September 29th
An extremely chilly night saw temperatures dip to 3°C, and our usual oven of a tent became less oven-y. I slowly put more clothes on inside my sleeping bag as the night went on. Louis it turned out was too cold to sleep for most of the night.
I got out of the tent just before the sun came above the trees to our camp spot. Instantly numb extremities. I attempted to sort the trike and pump the tyres up to keep warm. 2 done, onto the third and I only succeeding in causing a puncture. While taking the tyre off to replace the tube I found 2 broken spokes and also had to install some new ones.
As I was doing this, and Louis was making some cold oats in a cup, a man drove down the forest road and stopped to tell us wild camping was illegal in all of Germany. He was speaking only in Germany but we got the translation. He lightened up a bit when he realised we’d cycled from England, but only a little. Once the trike and us were sorted we set off just after 10.
Luckily the sun was out and it was dry but the temperature wasn’t shooting up. We had a few uphills, and then the path turned to gravel, which slowed our progress. We took many a comfort and snack break. Along with Louis’ search for an open pubic toilet on a Sunday proving a tough ask. With Louis lack of sleep and my apparently insatiable hunger, couple with the breaks, the KM’s weren’t ticking off as fast. A change of pace day, we were calling it.
We eventually made it to Hohentengen, for a late 2pm lunch. We found a cafe / bakery that bucked the German Sunday trend and was actually open. The seating area inside was roasting hot so Louis was straight in. As well as them having a toilet. We ended up getting 3 rounds of goods and I was arguably still hungry. Louis even cracked his first coca-cola of the trip. Desperate time. Potentially that disappointingly minimal gnocchi night catching up with us. Louis’ core temp was finally warming up sat inside, while I was sweating.
We eventually peeled ourselves off the chairs and back onto the trike. This part saw us cycle through a very strange border area between Germany and Switzerland. Without crossing the Rhine river, which we were staying North of and following East all day, we crossed between Germany and Switzerland 4 times between 3pm and 6pm. Half of the times we didn’t even realise until we saw the cycle route sings had changed colour. As we crossed into Switzerland for the second time, we cycled through Neuhausen am Rheinfall, and Louis could have sworn he saw a waterfall. We cycled a bit further, heard our second spoke of the day break on another innocuous stretch of road, and then saw the waterfall. It was huge. We stopped for some pics. And only now as I try to find out what it was called, do we find out that it’s actually the biggest waterfall in Europe, Rhine Falls.
Pretty epic to stumble upon with no clue that we would.
The spokes on the other hand were less than ideal.
We carried on into Schaffhausen and stopped in the main square for a big snack time. It was late in the day and we still had some miles to go, even just to get out of the city to find a place to camp.
When we set off again the roads were good and sugar rush high, so we ticked along for nearly an hour. Then on a downhill path another spoke snapped. The wheel was now rotating and all kinds of angles. We still have 2 spare spokes sized for this wheel but, firstly, there’s now 4 that need to be installed and secondly 3 are on the drive side. We have to take the cassette off to do so and don’t have the tool. Louis has tried to buy it in every bike shop we’ve stopped in, in Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Germany but had no luck. We did pass approximately 7 bike shops today, all along our route, but being Sunday in Germany, all were shut.
We limped barely two hundred meters further and out of nowhere a sign appeared saying campsite. We weren’t planning on staying in one, but with the issues and all it seemed like a good thing to do.
It was mainly a farm that also offered camping. When we found a lady to enquire with, she said she’d get her daughter who spoke better English. Said daughter was literally milking the cows. She came out in all the muck and told us the price and the details.
We were in, dinner cooked, tent up and taking long long hot showers in record time. We found a bike shop very nearby, but it’s closed on Mondays, classic. There is another about 45 mins away that says it’ll be open. And the pictures and reviews lead us to think they’ll have the tool we need. Our plan is to 1) not freeze overnight, 2) fix the wheel as best we can in the morning 3) limp the bike to the shop and see if they have what we need. Then hopefully continue the tricycling show on the road.
Louis says his core temp is finally back up and he’s wearing all the layers under his sleeping bag. Hopefully it works. Despite our lack of umph today and issues, we still just ticked over the arbitrary daily 50 mile target. Hopefully sleep is good and tomorrow is even better.
Daily stats
81 km. 703 m elevation gain. 5 hr 24 mins moving time.
Cumulative trip stats
1,220 KM. 9,978 m elevation gain. 72 hrs, 33 mins moving time
