Day 8 - All downhill from here

Eltmann - Muhlhausen (using bikroutetoaster.com)

I had been sleeping really well since starting the journey but having very vivid dreams. They never made any sense, but usually seemed to have some vague connection with the sights and sounds of the previous day. As someone who hardly ever remembers dreams, I found it very surprising.

As was becoming usual I woke up looking a complete mess, with swollen eyes from the hayfever reaction. Eyedrops and a wash usually made me look a little more presentable but I still wondered if I really looked like somebody who could actually cycle another 500 miles.

A good breakfast in the pension and then off along the next stretch of the Main Radweg. It was a beautiful morning and I made good time, averaging over 12 mph along the riverbank.

Lock on the River Main

There were noticeably more cyclists onto now. Most of them were riding sophisticated looking bikes with butterfly handlebars, which seemed to be a German preference. They all had these clever pannier systems and looked very smartly dressed. I felt like some scruffy intruder in my increasingly worn shorts and again somewhat smelly cycling top. Bitterly I reflected that if they had been cycling where I had been cycling they would not look so smart, either. So there.

After an hour or so I arrived in Bamberg. This is a beautiful old town at the point where the River Main and the canal join.

Bamberg

 I reflected that as I had done absolutely no research about where I was going I had no expectations about anything that I saw. Finding a lovely place like Bamberg was such a delight, with its old town straddling several islands in the river, all connected by different bridges.

This time the tourist information office was very helpful and they explained to me how to find the Main-Donau Canal towards Nuremberg. I took time to push my bike through the pedestrianised centre of town where there was a large and bustling street market, with everyone selling asparagus and strawberries. I wondered if I would arrive in Budapest in time to catch its own strawberry season?

The canal towpath out of Bamberg started off as tarmac, but after a few miles gave way to good-quality gravel. However, the surface then deteriorated and I decided to follow the main road that runs parallel to the canal for a little while. This gave me the chance to buy some lunch in a Lidl, and as I set off again heading south I realise that the wind had shifted a little and that the easterly that had been pushing against me all week was now coming more from the north and that I now had a good tailwind. I sped along the road at over 15 mph.

At Forchheim I rejoined the canal and found that there was a good-quality gravel surface. With that and the tailwind I was able to speed along again and maintained a good 13-15 mph for the next hour or so until I stopped for lunch at one of the massive lock gates on the canal. Sitting there with my bread, hummus, tomato, bread and chocolate in the sunshine with a flat canal towpath ahead of me I felt pretty good again.

All through the afternoon I battered on down the canal apart from a brief detour around commercial premises at Erlangen. Nuremberg was next, and I passed its distinctive pylon as the canal took me through the outskirts of the city. I was rather worried about whether or not my tyres would cope with the gravel surface, and initially feared for punctures, but nothing happened and I just kept on going.

Barge heading down the Main-Donau Canal

It started to become somewhat hypnotic. The canal was built in a series of largely straight lines with gentle curves, and I focused constantly on the narrow line of smooth surface on the path that lay between the loose gravel. For hours all I was conscious of was the crackle of the tyres on the stones, the occasional "zit!" as a small stone shot up through the gap between the tire and the mudguard and the occasional twang as a stone hit one of the high tension spokes. The routine only changed when I came to one of the enormous locks that lifted the canal ever higher up towards the watershed.

The feeling of hypnotism was magnified by the physical isolation of the canal. Occasionally I could see villages in the distance, but essentially I was travelling through empty countryside, surrounded by forests and big fields of green wheat. Occasionally a recreational cyclist would pass my way, but I did not see a single pannier-laden tourer.

At one point I could see in the very far distance a point of light, apparently moving towards me. After some minutes I realised it was another cyclist with a powerful front light and eventually we crossed. It reminded me of be seen in one of my favourite films, "Lawrence of Arabia", where Lawrence, sitting at a water hole, sees Omar Sharif appearing out of the desert haze, slowly getting bigger and bigger.

After some hours of this I realised that both the bicycle and myself were covered with a fine white dust, and again my thoughts drifted to Lawrence of Arabia. I imagined that after more hours of this that I would suddenly emerge on the Danube, and as in the film, a ship's funnel would suddenly appear above the embankment. But that would only happen when I reached the Danube, and I realised that by six o'clock I was becoming very tired and that I would need to stop for the night. Where roads crossed the canal the local villages had erected noticeboards advertising accommodation and at one of these I rang the Brunnerwirt Gasthof in Muhlhausen. They had a room available and I cycled the last few miles to get there.

I unloaded the bike and put it away in their lock-up garage and threw everything on the floor in my room. My evening routine, when finishing the ride for the day, was to lie on my back and pull my knees up towards my stomach, staying there reflecting on the magical stillness of that moment. After the non-stop intensity of cycling all day this was truly a wonderful few minutes.

The Rhine-Donau watershed (Rhine to the right!)

It had been a good day. Along the canal I had passed a large concrete monument which signified the Rhine-Danube watershed, and I had now passed the hydrological halfway point. This was the second watershed sign that I had seen, and it made me reflect about how Germans are conscious about their physical place in the world and the pride they take in their environment.

The evening meal was very satisfying, helped by two glasses of Glossner Neumarkter beer, a particularly fine brew.

Up until today I had been cycling away from the North Sea but from tomorrow I would be cycling towards the Black Sea. I had now done 612 miles and was over half way to Budapest.

Day 7 - At last, the sunlit uplands

Motten - Eltmann (using bikeroutetoaster.com)

 The bells in the village church woke me at seven o'clock, and after a quick chain change I was off on the road by eight. I had imagined a pleasant glide down the valley towards the Weser (I supposed), but after a few miles suddenly found myself on a three-mile long 5% climb, immediately followed by a three-mile 5% descent into Bad Bruckenau.

But this sharpened my appetite for breakfast, and I went into the local Lidl, scored some muesli, milk, fruit juice and bananas and found myself a riverside park where I sat on a bench and enjoyed muesli from the collapsible camping bowl that Rachel had given me as a birthday present. It was very pleasant indeed sitting in the park.

Muesli for breakfast

I sat and looked at the map and tried to work out where I was heading for. On a journey like unless you find yourself focusing on the next point on the map ahead, and this becomes the most important place in the world. It then disappears from importance as you pass through it to be replaced by the next one. My particular next target was Hammelburg, 20 km further along .

Fuelled up with oats, raisins and other natural goodies, I set off again, to be immediately confronted by 10 miles of up and down over steep hills, including one long 13% climb which I took at little more than 2 mph. It was very tough going. As I approached what I hoped was the top of the climb a bewhiskered gentleman of advanced years wearing cycling gear in German national colours and riding a heavily laden bicycle came past in the other direction, waving happily. I waved back grimly, and reflected on the perversity of cycling, that other people always seem to be going downhill when you are struggling uphill. Riding along this road was perhaps how the German word 'schadenfreude' had been invented, the joy from seeing someone else grinding up an endless series of hills. But of course, it does not work like that, as you can only enjoy going downhill if you have done the work to get up it, but sometimes it is hard to see the truth in this when all you can feel is the aching and exhaustion in your legs.

Indeed, the long and winding climb emerge from woodland into open farmland, flattened out a little and then set off on an exhilarating twisting descent down into Hammelburg. Time for a coffee, so I pulled into the attractive main square and headed towards a cafe. A lady came up to me and started talking in German, clearly asking where I was coming from and where I was going to. She spoke no English, but again we managed to communicate in some way. All I caught from her was that she thought I was "mutig", which I then discovered to mean "brave". My goodness, if I thought I was being brave I am not sure I would be doing this.

Main square in Hammelburg

Anyway, as I sat feeling life coming back into my legs other cycle tourists appeared, the first I had seen for many days. I was particularly struck by one group, four middle-aged people, two men, two women, who all seemed to be wearing identical clothing, riding identical bicycles equipped with identical panniers sets. The panniers were perfect, like a suitcase set, and I felt somewhat embarrassed by my own bicycle, with its green rear panniers and black front panniers, each one bulging in different directions with their miscellaneous contents. I wondered whether this was touring German-style or whether they had rented all of their equipment from one place.

The physical effort of the previous few hours made me wonder why on earth I was doing this, why I was being so 'brave'? Well, it was actually very exciting, constantly heading into the unknown, making decisions, seeing new things and having no idea what was round the next corner. It felt much better than working for a living. It is also a very intense experience, you just go on and on with little space to stop and think about other things. You are constantly aware of the road, the gradients, the noises the bike is making, the feel of the bike moving along the road, the brightness of the light, the aches in your legs and your increasing tiredness.

Well, of course, after all of that philosophising I left Hammelburg and soon found myself struggling up yet another long, long, 13% climb, out of a little village called Fuchstadt, the worst of the journey so far. Again, the yellowhammers in the fields beside the road kept up their demand for bread and no cheese: it is a song that I love very much, but there were moments in the climb when I felt like throttling every last yellow bird.

Then, suddenly, the terrain changed. As I approached Schweinfurt the land flattened out and it looked as if it would stay flat for some distance. It was now mid-afternoon and I cycled into the city looking for the tourist information office hoping that it would be, like Fulda, able to point me towards a campsite. However, the people there were useless. They said they only had access to local information and could not tell me about anything near my destination of Bamberg, which was after all, 60 km away. I refrained from pointing out that in the Internet age I could find out about camping facilities in Tierra del Fuego from my home in Sheffield, and so found it difficult to understand why she could not tell me about facilities in the next German city. A German might have put it down to the fact that I was in Bavaria.

However, while she was uselessly searching her computer, I did pick up a leaflet which told me about the Main Radweg. This was the cycle path which followed the River Main all the way up to Bamberg. And one of the magical things about rivers is that they are more or less flat. After my experiences of the day so far, this seemed like absolute magic.

Note flatness of path

So clutching my leaflet I set off and soon found myself speeding along a flat tarmac track along the banks of the Main. I felt pretty good. This took me as far as Hassfurt, after which I needed to follow a cycle track along Route 26 which took me to Eltmann. I had now done about 70 miles, most of which had been over the most difficult terrain so far, so I decided to look for a gasthaus, and found the Pension Maintal.

By now I felt on the verge of collapsing, and had to turn down the proprietor's invitation to join him and other guests at a music festival that evening where they would be beer, music, food and dancing. It sounded wonderful, but I could barely make it to the shower, let alone to a wild night out in the Bavarian countryside.

I dragged myself out into the pretty little town, and found a Chinese restaurant where I wolfed down huge plates of bean sprouts and noodles. Somewhat revived I looked at the map and tried to figure out the next day's journey, and with nervous excitement noticed a thin blue line connecting Bamberg with Nurnburg called the Main-Donau Canal. A canal? Which would have a towpath? Which would be flat? Which would go all the way to the Danube? It all sounded too good to be true.

I went to bed with a feeling of excited anticipation.

Day 6 - After the watershed

Marburg - Motten (using http://bikeroutetoaster.com)

I left Marburg at about nine o'clock and was straight into hills. But after about 10 miles I emerged from the woods to see a much flatter, rolling countryside in front of me. I felt hugely relieved and realised that I could make quick progress today. I also decided to steer by the map, and place less reliance on the GPS. The route that my Active 10 had suggested for me was a straight line to my destination, Schweinfurt, but it took me over at the highest point in the region. I felt that I had seen enough beautiful views for a few days and was happy cruising along on the flat.

However, being in the open exposed me to the wind. The warm weather came with a fresh easterly breeze, and I often found myself heading straight into it or struggling to balance against a cross-wind.

The land here was largely agricultural, fields of wheat and barley, and yellowhammers sang insistently all along the road. After passing through a village called Appenrod I stopped by the side of the road to try to figure out the way ahead, and a car pulled up beside me. The driver wound his window down and asked if he could help. He told me how to find a cycle path that would avoid the main road ahead and told me how he was himself planning a cycle tour later in the year that would take him down to Regensburg on the Danube. I was starting to realise how helpful people were being to me. Perhaps there is something about a lone cyclist and their vulnerability that makes people keen to offer help.

As the driver had indicated, just ahead was a side turning which became a cycle path running parallel to the busy Route 62. It was pretty well signposted but at one point I got lost and cycled backwards and forwards along a village street until suddenly an old chap wearing shorts and a grubby singlet emerged from what looked like a hole in the road. It was in fact the village spring, and he was keen that I sluice myself off to freshen up in the cold water. It was indeed a good idea. He then pointed out the right direction and off I went again. This took me to Alsfeld, a pleasant little town with a narrow, pedestrianised old street where I enjoyed a coffee.

The next leg of the journey was along the third category Route 254 to Fulda, but this turned out to be one of the worst parts of the whole journey. It was about 30 km across open countryside with a strong and steady cross-wind. The road was busy, and every time an articulated lorry rushed past me I had to hang on tight to avoid wobbling too much. By the time I reached Fulda I felt that every lorry in Germany had passed me in the previous two hours.

While all this was going on my mind went back to fluid mechanics at university, and I reflected on Bernoulli's principle, where when two plane surfaces move through a fluid medium, the pressure between them drops. This is what gives an aeroplane's wing its lift, but was also sucking me in to the juggernauts as they rushed by. Sometimes a little knowledge can be very helpful, or perhaps not.

What with the traffic and the difficult wind I felt at a low point. I spent some time thinking about how good it had been seeing more of Lewis while I had been back in Sheffield, and doing something to help him move his life forward. It seemed that the apprenticeship possibility was not going to happen and I felt disappointed that I had left to come back to Budapest when I could have perhaps helped more.

It was a relief getting to Fulda. It seemed like an attractive city and I cycled around until I found the tourist information office. A very helpful woman gave me a little booklet which listed campsites in my south-easterly direction and suggested that I should head for one in a village called Motten, some 20 km away.

However, getting out of Fulda was not easy. It was now late afternoon and everyone was leaving the city. The roads were busy and the signposting was geared towards the autobahn and vehicle-only roads. I therefore struggled to find a way out of town in a direction that was going to take me towards my destination for the night. I needed to travel along Route 27 but in the city it was vehicle only, so I had to navigate a somewhat circuitous route along country roads until I was well out into the countryside, by which time Route 27 turned out to be a very quiet road indeed.

Motten was now not far away at all, and when I arrived at about seven o'clock, exhausted, I was pleased that I was nearly there. However, when I rang the campsite they told me that they were actually in Motten-Khotten, which was another 5 km further on and was over a steep hill. To climb the hill I had to negotiate a series of hairpins, and wound very slowly up the hill. The top was a sharp ridge indeed, and a large sign indicated that it was the watershed between the Rhine and the Weser basins: I took this to be a potentially good sign, and that everything from now on would be downhill. The descent was immediate and reviving, and as I arrived at the valley floor the Rhonperle campsite appeared.

My first watershed

I pulled over, lent the bike against a wall, went into reception and while I waited for the site manager to appear enjoyed a long, cold beer.

As I would find usual, I was the only tent in town: plenty of caravans and motor homes but few other crazies like me. The campsite was delightful, sitting in a beautiful valley with hills all round. It was a lovely evening and I enjoyed putting up the tent, having my evening wash and going to the camp restaurant to enjoy the mashed potato with applesauce, a German favourite, and grilled trout with boiled potatoes. And, of course, another beer.

I made my way to bed as it was getting dark and looks forward to another good night's sleep.

449 miles now done.

Day 5 - Escape from the hills

Another good night's sleep. I realised that now when I was going to bed that my legs did not ache, which must be a sign of getting fitter.

Wilgersdorf - Marburg (using http://bikeroutetoaster.com)

Alfons had gone to work so I had breakfast with his wife, Korola. It was the same spread as last night, but the gaps that I created had been filled, and there was also fruit and yoghurt. Korola spoke good English and she told me about her family, her work, and how she had had a wonderful time visiting Ross-on-Wye the previous year. She looked after two gardens, ran 10 km several times a week, managed three teenage boys at home plus Alfons and worked in an office three days a week. She rode to work on a big black BMW motorbike. An impressive woman.

Breakfast over, I asked her how much I owed her for the night's stay. "Nothing!", she exclaimed most insistently. She loved England so much when she visited it that she felt that this was a way of saying thank you. I was amazed. Is England really that good?

Alfons' handy map

So, belly full and clutching Alfons's hand-drawn map, I set off down the hill into the next valley and off to the first 5% climb. The countryside was still beautiful and the weather kind, although the 25° temperature was perhaps a little high. I pushed on through the forested countryside and felt my spirits soaring, glad that I had taken this opportunity for such a wonderful experience. These sort of things happen too rarely.

Just as I approached the top of one climb a mature German in all the cycling gear and on an expensive carbon bike caught me up and started chattering away in German. I explained I did not understand, but this did not stop him. However the similarities with English and sign language meant that we were able to communicate, and I told him where I was coming from and going to. He was delighted. As we crested the hill he said something that sounded like, "Alles ist gut! Auf wiedersehn!" and sped off down the hill.

Alfons's route took me on to Route 62, and this followed the River Lahn down towards Marburg, so it was much flatter. I found a delightful place by a small, old bridge over the river for lunch. I lay on my back in the sunshine, closed my eyes and felt the pressure disappearing from my sitting bones. I had noticed over the last few days that my bottom was definitely feeling less uncomfortable each morning. I guess it was toughening up and my Brookes B-17 was becoming even more adjusted to my anatomy.

I arrived in Marburg in the middle of the afternoon and lay down on a bench by the Elisabethskirche, where Oliver came to meet me. We went back to his apartment where I had a great shower and managed to wash some clothes. I noticed how by the end of each cycling day my skin felt tired, dry and stale, and that having a shower really revived me. My hayfever symptoms were largely confined to sore eyes, and after a day of concentrating on the road ahead and the wind rushing past them and they were often tired. I used the showers to flush them clean and bring them back to life.

Marburg from its castle

Oliver was keen to show me Marburg, so we walked into the town on this beautiful warm, spring evening. Marburg is a lovely little university town, retaining much of its 14th and 15th century architecture, including a castle on the top of its hill. There was a lovely view over the town from the top of it, and after walking back down to the main square we found a restaurant where we could sit outside, I could enjoy my usual evening reward of beer and Oliver could tell me about all things German. He is a very well-educated and interesting person, and I learnt a lot sitting and listening to him explaining about the relationship between the different parts of the country, its politics, its history, its culture... and the Bavarians again!

We discussed my route out of the town and the next day and what might lie ahead. He didn't know that part of the countryside very well, but felt that there were plenty more hills to come.

375 miles gone. The last few days had been slow because of the hills, and I was keen to try to increase my daily mileage. It would all depend on what lay ahead.

Day 4 - Saved by the German police

Cologne - Wilgersdorf  (created by http://bikeroutetoaster.com)

 I had breakfast with Frida and Niels and then set out on a cool, grey morning. I found my way across one of the bridges over the Rhine and then headed out through the eastern suburbs. I was starting to discover that cycling through cities was frustratingly slow, lots of traffic lights and navigational problems. Several times I had problems with drivers or pedestrians who pointed out that I should be on the road when I was on what I thought was a cycle path and vice versa.

A glimpse of Cologne Cathedral in the morning mist

Fortunately, my trusty Active 10 kept me going in the right direction and I was soon clearing the suburbs but felt that I needed to turn in a more south-easterly direction. The A4 motorway was something of a barrier and I was glad when the GPS told me to take a right turn down a side road through a motorway tunnel. I was less impressed when I found myself in a forest with a rough track ahead of me.

The 28 mm tyres on the bike are great for travelling on the road but are really not designed for off-road use. They dig into soft ground and are much more prone to punctures than off-road tyres. But it was nice to be away from the traffic and grumpy road/pavement users so I pushed on through the forest. It was indeed very beautiful, climbing slowly on reasonable quality tracks, just me and the birds singing in the trees.

Then suddenly, the track dropped down a hillside, I emerged onto a tarmac road and the countryside had changed completely. Gone was the softly swelling flood-plane of the Rhine and in front of me were steep sided forested hills winding away in every direction.

I dropped quickly down into the first small town, saw a sign for a cycle path to the next place on my route and suddenly found myself confronted with a 15% climb. That was the moment where I decided that this would be a combined cycle ride and push. When I had ridden from Land's End to John O'Groats I had managed to avoid pushing at all, but the bicycle I had used then had mountain bike gearing (and I was eight years younger). So I pushed and pushed to the top of the hill and then flew down the descent on the other side into Overath. This set the pattern for the next few days.

I've definitely left Holland ...

Another long climb out of Overath and into beautiful, green, rolling countryside. There were hills around the in every direction that I could see, and the scenery was truly splendid. I reflected that the route the GPS had plotted me was indeed in a straight line according to the map but took no account of topography. Apart from the sheer physical effort of climbing, my average speed dropped considerably. Over the first few days I was averaging about 11 mph, but was now down to little more than 8 mph. This meant that during the average cycling day I would not be able to cover more than 50 or 60 miles which would have implications for how long it would take me to complete the trip. Not knowing the countryside, I had no way of judging whether or not I had miles or hundreds of miles of this ahead of me. All I could do was press on and try to interpret the map to follow flatter routes.

At the top of one ascent I collapsed on the grass for lunch, bread, cheese, tomato, banana, what was becoming my staple diet during the day. A walker came along and greeted me in German, but we managed a few words in English. He was walking through the hills on a pilgrimage to Cologne and must have been on the road for many days. It felt like a very gentle and rewarding pursuit, to be walking through this lovely countryside heading for somewhere where you could make some peace with the world.

I took a break in Wiehl and reviewed my GPS-led strategy. A straight line on the map maybe, but topographically a struggle. The map showed some roads that skirted a lake, and I imagined that this might be flatter so I abandoned my electronic line of blue dots and set off following the paper.  For a good few kilometres all went well, but then I turned a corner at one signpost to see this enormous hill winding off into the hills again. My lowland lake was a hilltop reservoir. Plan C? What might that be?

The afternoon continued with more climbing and descending, including one particularly exciting swoop down a series of hairpin bends into Wildburgerhutte. It was now starting to get late in the afternoon and I wanted to find somewhere to camp for the night but could not find any campsites. I pushed on until I arrived in the industrial city of Siegen at around six o'clock. There was no tourist information office in sight, and when I asked some taxi drivers at the railway station if they knew about any campsites they said there might be one 40 km north. I was heading south east and 40 km at this time of the day after over 50 miles of heavy climbing was not even worth considering. So they suggested asking a policeman.

The police station was just a few hundred metres down the road so I walked in and explained my problem. The policewoman on the desk listened most sympathetically, explained that this was not a tourist area and that there were no campsites, but that she might be able to find the name of a hotel. Off she went to her computer, clicked away, wrote some telephone numbers down and made some calls. She came back to the desk with a piece of paper bearing the name and address of someone in the village of Wilgersdorf who had a room that night waiting for me. I thanked her profusely and said she was most kind. Which she was.

The only problem was that Wilgersdorf was another 20 km further on down the road, and as it turned out I had to push the bike up a 15% climb to get out of Siegen and then do yet more climbing to arrive at Alfons Leyener's house, which was, of course, at the top end of Wilgersdorf. I had now done 73 miles of hard climbing and was totally exhausted, but felt the need to be sociable.

Fortunately, a shower revived me somewhat and I went downstairs to the Leyener's dining room to find a table laid out with bread, cheese, sausages, red peppers, yellow peppers, pickles and beer. Alfons was there with one of his neighbours who spoke good English, and they were keen to find out what had brought me to this corner of Germany. I explained my journey, and it turned out that Alfons had at one time been a professional cyclist. He proudly showed me his 30-year-old carbon fibre racing bike, which had a distinctly retro look to it, compared to today's carbon fibre machines. He also drew me a cyclist's map of the route I should take to my next destination, Marburg. It showed all the things that were important to cyclists, like tricky junctions, gradients and distances.

They also explained that the policewoman in Siegen lived in Wilgersdorf and knew that Alfons and his wife kept a room for lost souls. Aren't their police wonderful?

The conversation moved on to football. They wanted to know what I thought of the Champions League final, which had been on Saturday night. I admitted that I had collapsed halfway through the second half and had no idea of the result, and with some delight they told me that Chelsea had beaten Bayern Munich. I was somewhat surprised that they were pleased that an English team had beaten a German side, but they then explained that Bayern Munich were not actually Germans, but Bavarians. They are also so successful that 'Germans' love it when ever anyone beats them.

It was by now and well after 10 o'clock, and both Alfons and the neighbour had to get up at six o'clock in the morning so I made my excuses and wearily climbed up the stairs to bed.

Day 3 - And as I wind on down the road ...

The day dawned sunny and bright, but not so my spirits when I saw that I had my first puncture of the journey. I cheated by swapping in a new tube, took the opportunity to put a new chain on (as I have a rotating chain policy) and eventually set off by 9:15.

Eindhoven - Cologne

 The first part of the journey was a long day long, straight road, through a canopy of trees and I reached the small town of Asten by 10 o'clock, so I stopped for coffee. When I had set out on Saturday it had been about 10° C, but now it was about 25° and sunny. As I sat enjoying my coffee and cheese on toast the church bells chimed the hour with a short tune. It sounded familiar, and I realised that it was Led Zepplin's "Stairway to Heaven". Appropriate, I guess, for a church, but I wondered what Messrs Page, Plant and Bonham would have made of it when they were busy throwing TV sets out of hotel rooms to know that one day one of their songs would be rendered by church bells in a small Dutch town. I waited for the guitar licks, but they did not come.

The stairway to heaven ...

On again, and I eventually came to the River Maas, where I had to take a ferry. From there it was but a few miles until the German border. The first country crossed.

It was now a case of adapting to a different approach to bicycle lanes. There were some, but they were inconsistent and of not such good quality. It was also not clear when they needed to be used. The terrain was starting to swell a little, not hilly, just not the pancake flatness of the Netherlands. "Stairway to Heaven" continued to go round and round in my head.

The GPS was still proving to be very useful, and it guided me effortlessly through the city of Monchen-Gladbach and out along a series of narrow lanes that stretched in a straight line across ploughed fields in the direction of Cologne. Things were going really well until the lane I was on became a ploughed field itself and the GPS unit battery ran flat. Unfortunately the back roads I had taken left me with absolutely no idea where I was, so I had to retrace my steps, guess the right direction and cycle off until I found a landmark, a railway station at Rommerskirchen. I knew then that I had about an hour and a half to go to Cologne.

In Cologne I was going to be staying with Frida, a daughter of one of Helen's friends, and her partner, Niels. The GPS had details of where their apartment was, so I managed to plug in the emergency backup and this took me through the city streets right to their front door. By now it was about 7 o'clock, and there was a very pleasant, warm, summery feel to the streets of the city as I pedalled on through. It felt like a nice city to live in.

Frida and Niels made me feel very welcome. This was just as well, as I arrived looking a mess, the first symptoms of the summer's hayfever just hitting me as I arrived at their apartment. My eyes swelled up with an allergic reaction and I could barely see. Getting under a shower was a lifesaver.

To my surprise, even though I had cycled 83 miles I was still feeling energetic enough to agree to go out for a look around the city. We ate pizzas and then they showed me the magnificent cathedral, the bridges and the ceiling of the opera house. This was of interest because the opera house is underground, and after completion it was discovered that if people walk across the roof, which is in a public space, their footsteps can be heard in the auditorium. So when there is a performance a small group of people stand on guard on the ceiling, stopping people walking across the open space.

They were keen to take me to a brauhaus, and introduce me to the traditional Cologne way of drinking beer. Waiters walk around with trays of 0.2 l glasses of beer and slap them down in front of you. When you finish one glass, with impressive dexterity they replace your empty glass with a full one in a one handed sweep. If you do not put a beer mat over the glass, it never ends. Anyway, after three or four of these rather delicious, fresh-tasting glasses of beer we tottered out into the warm evening air and walked home.

I slept well. 251 miles down, pretty well a quarter of the way there. But I was not really prepared for what was to come in the next few days.

Day 2 - Across Holland

I love overnight ferry crossings, the throb of the engine, the sense of anticipation at arriving somewhere new and foreign. By 8 o'clock we were slowly moving in towards Europort on a cool, grey and misty morning. Fortunately, I no longer felt sick.

 The few bicycles on board disembarked first, by 9:30. Remembering to keep to the right, I set off through the eerie quiet of the Dutch morning, cycling along smooth, flat cycle paths through an industrial area of cranes, storage tanks, chemical works and boats of all shapes and sizes. As a Sunday morning it was completely quiet, and the place had that strange post-apocalyptic feel. The only people around were occasional joggers and cyclists: at one point a small group all wearing Rabobank strip rushed past me in a tight bunch, and I wondered if they were the professional team out for a training run. They certainly had the tanned, tough-jawed look of professional cyclists.

I pressed on across the flat islands. Everywhere was shut being a Sunday and I was a little concerned about where I would get today's carbohydrates from.

Ferry linking islands

 Eventually I came across a small village on a tiny hill surrounded by miles of flat farmland and sat outside a closed bar in the sunshine: somewhere along the street someone was practising playing their bugle. Many of the roads followed the tops of dikes, and the few metres of height and gave good views across the huge open spaces.

I started to notice some of the peculiarities of Dutch rural life: many houses had a small patch of land outside where they kept animals, sheep and goats mainly, but I did see one house that had four cows grazing happily in the front garden.

Before starting the journey I had used my GPS unit, a Satmap Active 10 and its website, to plot routes for each of my days. For these few days across Holland it had picked out wonderful cycle routes, which gave me the sense of travelling in a more or less straight line across the entire country. Cycle provision in Holland is, indeed, fantastic. Everywhere has dedicated cycle paths, whether it is a clearly-marked lane by the side of the road or a separate track running alongside. Where these tracks score over the largely useless cycle tracks in the UK is that they have right of way at junctions, so motorists always stop at turnings to allow cyclists to continue. As any cyclist knows, keeping your momentum is important, and having to constantly stop at side turnings makes most British cycle lanes a waste of time.

Roterdam - Eindhoven (from http://bikeroutetoaster.com)

As a British cyclist, I treat cycle lanes as somewhat optional, but in Holland they are compulsory. If you find yourself cycling on a road where there is a cycle lane, cars blow their horns and people shout. You also have to be careful about if there are lanes on both sides of a road (in which case they are one way) or on just one side (two way). Signs to indicate what they are, are of course in Dutch, but by the end of the first day I had just about worked it out.

People ride bicycles everywhere, and older people are often seen on new electric bicycles. At one point I saw an elderly gentleman pull out on a side turning some distance ahead of me, and he set off along the cycle path at well over 15 mph, so I found it difficult to catch him up. When I did I saw that he was riding one of these electric bicycles. I look forward to having one myself, in later years to extend my cycling activity!

In fact, the whole country seems to have been designed for people, rather than cars, to live in. Communities seem to have a well-thought out layout. Junctions are often raised with no rights of way, so that everyone has to slow down and look. In many places there is no distinction between pedestrian space and car space: the ambiguity makes drivers instinctively slow down. Entrances to decide roads are raised, and the roads themselves have different surfaces, so they feel like different spaces. All of this goes to make travelling through Holland a very pleasant experience.

The water helps as well, everywhere there are ponds, streams and rivers. In Tilburg I sat under a tree and looked at a small river that meandered through a housing estate: people sapped by the waterside fishing, chatting, enjoying themselves.

Just before Breda I saw two cyclists with panniers looking at a map, and as one of them was wearing a jacket saying "UK to Venice, me, 2012" they were clearly Brits. I stopped and chatted to Dave and Doug. They were cycling to Venice, where they were going to meet their wives and spend the Jubilee weekend. They had also set off from Rotterdam that morning and we all hoped to arrive at our destinations at about the same time. We cycled along together for several miles and it was good to have some company. At one point Doug and I moved to one side to let someone pass, and it turned out to be a low-profile, aerodynamically-shaped white tube that was shooting along the cycle path. Doug called out to Dave to move to the side and when he looked around to see what was happening he almost fell off his bike at the sight of this wheeled missile heading towards him. It vanished into the distance, and none of us could quite believe what we had just seen.

Wilhelmina Canal after thunderstorm

This was a long day. I was heading for a campsite just south of Eindhoven, and was held up for some time by thunderstorms. But thanks to the GPS I found my way through the city and to the campsite at Heeze. By this time it was 8:30 and I had to quickly pitch my tent and walk into town to find somewhere to eat. A kindly Italian restaurant agreed to serve me with pizza at 9:15.

I eventually collapsed into my tent at just after 11. 100 miles in the day and 168 done altogether.

Day 1, 19th May 2012 - So it begins

Apparently the Olympic flame started out from Land's End this morning.

It's a place for starting journeys: with the Atlantic waves crashing in below and ocean to the north, west and south there is really only one way to go. I remember the excitement when I signed the End to End book in the Land's End Hotel back in 2004 and set off east to find John O'Groats.

Leaving Southgrove Road did not have that drama. Although it was really good to be setting out right from the door I felt flat and unsure why I was doing it. But Helen, Lew and Matt gave me a good send-off and even the neighbours Jenny and Alistair came out into the cool, grey, damp morning.

Some people may find technical details of interest. My bicycle is a Van Nicolas Yukon, a Dutch-made titanium framed model, described by the makers as an audax or light tourer. I was running on 700 x 28mm tyres, which is really the narrowest you can ride on for carrying any sort of load. Long Eaton Cycles, where I had bought the bike originally, had swapped the original carbon forks for a steel pair, so that I could mount front panniers. The total weight of bicycle and gear was just under 30 kg. I worried that this was more than a light tour, and that the Fulcrum Racing 7 wheels were not really designed for this sort of weight.

The power unit was a 58-year-old Devonian four-chamber heart muscle, fuelled for most of its working life on a largely meat-free diet and lubricated by red wine and hand-pulled bitter, where possible.

Training for the ride had been limited and in my mind, inadequate. But I knew from previous experience that I could build up my fitness as the days went along. Well, it was a plan.

I headed up through Tinsley, remembering the years that I cycled out to the British Steel offices at Ickles. Onwards through Rotherham and Doncaster and on across the flatlands of north Lincolnshire. The cold notherly headwind made it a bit of a grind: in my imagination I had pictured myself rolling on through warm May sunshine. Not today.

The first day's route (from http://bikeroutetoaster.com)

Eventually I climbed over the little hill at Flixborough to be rewarded by the sight of the Humber Bridge, but then it was a cold slog into the wind along the muddy river.

 Crossing the bridge was exciting though: I have always loved suspension bridges and cycling or walking across them brings you into contact with the immense delicate strength of the cables and steel. Then in through Hull, trying to avoid the dual carriageway and find the docks.

Seeing the ferry was a great relief: 68 miles on my first day was exhausting. So I collapsed into my cabin, stayed a while under the hot shower then had a nap. Later I made my way up to the buffet restaurant to carbo-load on potatoes. To the point of feeling sick, so nauseous, exhausted and aching I slunk off to my cabin by 9:30.

Time to get on my bike

So tomorrow, Saturday, at about 10 o'clock I shall swing my leg over my rear panniers and set off down the gentle slope of my road to head off for Hull and the overnight ferry to Rotterdam.



Find more  in Sheffield

The first day's journey will take me through the delights of Rotherham, Doncaster and Scunthorpe, but at least there will only be showers and not the heavy rain that has followed my (admittedly) limited training programme. The highlight will be crossing the mighty Humber suspension bridge before gliding into Hull docks and pedalling onto the P&O ferry.

I shall then have the delight of an overnight crossing to reflect on the wisdom of what I have started. But I have told too many people now to back out, so perhaps I shall just sneak onto a train and then hide in Budapest for 10 days…

No, seriously, could I live with myself? (A moment's pause).

I have lined up meeting friends in Cologne, Marburg and Vienna, which will keep me going, and I reflect that once I hit the Danube it will all be flat and downhill. Perhaps a reflection on life itself.

Anyway, the hours on the bicycle will give me plenty of time for cod philosophy, and with luck I will be able to remember some of it so that I can upload it to my blog at the end of each day. So if you would like to share my pain, login from time to time over the next few weeks.

Why do it?

With just over a week left before I set off on the bicycle ride, the reality starts to become more and more daunting.

For many months I have just thought about the concept of riding a bicycle 1200 miles, and reflected on the joys of pedalling through sun-kissed countryside, gliding down gentle hillsides, having amusing conversations with bemused Dutch, German, Austrian and Hungarian people.

However, I can now start to imagine the reality of aching legs, exhaustion, bonking (technical cycling term for running out of glucose and therefore energy), punctures, falling off, traffic, getting lost, and so on.

So why do it, one of my colleagues asked me? Well, it is good to do it for a cause that I think important, and that whatever money I raise will go to help people who are less fortunate than me. There is also the sheer joy of cycling, of pedalling onwards, using no expensive fuel and just hearing the swish of rubber on the road.

But after a few weeks at home meeting and talking to old friends I realise that I just want to be able to celebrate the great fortune of my own health. At 58 years of age more and more people I have shared the world with are starting to suffer; various cancers, arthritis and tragic accidents. I feel very lucky to have escaped so far, and to be able to contemplate two weeks of heavy duty cycling.

We can take health for granted, but as time goes by it becomes more and more precious.

Stuck inside of Sheffield with the Buda blues again

This is the first Budapest Blog written from outside Budapest, but with Budapest very much in mind.

Before the pain begins ...

I am actually back in the UK, working temporarily here for personal reasons. However, in just over two weeks I will be jumping on a bicycle and cycling back to that beautiful city on the Danube.

There are a few reasons for doing this. One is that I enjoy the Zen-like process of cycling onwards and onwards day after day, just focusing on keeping the pedals turning and enjoying the countryside passing by. Another is the sense of achievement at getting it done, which becomes more and more significant as birthdays keep coming.

And a third is to try to raise some money for UNHCR's Syria appeal. This is a cause close to my heart as Helen and I spent some weeks in Syria late in 2010, and were very touched by the warmth and hospitality of everyone we met there. Seeing the human tragedy of what is happening in that country at the moment is distressing, and so I decided to try to do something to raise some money to support an organisation that is providing relief to people seeking safety.

If you would like to donate to this cause, please go to the Ammado community "Cycling for Syrian refugees". Or scan my QR code:

I shall try to update the blog as I travel along the road. I have invested in a solar charger for my mobile phone as apparently, in continental Europe the sun shines.

Watch this space.