September 30, 2018 Strasbourg to Mulhouse

Today was an absolutely stunning day of riding.  Most of it was down tree lined canal paths, some of it down country lanes and some of it down busier roads which had a segregated bike lane beside the road.

The day started with Agnes and I walking over and getting the van from the parking area and driving over to the other apartment.  There we loaded Earnie, Betsy, and Juerg’s luggage.  Off to our apartment where we loaded Ken and Sally’ and Agnes and my luggage.  The whole effort went really smoothly as being a Sunday morning there was almost no traffic on the narrow streets.  Even so from the time Agnes and I left to go get the van until I pushed off it was 75 minutes. 

The four riders started off together but Juerg got out in front as Ken and I were stopping to help Earnie work with his Garmin.  I don’t understand why he has so many problems with it.  Notwithstanding that they are less than intuitive and seem to be very temperamental beasts.  We made a few setting changes and hopefully this will help Earnie work with it.  I also wanted to make sure that Earnie got out of Strasbourg as smoothly as possible as there were a lot of tricky turns. 

By the time we were about 15 kms into the ride we were well into the country and Ken and I dropped Earnie off the back.  From there on it was pretty straight forward just follow the canal.  Or at least that was the way it was for the first 50 kms.  From there we wandered down some country lanes and down a few bike paths.  The sun was out and by 11:00 AM Ken and I stopped to pull off the last of the arm and leg warmers. 

We knew it was going to be hard to find something to eat so we started looking for somewhere to grab some food around 11:30 AM but all the towns seemed closed up.  By 1:00 Pm I was wondering if we would find anything as every shop was closed.  We finally rode through a slightly larger town which was having some sort to agricultural fair.  Not a farmers market but a fair showing off new tractors, feritlizer things and the like.  The food places said we were too late for lunch but we found a concession booth which had ice cream cones.  Ok a triple scoop ice cream for lunch.  I guess it would have to do. 

Ken and I had been trading off pulling most of the day and by now the wind had come up and was straight into our faces again.  However now it is stronger than ever and it is Kens turn.  We make a turn onto a busier road which has no bike lane and no shoulder. It is lined with trees on both sides and absolutely straight for about 8 kms.  The wind is just funnelled straight down the road.  I was right on Ken’s wheel.  He was going too fast for me to do anything but hang on.  When we got to the far end of the straight stretch Ken we needed to make a turn onto a bike path. Ken was out of breath.  I said it then and will say it again. “Great Pull Ken”  

There were a bunch of twists and turns getting into Mulhouse down some bike lanes, across some crazy intersections and narrow streets.  I recognized most of the turns from putting the little Google man down when I was designing the course. 

Garmin says we did 175 meters of climbing and 116 kms of riding.  What a fun day of riding down some of the nicest bike trails I have ever been on.

Terry hot biker