October 10, 2022
By train to Flensburg
Travelling by bike with a baby is challenging, but travelling by train with a baby, two fully loaded bikes, and a trailer?
This was always going to be a tough day, for we hoped to do just that and get all the way from Anrath on the Dutch border to Flensburg on the Danish border using a German regional train day pass. That meant we would need to get us and all our things on and off five different trains over the course of the day. Our first train was at 9:19 and if we made all our connections, many of which were very tight, we would be in Flensburg at 17:42. Each missed connection would cost us an hour. It was going to be a very, very long day.
It began with a short bike ride from our guesthouse, a stop at Aldi to resupply with food and then on to the platform at Anrath train station. Here we took the trailer off the bike and converted it into a pushchair by the addition of a small front wheel. That meant we had three big items to get on the train and only two of us, and as this was a small station the train probably wasn’t going to stop long. We made a plan - I would push one bike on, Dea would take her time about getting Kevin on in the trailer, and I would therefore have time to dash back out for the second bike.
The train approached and we pulled on our face masks. Oh yes, Covid is still a thing in Germany, so we wouldn’t just be spending most of our day on trains, we’d be spending most of our day on trains with FFP2 masks on. And yes, they do have to be this special kind of mask too. We were lucky that we knew about this well in advance, and that Holger and Sandra way back in Itzehoe had given us some of these masks when we’d talked about taking trains across Germany.
The train approached and I looked for a carriage with a bicycle sign on it, but it went quite far past us on the platform. I ran down to it with my bike, got it on board, then turned back onto the platform. Dea had pushed the trailer down the platform, left it, and was now going back for her bike. This wasn’t quite the plan. Now we were both on the platform and I was panicked that the train was about to leave us behind, my bike on board, especially as the doors were making the closing sound. I grabbed the trailer and headed for the doors, relieved that they opened, Dea came on behind me with her bike, and everything was somehow on the train as the doors closed and we pulled away. A very stressful moment indeed. And it really was just the beginning!
We had been advised to take regional trains because unlike the Intercity trains it was easy to roll bikes on and off and there was loads of space for them. The first bit was true, the second not so much. We actually had to have the trailer in the doorway the whole way. Luckily no officious inspectors came along during the 35 minute journey into Duisburg.
| Heart | 5 | Comment | 0 | Link |
At Duisburg we had our longest connection (and of course it would be the only one where we would be leaving from the same platform) so we could relax and sit down for half an hour. Actually it was a bit longer as our next train to Osnabruck was delayed, which was eating into the ten minute connection time we would have when we arrived in Osnabruck. But that wasn’t the most pressing concern, that was how to get onboard this train here in Duisburg quickly seeing as how it would be keen to get going and make up time.
I decided to attach the trailer to my bike so we would only have two things to worry about. It had been so easy to roll things on the last train after all and I was quite sure I could have got them on connected. The train arrived and we were right by one of the bike carriages this time, but oh no, there was a drop down from the platform into the train and then a tight corner into the carriage, impossible with a bike and trailer. Luckily I hadn’t fully locked the trailer on, so I could easily detach it, which I did. There was also a train employee in the door. She was shouting at me in German, which always sounds a bit intimidating, but she was actually very useful, helping Dea to get the trailer down as I squeezed past to get back out for the second bike. Stressful again, but we made it somehow, and there was at least more space for bikes on this train.
| Heart | 5 | Comment | 0 | Link |
| Heart | 6 | Comment | 0 | Link |
We spent most of the journey watching the display to see if we were making up the lost time. Our ten minute connection in Osnabruck was going to be a six minute connection, but we decided to try for it. We had to get everything over to another platform so in all likelihood we were going to be spending an hour at Osnabruck station, but we thought we might as well give it a try.
With so few other passengers we were able to get off the train relatively quickly and make our way over to the nearby elevators. Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones who wanted to use them. Dea’s bike isn’t so heavy, so I carried hers down the stairs instead. My fully loaded bike was just too heavy to lift though. We managed to get everything down to the tunnel in the end, and along to the next platform. We now had about a minute until our train was scheduled to leave but we kept trying. As Dea took Kevin and the trailer up in the elevator I carried her bike up the stairs. The train was right there, maybe it was still possible! I dashed back down the stairs ready to load my bike in the elevator, but an old couple were just stepping into it in front of me. That was it, it was 12.29, we had missed the train. I made one last attempt to lift my bike but I knew it was too heavy and too late anyway. I waited for the elevator to come back down, rolled my bike in, and headed up to find Dea. To my astonishment what I found was that our train was still here. Dea was by the doors and I ran over with the bike screaming “can we get on this train?!” There were a couple of guys on the doorway ready to help us. One of them helped Dea get the trailer on, I passed my bike to someone, turned around, got Dea’s bike, jumped on, and we had somehow just made it!
It took two hours to get from Osnabruck to Bremen but like all of these train rides the time passed quickly. We had to organise the bikes, take some bags off, strap them down, find somewhere to sit, change Kevin, feed Kevin, get Kevin to take a nap, feed ourselves, and by the time all that was done it was time to start thinking about the next connection.
In Bremen we had just seven minutes to work with. I decided to remove some of the weight from my bike - emptying water bottles and moving some stuff to the trailer and to a backpack that Dea could wear - so that I would be able to carry both of the bikes up and down stairs. This proved to be vital with such a short connection time and elevators that were quite popular at the busy station in Bremen. But we had this all figured out now, Dea just concentrated on getting the trailer through (explaining she had a connection to make helped get her ahead of the elevator queue) while I moved the bikes. And they had to go quite a long way between the platforms. I was absolutely sprinting, carrying one bike down the stairs, leaping back up three stairs at a time, carrying the next bike down, running through the crowded tunnel with that one, sprinting back to retrieve the first bike, taking that one up the stairs to the new platform, leaping down like a cat for the last bike, and just about staggering up the stairs one final time with it. It was my bike and it was still heavy and my legs got wobbly halfway up, but I couldn’t fail now! Adrenaline carried me through, and there was our train and we got everything on board and I felt great, standing there panting in my FFP2 mask, the whole carriage watching me and really they should have burst into a round of applause or something as the doors closed behind me and the train pulled away. I have run marathons, triathlons, once cycled around the world entirely by bicycle and boats, and yet I would rank this train connection as my greatest ever physical achievement. I felt on top of the world.
| Heart | 7 | Comment | 1 | Link |
We only had one connection left to make, in Hamburg, and we had 17 minutes. 17 minutes, what a luxury, how easy it seemed. But it was an extremely busy station and we seemed to have stopped about a mile from the elevators. It took such a long time to reach them, not helped of course by the fact that I had to keep leaving one bike and going back for the other one, leapfrogging ahead with Dea somewhere in the middle trying to keep an eye on both of them. We reached the elevators and used them for the bikes as well as the trailer this time because we had so much time to play with, after all. But we were further delayed when my chain came off and jammed in the derailleur as I reversed my bike out. Still there was no need for panic, we had time. We made our way down the elevators to the next platform and to our waiting train, due to leave in about three minutes. A bike carriage was in front of us but it was packed full. There was no space for us! A one hour delay wasn’t the end of the world, but I didn’t give up on this train yet. I pushed one of the bikes along all the way to the front of the train where there was another bike carriage. “There’s space!” I yelled, leaving the bike and sprinting back for the other one as Dea made her way over. I grabbed the second bike and ran back, got it on board, got the trailer on, got the second bike on, the doors closed, the train pulled away, and we had made it, three connections in a row with seconds to spare!
Incidentally, you may be wondering why Kevin has hardly got a mention during all the chaos of this day. Well the reason is that he was a perfect little travelling companion the whole day. Never complained once about going in the trailer, out of the trailer, nothing. He just went along with everything looking like he was having the time of his life. What an amazing boy he is!
| Heart | 6 | Comment | 0 | Link |
We began to pass places that we had cycled through early on in our trip. We crossed a bridge over the canal in Rendsburg, the town in which we had stayed with Bodo on Day 7. We even whizzed along next to a bike path that we had cycled on earlier on that same day. What a journey it had been in the eight weeks that had passed since. So much had happened, it felt like so much longer ago.
| Heart | 4 | Comment | 0 | Link |
| Heart | 4 | Comment | 0 | Link |
What a relief it was to get everything off the train in Flensburg! We had actually pulled this day off! Another thing we were pulling off were our FFP2 masks, and with great relief about that too. It was such a good feeling to have succeeded in making all our connections and to be here in Flensburg, close to the border. In the morning we would board our final train here, a Danish train, to take us home. But now we needed to get to our warmshowers host, which would involve a three kilometre cycle across town. It was noticeably colder here, it seemed to be getting darker earlier, and to top it off it was raining. But after the day we had just had, a few minutes of cycling in the rain was no obstacle.
We arrived at our host, Gunnar’s house and rang the bell. There was no answer. We tried again. Nothing. Dea checked her phone. He had gone to the post office. Well never mind, we would just have to stand in the rain and wait for him to come back. As Gunnar would apologetically explain when he did arrive, “I didn’t think you were really going to make it on time.” I don’t think any of us did, Gunnar, I don’t think any of us did.
Today's ride: 5 km (3 miles)
Total: 1,271 km (789 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 8 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 2 |
I went back and looked at the photos from when you first took off in August. He’s grown and changed so much. Babies … they do that.
Congrats on completing this marathon.
2 years ago