stronger resistance than expected, including several divisions of German and Dutch SS troops, and German reenforcements poured into the area throughout the nine-day battle. The allies lost somewhere between 15000-17 200 troops, and the German forces 10000. There’s a memorial just below Arnhem bridge to troops from both sides, and this morning someone set up a table decked in a British flag, with photos, books and some of the things the troops were carrying, like a shaving brush. I never liked war memorials in the UK -they always seem a bit triumphalist- but this one is quite moving and personal.

Still no sign of Travis, but a few kilometres beyond Arnhem, we find a Mammoth looking as if it was waiting for us to pass before crossing the road to find a bit of tundra. Unfortunately he (or she) is only a sculpture, placed next to the bike path, and as the information is all in Dutch, we don’t know why.

Where the ferry wasn't

Suddenly we ride through some trees and over a narrow bridge, and there in front of us was the Rhine proper, much wider than the northern ‘old’ Rhine we’ve followed until now. It’s here that according to the map, we should cross to the south bank and enter Germany, but we are planning to save a few Euro by staying on the northern bank and cross using a bridge at Emmerich in Germany. Hopefully said bridge will have a bike lane.

Now the other side of the river is a different country, and we follow the dyke expecting the usual European Untion ‘Welcome to Germany’ sign when the border turns north. Unfortunately when we reach the border, there’s nothing of the sort: the only sign says „Diversion“ in German, and behind this there is a hole where the bike lane should be.

Welcome to Germany

We end up following a very unusual street: houses on the left are in the Netherlands, and those on the right are in Germany. Road markings are a mix of the two countries and Dutch and German street signs vie for attention. I wonder what it is like to live here- how do you talk with the neighbours? Do the two sides have seperate rubbish collections?

Which country am I in?

Just after a Dutch post box we turn right, into Germany. A few kilometres further we find our first major obstacle, a sort of wicket gate for bicycles which is too short for an Xtracycle or a Bakfiets. We consider the situation. To go back would mean a long detour and a busy road, but we can’t lift the bikes over the wicket. After looking around it dawns on us that the fence alongside is made of plastic and wire, designed as a portable electric fence for cattle. It isn’t electrified…

Five minutes later we are riding along the dyke.

After another quick fencing operation and a wiggle over some traffic lights, we arrive at the bridge in Emmerich, which fortunately has a bike lane. Even better, we have a signal, and can call Travis. It turns out that he’s behind us, still in the Netherlands.

Longest bridge in Germany, yes, it has bike lanes...

While Alex directs Travis to us I make a futile attempt to find a place for the night. When I return I find Travis tired and annoyed. I understand this: I’d be annoyed in his position. Unfortunately there’s nothing for it but to push on for the last few kilometres to the campsite. On the positive side the tailwind is still with us. Just as we are approaching the campsite we pass the massive bulk of the former Kalkar SNR-300 fast-breeder nuclear reactor. It was built from 1972, cost billions of Euros to build and run, and never produced a single watt of electricity. The project was cancelled in 1991 and the place was turned into a theme park called „Wunderland Kalkar“ Obvious when you think about it. I was hopeful it might have slogans like „You’ll glow after staying here!“ but unfortunately there isn’t (there was never nuclear material on site anyway) Just an open gate and a bicycle sign advertising the cafe.

What do do with a useless fast-breeder reactor? Make it a theme park, of course.

Finally we arrive in the village our campsite is in. Then we have to find the campsite. This is not helped by the owner assuming we came by car and giving directions from the Autobahn. Then the rain hits again. We find a campsite, not the one we booked, but by then we don’t care. We throw the tent up as fast as we can, tying the guy lines to the bikes because pegs won’t hold in the soggy ground, and insert our soggy selves into it.

Uses for a bike #2675: holding a tent up.

We add up the miles and I’m astounded to find we’ve managed a cool 110,99km, my first metric century. Suddenly it all feels worthwhile, to me anyway.

Bakfiets Party

Room for more...

I’m catching up after being in Japan and then riding across Germany for several weeks, so the trip report is likely to be delayed a bit.

In the meantime, the bakfiets is seeing lots of use, from picking up a bowl of plums to rides like this one with the boys and one of their friends. What you can’t tell in the photo is that we are going downhill, and they are all jumping about and howling as if this is a rollercoaster. There was a small mobile party going on there. Okay, so I did make the bike slalom back and forth a bit, but it’s nearly impossible to tip the thing when it’s moving and full.

So far the reaction is mainly positive: almost everyone who sees the Bakfiets smiles, and drivers seem to give us plenty of space and little aggression. I’ll report on hills etc and stuff as I get more experience.

The Xtracycle should be getting some well deserved rest, but is still being used a lot, as it’s clearly faster than the Bakfiets for errands not involving large objects or small children, and I’m still more confident on that in traffic. I’ll be doing some trial run commutes with it as well soon, so expect more photos.

Amsterdam-Wijk

Xtracycle approaching Amsterdam

We join the sleeper train in Plochingen at a cold 1 am. I’ve never been on a sleeper train before, and it’s a lot more comfortable than I expected. I wake occasionally at stops, and signs in the gloom show names from our maps like Koblenz or Bonn. At Amsterdam we detrain and squeeze the bikes in the lift. Unfortunately when we arrive on the bottom floor, we can’t get the bikes out again, and we have no alternative but to let the lift go up again and restart the entire process, to the bemusement of a lot of commuters.

We wander out of the station past the famously huge multi-storey bike park. The sun is shining and the skies are clear- until we get about 100 metres into the city and the rain pours down. We eat bread huddled under the awning of a bakery, hoping it will lay off a bit, but eventually we settle for a gentle drizzle and walk to the Workcycles shop which is full of bikes of all shapes and sizes.

Coveting bikes in the Workbikes shop

The Bakfiets looks pretty mundane surrounded by the various creations around it. I take a test ride which is a bit unnerving at first, mostly because of a close shave with a street cleaning truck. It appears Amsterdam drivers are the same around cyclists as others elsewhere in the world, judging by the amount of near-misses I have. I manage to find time for some pictures though, including the mandatory boat-and-canal shot:

The mandatory 'canal and boat' picture

We’re just about to set off to see Amsterdam when the rain starts again. It’s even harder than last time and after about twenty seconds we’re as wet as if we ‘d gone for a swim in the Canal. There’s no way we’re going to get to all he tourist spots in this weather, but I make a quick personal pilgrimage to ‘De Waage’, for reasons I’ll explain another time.

De Waage, the place that shouldn't be.

After an interesting if unintentional detour around the suburbs of Amsterdam we reach the Rhine-Amsterdam canal by accident. We’ve dried off nicely by now, and as we begin to follow it south, we immediately run into more foul weather including what feel like hailstones. We ordered the Bakfiets with a raincover, the better for keeping the boys dry on the way to Kindergarten, etc, so everything in the bike is kept dry, but the cover itself seems to think it’s a sail. The bike keeps drifting towards the left, and Every now and again a bigger gust of wind comes along in a spirited attempt to blow me into the canal. Several times it’s so extreme I lose control and have to jump off the bike and the bike and put the stand down. I’m so slow, I’m getting overtaken by canal boats, which is embarrassing.

Getting overtaken by a ship

This is prbably the worst day to try and ride a Bakfiets across country, and by lunchtime we’ve barely made 30 km and I’m full of doubts: Can we make it home? If so, what then? Can my wife handle this heavy bike? What about the traffic and hills which are in abundance in Stuttgart?

The city of Utrecht offers relief from the wind, and lots of people are remarkably willing to stop and help three soggy english speakers out. One friendly commuter tells us he’s headed the same way and with a brisk “Follow Me” he shoots off into the swarms of cyclists with us following as best we can, over level crossings, through intersections, and down cycle lanes we probably wouldn’t have found ourselves, and wouldn’t have had the courage to trust if we had. On the other side of the city he points at a road with absolute authority, tells us “That’s the quickest way to Wijk bij Durstede…” then vanishes home before we can ask who he was. I wish we had found his name, if only to say thank you: I think we’d still be going around the city now if it wasn’t for him.

We take a short break to eat sandwiches in a doorway while another storm rolls past. We reckon we are about 20 km from Wijk, where there is a campsite for the night, if we can find it. The screaming rain eventually abates to a grumpy drizzle, and we follow bike lanes all the way to Wijk, which we chose because it is built on the junction between the Rhine-Amsterdam canal and the northern Rhine river itself, the route which we’ll follow most of the way into Germany.

Having found Wijk, we have to find the campsite. Fortunately the pedestrians of Wijk are as kind as those of Utrecht, and we have no shortage of help. Eventually we find a narrow lane running through the fields which we are assured is the way to our campsite, and sure enough after some nervous riding in the gathering darkness we find a sign, and then a friendly farmer who not only shows us a place to pitch the tent but also a ranschackle but waterproof shed to store the bikes in. We’ve had three soakings already today, and the wind is trying to carry the tent into the next field, we squeeze ourselves, the bikes and the tent into the shed for the night.

Campsite at last...

It’s about 10:00 by the time we are ready to crawl inside the tent. We’ve covered 77,74km in five and a half frustrating hours. Go to sleep wondering if this was such a good idea.

Abendessen with Bakfiets

Evening meal in a village north of Düsseldorf.

I’m writing this on a village green north of Düsseldorf, while we have dinner and wonder where we’re going to stay tonight. so far the Bakfiets has held up to the ride pretty well, although 16km/h headwinds through the Netherlands didn’t help, and we’re a bit behind schedule. The plan was to stay in the cmpsite just south of the city but as we’re north and it’s 19:03, I’m not sure it’s going to happen- probably we’ll end up camping wild somewhere.