Day 14: Swimming Along the River Saar

July 27, 2024

Kaiserslautern, DE to Saarlouis, DE

So I did wake up early and have a very nice hotel breakfast. Feeling well fed and well rested, ready to face the rainy day, to my surprise it was already raining when I rolled out at 0800. And it pretty much rained all 100km of today. Dang!

Given again I have a flight to catch and I’d rather spend full rest days in somewhere I specifically want to see (like Strasbourg) I decided to say goodbye to Kaiserslautern and soldier through the day.

I spent plenty of time comfily watching the rain from bus stops when it got too heavy.

There was also more sidewalk riding than I’m proud of but it seemed like the safest option even with my orange vest and lights. Some of the roads were just to sketchy with that much rain. Other cyclists were doing the same so I didn’t feel too bad.

My destination was in the province Saarland, so I’d be hitting the river Saar again after several climbs.

Unfortunately as my phone was in a stuff sack for most of the day I don’t have a lot of pictures until later more drizzly parts but here’s what I got.

In Germany, McDonalds is both a gym and a fast food restaurant, they get you from both sides

River Saar. Rivers mean flat! Back to that for a bit.

It’s always nice when your goal town starts to come into view on the local bike signage.

Remembering how good I felt after real food yesterday I stopped at a bakery for lunch, having a sandwich and a coffee (treat yourself on a rainy day) and grabbing a jelly donut for the road when the rain sets in again as a pick me up.

The city of Saarbrücken was a neat one to pass through. It had a unique vibe to it and the bicycle paths along the Saar were quite pleasant.

My target campsite was chosen in Saarland and I had 100km to cover. This is far from my longest day on this trip but because I was originally targeting reaching camp “before” the rain my mindset was anyways on getting it done as soon as I could so I could relax a bit at the campsite.

Finally 5km from the final Saarlouis stop was a disappointing blockage with no explanation. The rain of course picked up again right then - jelly donut in hand I had it under an ugly overpass and then found a detour and got it over with.

The campsite was a nice one - there was actually a structure I could put my tent under but I didn’t realize because of some confusion. However to practice my rain skills I put up just the tent and rainfly as quick as possible and omitted the sleep pad and hammock for now. It was only about 1600 there were 4-5 hours left of light.

The idea was to prove to myself I was doing everything right and let just the tent get wet if anything instead of my sleep system. The sleep pad is whatever if it gets wet (although its packaging is starting to fail a bit) but my down hammock would be annoying (and expensive) to replace just because I did something dumb.

Then I headed off for some other chores like washing up and eating dinner - a couple tortillas from my bag and some chocolate and nuts. Oops on real food I got bored again. Next trip I’m gonna bring my cooking system, I just figured I’d eat a lot of food at restaurants this trip. Lessons learned!

I met a Dutch family who told me I could set my tent up under the structure like them - but I had already set up so may as well see what happens. They were a kind family and turns out they were also riding the Rhine with three young kids in tow.

As is generally the case on this trip they pegged me as American as soon as I spoke (shrug) and were curious if I came to Europe to cycle because of lacking infrastructure in America. Honestly I think the cycling infrastructure in the states is not so bad - it’s pretty good. It’s generally better in cities but not as good between towns like in Europe. I feel that’s to be expected given how much bigger the states are though. I would still consider long tours in the US without too much concern.

Anyways my tent set up went swimmingly. As taught, my rain fly was super taut and not touching the tent. There was one very minor leak I found later that night where some water got through a seam. I hear there’s some seam saver thing I can look into when I get back home but generally I slept quite dry and happily.

Also - for my future self you have to properly fix the bar tape. It started coming undone but as it was raining and you were missing electrical tape you duct taped. It should be pretty obvious to your future self that this is the wrong way to do this long term.

Thanks for reading.

Today's ride: 100 km (62 miles)
Total: 1,105 km (686 miles)

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