I'm a Tri-er

July 26, 2018

Day 12: Kappel - Trier. Rivers followed: Mosel

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Despite my unofficial location, I slept like the dead. I was awake very early, weirdly still able to hear the ghostly sound of drum 'n bass periodically drifting over in the wind. Who was having a jungle party at 5am in the middle of the woods?

Anyway, it was soon light so I got myself up and took down the tent, as it was a beautiful morning and I suspected dog walkers and bike riders would soon be coming through the woods. I had a breakfast of coffee and the croissant's I'd got at the bakery on the Rhine and considered my situation.

Despite me beating myself up about my exhaustion the previous day, I'd actually made really good progress - I had done over 100km, broken the 1000km mark for the tour as a whole, and was within striking distance of the Mosel this morning. I'd apparently climbed over 1000m the previous day and without it really taking it out of me. It was Thursday today, and if I could get to Trier by the end of the day, I would have a good buffer of time to find my way to the coast to catch my ferry on Sunday.

I decided to abandon the route to Zell - it was hardly easy going, and brought me much further north on the Mosel than I wanted to go (which would mean cycling around some huge meanders). Instead, I could cut off two long loops - 40-50km worth - by heading South-West, rejoining the Hunsrück route, past the (strangely situated) Frankfurt Hahn airport and descend to the Mosel near Morbach. Some back roads near the archeology park and emerging at Mülheim on the Mosel looked promising. From there it would be a long, flat and picturesque ride around the bends of the river to take me to Trier. I reckoned on it being at least 110km, but on this bright morning thought I had it in me - especially as this would make it the last "hard" day of the tour.

I set off, and quietly made my way to the village of Kappel. Up on the hills is was brilliant sunlight, but a thick mist persisted down in the valleys - the wind turbines sprouted from this mist like Dali-esque windmills, making it look quite otherworldly in a way the photographs don't quite do justice to.

In Kappel I hoped to find a, well, chapel where I could refill my water (most of which I had used for cooking overnight). There was not one, but the village hall did have a tap tucked away in the corner. There was no-one about in the village as I refilled my bottles.

I followed well-signed but rough tracks - though much better surfaced than yesterday - through field and wood, stringing together the villages of Rödelhausen, Belg and Würrich. Whenever I descended, I would pass through patches of dense mist which would cover my panniers and clothing with fine droplets. Crossing large fields, I couldn't see more than 20m or so ahead, and actually turned on my lights so I could be a bit better seen. Then I would climb a few meters, and emerge back into brilliant sunshine and blue skies.

Leaving the forest near Kappel. It was a lovely day.

The valleys retaining thick mist long into the morning. This really was an other-worldly sight to see on emerging from the woods, and the photos don't really do it justice.

A little descent and I was deep in the thick mist. I became quite soaked by it and had to turn my lights on

After Würrich, the bike route lead to towards the airport. It seems Frankfurt Hahn is very much an analogue of London Luton, being much closer to Mainz, Koblenz and Trier than it is to Frankfurt. The route - now officially the Hunsrück Radweg - actually goes right past the front entrance, though not before taking me down a long road fringed with hangers where I seriously wondered if I'd wandered onto the airfield.

I left Hahn behind, and passed swiftly through the odd little village of Lautzenhausen, which seems to consist entirely of facilities for travellers from the airport. My plan was to keep following the Hunsrück way all the way to the vicinity of Wederath - but as was somewhat typical of the routes around here, it was rather difficult to follow. After the village of Horbruch I managed to completely lose the path in some woods, descend quite a hill I didn't need to, and ended up with a surprisingly steep little climb (the trace reckons on about 7%) to get back to the village of Hochscheid.

All these were sleepy places and I passed through quickly, figuring that I could get supplies once down by the Mosel. After Hochsheid, I knew I had a little bit of challenging navigation: the trail would lead me into sme woods, where I needed to follow a rail line and then take a sudden left to cross. I wasn't by any means certain this would be clear, but on spotting the rail line, following it (for far longer than seemed right), I saw an obvious crossing point and cut up towards the road. According to the map, the trail would continue to the North through Wederath, but there was zero evidence of such a track through the field of stubble that greeted me. Instead I decided to follow a rough track parallel to the road and head for the Belginum archeological park.

These weird figures greeted me as I emerged from the woods following a tricky bit of navigation

A lovely vista where I saw down into the valley of the Mosel for the first time: you can see it filled with mist

I had a moment of wonderful cackhandedness as I reached the archeological park. A large family were obviously setting out on a walk across the fields from the park, and it was a bit of a squeeze passing them, with lots of polite giving way on both sides. Five minutes after I passed, I looked down at my bar-bag and realised my map had dropped out. At this stage, losing the map would have been seriously inconvenient, and I wondered where I'd dropped it. I wasn't going to go back to Hahn looking for it, but I was certainly going to look back over the wheat field. So I had to turn around and pass the family again. A few hundred meters on, relief: there it was! But of course I then had to turn around and pass them (big family small kids, narrow path, fully loaded bike) a third time. They were remarkably tolerant of intrusion.

After the archeological park, I wanted to keep heading West, where the map insisted there was a way to cut across the top of the hill and so avoid the major roads heading down to the valley. There was a large roundabout, but after I picked the B50/E42 and rather carefully wheeled my bike along it, there was a clear track heading through the woods to the West. This turned out to be a wide, gravel-surfaced and straight Roman road which climbed steadily up to the 600m of Haardtkopf. It was some effort pulling up the grades, but after my series of dodgy surfaces this was perfection.

I was sorry to emerge back onto the tarmac, to cross the over main 269 road near Gonzerath. I immediately picked up signs to Gornhausen and the Roman villa - which was exactly where I wanted to go to get to Mülheim on the Mosel. The road was actually quite broad and had some traffic, including a peleton of road cyclists who overtook my slow self as I pulled up this last hill before the descent.

The wonderful roman road which I discovered coming from the archeological park

It was a bit of a pull to the top: I now realise that there were grades up to 9% along the way, so it's not too surprising - and it seemed to take a long time to see the crest and descent.

When it came, though, the descent was long and steep. Apparently 11% downhill in places, my immediate concern was of the integrity of my wheel, so I kept the speed down and just enjoyed the long cruise. The landscape changed in a blink of an eye, almost in the reverse order to what you would normally expect. On top of the plateau were big, open fields of wheat; as I descended the road went through tighter and tighter switchbacks through dense woodland. Quickly I was flying down the main street of the village of Veldenz, which looked like one of the little Alpine settlements I'd come across in the middle of the Black Forest. The main street was so steep I had some trouble coming to a stop when I saw a bakery (sadly it turned out to be closed).

Looking down from the top of the plateau before the descent to the Mosel

And suddenly I was in the bustling town of Mülheim, and surrounded by bike tourists. I was rather grimy and dishevelled, and felt a little out of place, but stopped at the first cafe I saw, which turned out to be a pizza restaurant as well. It was still quite early in the day, but I wasn't going to wait: I'd been denied a sit-down meal the last night, and went in and ordered a large pizza. I ate it sitting on the terrace, where the same road cyclists who'd passed me earlier were drinking coffee.

I had made it to the Mosel - it felt like the hard part of the day was over. I just had to follow the river now - and this was very much back on the tourist trail, specifically the cycle tourists trail. As I set off down the perfectly maintained and easy to follow route through the beautiful, vine covered valley, I was astonished by the number of touring cyclists. OK, a lot of them seemed rather inexperienced, and there were a lot of e-bikes - but nearly all of them were carrying significant loads of gear. Every village I passed had signs specifically advertising camping or guesthouses for cyclists - as well as innumerable wine tastings.

The sky was cloudless, and my way was clear: I just had to make it to Trier. I had real tunnel vision on completing that part of the ride - even though the cycle signs made it clear that it was at least 60km further. I was amazed how much distance the meanders of the river added. I was reassured that I'd made the right decision not to cut down at Zell, though, when I saw that it was at least another 50km downstream - the trip from Zell to Trier would have been at least 110km, so even if I had made the supreme effort of getting myself to Zell the previous night, it wouldn't have reasonably cut down the ride today. It seemed strange that heading over the hills past Hahn airport was a shortcut, but compared to the rivers meanders which loop repeatedly through 180 degrees, it was!

I set off with pace. It was very hot again, and there was no cover, but I seemed to have hardened myself to this, and took some satisfaction at blowing past quite a few of the day-trippers (not that I was going very fast). I think it might have been the one occasion where I could race past someone on an e-bike and stay ahead. I sped through the village of Wintrich and Neumagen-Dhron - fortunately the distribution of cyclists thinned out a bit once I was clear of the settlements - I covered the 20km in 45 minutes, and really felt this was the last big push of the tour.

The busy Mosel cycleway near Mülheim was packed with touring cyclists

Fortunately things soon thinned out once I got beyond the settlements. The scenery was spectacular - unfortunately I was so fixated on my goal of Trier, this is the only photo I took

I passed up and down the bends of the river, generally right by the water, but sometimes climbing up the steep banks on either side. I was parched now, and stopped for water at a graveyard usefully placed by the route. By the 40th kilometre I had to stop and recover, and sat in the shade. It was now part 3pm, and I forced myself to press on.

When I reached Schweich, past the 100km mark and with 20km to go until Trier, I passed an attractive beer garden by the river and stopped and had a beer. It was a lovely spot, but it hit me like a tonne of bricks. When I continued, the going was slow, and the heat from the day wasn't easing off. I crossed the Mosel, and the next 15km was through increasingly industrial docklands, baking under the heat. I forced myself to continue, but my initial fleet speed was reduced to toiling along at 10kph, stopping every kilometre or so for a rest.

At long, long last Trier - a compact little city - swung into view around a bend in the river. I knew the campsite was on the West side, so I continued along the river for another 5km, past the bulk of the town. I clocked a couple of cheap-looking hotels - not sure if that was a good thing, but I was completely done for the day, and if the campsite didn't exist or had no room for me there was no way I was going to head back into the weeds to wild camp.

Eventually, when it seemed I had left the town behind me, there was a tarmac ramp that lead into Trier camping. This was a really slick operation: there was a reception with three manned booths, and everything was on a conveyor. It was around 6.30pm, and I was nervous about getting a space. But it was no problem: I got a long spiel about the complicated credit system for the showers, and a very serious warning about larcenous foxes: "do not leave any shoes about - there are foxes, and they love shoes, so you will lose them" - which I'm afraid in my worn-out state made me burst into laughter. The information pamphlet had a photo of just such a fox making off with someone's flip-flops.

In all I had 125km on the clock - the longest day of the tour so far. I fairly staggered down to the tent section, and making sure I was away from the lights, slowly set up. As seems to be inevitable, a family on tandems rolled up - their children were not so quiet, so I was relieved when they did not set up next to me.

I figured out the curious shower system, then figured I would head to the compact little restaurant that was next to the campsite - I had no need to go any further. No - closed on Thursdays! I did not have much luck with picking the one day a week these things would close.

So I wondered up from the river to the main road. It turned out the campsite was in the seediest part of Trier: there was not one but two massive strip-clubs right behind. Beyond this was a fair wasteland of train tracks and warehouses. Having some trouble walking, and cursing the town, I just kept walking. It took me almost 40 minutes to reach the town - though I was relieved to see that at 8.30pm the restaurants with terraces overlooking the Mosel were still serving. I thankfully flopped down in one, and ordered a lot of food from the very reasonable menu.

After I finished my meal, I got chatting with a Russian girl who turned out to be in Trier to perform an organ recital at the cathedral. In my exhausted state I felt as if I had entered some Nabokov or Checkhov short story: Ekaterina was a professional cantor who had been a student in St. Petersburg and Tallinn, and spoke Russian, German, Estonian (and fortunately for me) English.

I had a long walk back to the campsite, through slightly sketchy darkened parks, but made it back without mishap - exhausted but sure I was near the end of the tour.

Today's ride: 125 km (78 miles)
Total: 1,162 km (722 miles)

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