Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Category: travel blog

Maximiliansau to Oppenheim

The Vater Hotel managed to screw up the internet connection on my Eee, by making the default gateway on the Eee their own server 🙁  so after staying there I was unable to access the internet! coupled with T-mobile not allowing me to use their Euro Internet Booster package on my iPhone which is on their fixed contract (I know its crazy the booster works fine on Pay as you go). This with the lack of open WiFi throughout Germany, meant I couldn’t sort out the Eee until I had a working internet connection on another machine. Once home I found the solution on this post on the eHow website!

Today once I got going was a long one at 91.9miles but quite fast at 11.2mph on good tarmacced paths. I found it interesting biking alongside the Mercedes plants, BASF and other large chemical works. The Technical museum in Speyer looked pretty amazing as well! At Mannheim they were building an enormous new coal fired power station so I guess the Rhine will be full of coal barges for some time yet (I spent a bit of time thinking about the sense of transporting coal rather than electricity and which incurred the biggest energy losses per mile). The signage was much improved, although it was hard getting through Ludwigshafan due to the various detours.

My nights stop at The Hotel  Oppenheim was truly excellent. The owner plied me with free beer on my arrival! and the omelet with chips was only 6euro 🙂 plus there is an ice cream parlour just down the road!

Here’s the day on Everytrail:-
Maximilansau to Oppenheim at EveryTrail

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Ottenheim-Schwanau to Maximillansau

A day in the blazing heat riding along the exposed top of the dam that holds The Rhine into a navigable river, its all very reminiscent of fenland rivers, alongside the main river are poulders which  are flooded when the water flow is to high for the river.

The German’s struggle with the signing so that in the main centres like Kehl (Strasbourg) you get a proliferation of contradicting signs! I also love the sign covered in German & French text that forbids entry but fails to give you any information as to where the route has been diverted too! These guys need lessons in the use of simple signage like the Swiss and French GR5.

I drank about 10 litres of water/beer/apple juice yesterday but still felt dehydrated with an headache. Hopefully, today will be overcast 🙂

Oh yes why do German hotels only have wired internet 🙁 and all WiFi is locked down?  and why can’t T-Mobile sort out my internet – instead of sending me messages that an error occurred and try again 🙁 To me its pretty obvious the glorious days of open internet have gone for ever..

Here’s my route yesterday:-

Ottenheim-Schwanau to Karlsruhe at EveryTrail

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Basel to Ottenheim-Schwanau

My first day without having to engage the lowest set of gears 🙂 Pretty well flat and alongside the river most of the day. The first part was wandering through the container port and industrial area of Basel. Then I entered Germany which was rural apart from the huge aggregate workings. Stopped for a supermarket lunch in Breisach, noted in modern history for where the first meetings of what became the EU in 1950!

After lunch I had to turn away from the river and ended up in Rust which has an enormous Disney / Alton Tower type theme park. I then made a total hash of getting back onto the river – best not to look to closely at the gpx trail 🙁 The German waymarking is not a patch on the Switz!

After 79.8 miles and over 7 hours of cycling with an average spped of  11mph, I ended up in Ottenheim at the delightful Hotel Gasthof Erbprinzen above Toni’s pizzeria ( 21 Euro for two beers, water, salad, pizza, ice cream & coffee). I asked the landlady if she had internet – she presented me with a shoebox!!

Here’s the route and pics.
Basel to Ottenheim-Schwanau at EveryTrail

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Sorry, Sally, I’m doing these posts direct from the WP control panel

Ellikon to Basel Day 4 of The Rhine bike ride

>Today’s 73miles in 7hours brings me to the end of the first Rhein Radweg book, only another two to go! From now on the Rhine runs pretty well due North rather than going in the mega loop I’ve just done plus the terrain is a lot flatter, I hope! especially after todays climb into Teufen.

Another hot day only partly alleviated by a little swim in The Rhine and copious, but expensive cold sparkling waters! The water mark up is horrendous less than 1F in the supermarket anything up to 8F in a cafe 🙁

Tomorrow I’m going to use the right bank rather than the left I’ve been using the last day or so (The handedness is taken looking downstream) as it seems to keep the waters edge better.

I’ve been eyeing up the ginormous barges which have now appeared in the river – maybe I will take a rest day on one 🙂 🙂

The bike is holding up well although it took an almighty bang when I failed to notice that  the bridge had a step getting onto it! plus the saddle is now loose due to the vibration of all the off road riding I’ve been doing.

We are getting heavy thundery showers right now so hopefully tomorrow will be cooler. I’m going to celebrate by staying for the 7am breakfast rather than setting of at 6am

Here’s today trail:-
Ellikon to Basel at EveryTrail

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