September 12, 2012
Past Mainz: It cant always be easy
It was still overcast when we left our excellent overnight accommodation, turned left at the red church and were back on track in the land of castles. You do get a little blasé after a while, it is amazing just how many there are. Next came Bingen which Ken was interested in because in the 11th century an Abbess by the name of Hildeguard lived here writing music and poetry. Her abbey proved too difficult for us to visit and we just looked at it from below, bought some necessary supplies and looked for a bike shop (closed on Wednesdays!)
After Bingen the Rhine was a real surprise to us as we were out of the gorge and out of castles. We rode through agricultural land again with lots of vineyards on the much more gentle slopes and on the valley bottom orchards, largely apple and it looked as if picking had started fairly recently. It was getting colder and there were some very black clouds but we were lucky as somewhat to our surprise we were not rained on. The entrance into Mainz is through a mass of industry but all perfectly safe along cycle tracks. When we did eventually get to Mainz, with the weather as it was, it did not look particularly appealing so we decided to press on to the next small town, not good decision making.
We went way off route but then to our great surprise came to a town we had been expecting. No hotels. Back we went and wondered why the radweg had not just become unpaved but there were also no other tire marks, after a few km it stopped altogether. Oh dear we had to retrace our steps. The next town was only about 6 or so kms away so off we went the only problem being that Ken’s brakes, which had been grabbing, were getting progressively worse so he had to even pedal hard going down hill – it did make me look like a super cyclist though. We came to Nierstein and eagerly went into the first place offering rooms. It is slightly weird above a Turkish Restaurant, there was a Romanian guy though who spoke English and the good thing is that he was able to find a bike shop for us and now Ken will be able to ride much faster than me again
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Today's ride: 83 km (52 miles)
Total: 2,414 km (1,499 miles)
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