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Published: July 25th 2023
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Prologue:
Forecast: 19C with showers from 8am until 12pm with local thunderstorms
Destination: Koblenz
Distance: 36kms
Leave from Hotel at approx: 9am
Approx arrival at Koblenz: 12pm (very conservative)
Scene 1 Act 1 - The Beginning
Since it's a short days ride and breakfast isn't served until 8am we take our time getting up and getting ready. Breakfast is OK without being grand but we did manage to grab a roll with meat and cheese to take with us for lunch.
Scene 2 Act 1 - The Departure
We load up the velos and head off in light drizzle which is likely to accompany us all day. First stop is the ferry to take us to the other side of the river, 1km down stream. Before we leave I decide to give my rear tyre a bit more air.
Scene 3 Act 1 - The Ferry
The ferry arrives and we get straight on. I've noticed my back tyre starting to get soft. On the east side of the river we hop off the ferry and pump up my rear tyre and all seems good. We ride off for 100m and
my tyre is flat!!! Not sure how that happened. Somehow the tube is punctured in 3 places, so we're starting to think it might be a tyre problem rather than the tube. Luckily we have a spare folding tyre which I use to replace my back tyre. It's now 10:45am and we've gone 1.2kms.
Scene 1 Act 2: Koblenz Bound
We're back on the bikes and starting the days ride, luckily we only have 36kms to go today. We try to keep to river as much as possible but just up ahead is a gorge that will force us away from the river.
Scene 2 Act 2: The Separation
Google Maps says leave the river and follow the road. Google Jeff says I want to ride on the gravel track, Google Mark says I'm not riding gravel. Google Jeff and Google Mark decide to ride each to their own and meet up in Koblenz.
Scene 3 Act 2: Google Jeff
Jeff rides the gravel track which becomes quite precarious, it's a steep drop off on a very narrow track. Google Jeff decides the road is the best option after about 3 or 4 kms.
Scene 4 Act 2: Google Mark
I ride the road into the gorge, but keeps seeing tracks lead off to the river. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I head back to the river path. It starts off sealed, then good quality compacted earth, then tyre tracks then overgrown single track, then nothing! I have to back track to the road and decide Google Maps must know what it's talking about.
Scene 1 Act 3: Re-unification
On the other side of the gorge I'm back on the path by the river (and it's all sealed again). Up ahead are a group of cyclists. It's two Dutch cyclists Karina and Ad, and Jeff! Not sure how he got in front of me but he stopped Karina and Ad to talk about the bike trailer Ad was towing. 40 minutes later, they said they had to get going. Jeff would have talked forever.
Scene 1 Act 4: Mosel meets the Rhine
The ride into Koblenz is mainly uneventful from this point, other than the beautiful scenery that accompanies us. As we approach the city of Koblenz the Mosel river meets the Rhine and the two big rivers
merge to one and continue to flow down stream. We eventually get to our hotel at around 2pm and snuck our bikes into our room while no-one was looking.
Scene 1 Act 5: Dinner
We found a nice Italian restaurant close to the hotel we could walk to. The atmosphere was good and it was still warm enough to eat outside. Pasta for dinner, not German, but still very nice.
Epilogue:
It had stopped raining by the time we changed my tyre and it didn't rain again.
Distance travelled was 41kms
Arrival time was 2pm
Tomorrow's destination is Bingem 65kms.
Distance travelled so far 1385kms.
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