I’d decided that I’d ride towards the north-east of France and the Vosges Mountains as there is a four-hundred kilometre MTB route that goes south towards Mulhouse. To get to the start should take three or four days, all going well as I head south-east from Luxembourg City by whichever route takes my fancy, mostly sticking to cycle routes that show on my GPS.

I’d only wound my way out of the city following a river for an hour when I stopped to investigate the new rubbing sound that had appeared – in doing so the rack holding my bag to my saddle and off the rear tyre completely failed. In the circumstances, I thought the safest option was to return to the relatively close city and try to find a bike shop that would sell me a suitable rack. If necessary, I could always wait and get one shipped to me. As it happens, only a few hours and some repeat-riding were lost – I now have a more traditional, but only slightly heavier, rack holding my rear bag above the wheel.

Riding the stretch of river for the third time, I finally made it on to the new bridge in the town of Hesperange to read the poignant and tragic tale of the American tank that plunged into the frigid river Boxing Day 1944 while returning in convoy from the Battle of the Bulge. Needless to say, I’ve seen many monuments and read many tales of lives lost in each world war in this part of the world. Mostly about young men far from home in foreign lands – well, those are the ones that tend to be translated into English.

A lot of the riding for the day was through open farmland – where the cycle routes all tend to be paved. There was still a fair amount of climbing to be done, and occasionally a panorama opened up. I flirted with the French border a couple of times, but generally I was heading towards Germany. That which had held such promise previously, but then (I felt) didn’t treat me well at all with all that mud and rain, the GR5, abruptly came back into my path. I ran with it for a little while, it seemed OK, but it didn’t work out again so I continued on my way. Apologies for the laboured metaphor.

The daily heavy rain came during the daily (sometimes twice-daily) bakery stop – so I missed most of it. It turned into wine country very briefly as I approached the Moselle River (the German border in this area) – there was a steep roll downhill to the river & it turned out Schengen was just down the river a bit. I could hardly not visit such a place that is associated with me being to do all this border-crossing (six countries so far, dozens of border-crossings) without once showing my passport. There’s nothing there – I suppose the only thing of note is that it’s at the meeting point of three countries.

In Germany there was a big climb out of the Moselle Valley and I quickly realised that the German cycle networks is wonderfully signed. From a big map-board I worked out that the Saarland-Radweg route would take me roughly the way I wanted to go – & the signs have English translation, so I get to pick up some of the local history/attractions. For the rest of the day it was mostly across farmland and paved – I tried a MTB trail for a while, but it wasn’t really helping me get where I wanted to go and had an annoying number of steps in it. I found too that the villages were pretty much dead in the prevening, so it was some time and with quite a detour that I got to a town big enough to have open restaurants.

With it still not being warm and summery, which might be expected in summer, my thoughts turned to getting to Italy sooner. I’m a little sick of being wet and cold for no particularly good reason – I’ve survived enough English winters MTBing to choose to go somewhere drier! This would mean not heading east towards Munich and doing the TransAlp route I had intended through Austria and finishing at Lake Garda. But it would mean I’d be in a place where I could at least understand a little of what is going on around me and at least be able to converse with those that serve me food (those being the people I have the opportunity to talk to the most, of course). I think I would much prefer that & maybe my Italian would improve.

With a big breakfast to add to the previous night’s dinner, I was beginning to think I was doing cycle-touring all wrong. Paved trails, warm showers, a proper bed, big meals with good company – they could easily be handled, but I suppose I would get a bit bored with pavement all the time, so bikepacking it is. I set off a little after the others as we made our way down the Our Valley – this river eventually forms parts of the German border. As we were well off the Vennbahn by now, due to last night’s hotel diversion, it was nice to be out in the valley through farm land and taking it easy for a more restful day.

The only photo of me so far in a week – on the Belgian-German border

We crossed past an old border post back into Belgium – this German speaking part would rather be part of Germany again…

At this town, my favourite trail, the GR5, crossed our path – I wasn’t at all tempted as the leisurely pace was good after a week.

As Jacqueline and Joseph began to find the Vennbahn a little hillier than they were expecting, I was encouraged to carry on at my own pace and meet them at the end of the trail – or later at Jacqueline’s house where I would stay the night and have a chance to catch up on bike & clothes cleaning, both much needed.

It was a rather inauspicious entry into Luxembourg – this up a bit of a hill because the old rail tunnel has been closed as many special bats reside in the dark there.

I had a meagre lunch, what I’d actually bought as breakfast before I met J&J the day before. After waiting half an hour at the station from which they would take the train south, I decided to ride on the national cycle routes to Jacqueline’s house as it was still only two o’clock and it was only forty-odd kilometres in a straight line. Little did I know that northern Luxembourg is really quite hilly. Even on the cycle routes there were some big steep climbs.

But it was beautiful forested land to be riding through – always nicer in the valley bottoms as the southerly wind, that I was generally heading into, was howling at about 60 km/h. I was really enjoying the ride, but my restful day disappeared as some of those hills were tough steep grinds.  I had to ride a big section of road to connect two trails – this took me up on to and around a ridgetop.

From Ettelbruck, it was mostly gentle gradient following the river upstream and the local railway that the large Goodyear Tire and Moulding plants still use a few times a year. After a bit of confusion with the waypoint I had in my GPS marking my destination, we finally communicated by phone & Jacqueline worked out which village I was in and kindly came and picked me up – saving me another big climb. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to repay such hospitality as I was shown – a big dinner, a shower, nice warm comfortable bed, bike cleaning, clothes washed, breakfast. Fantastic. Maybe one day I’ll settle somewhere and be able to do the same for dishevelled cycle tourists.

First Luxembourg flag photo – waiting to be picked up

Over dinner, it was decided that I should definitely pay a visit to Luxembourg City the following day and stay in the youth hostel. Bidding farewell after being dropped off near another rail trail, I was determined to turn Monday into a restful day – it was only twenty easy kilometres into the city. After checking-in, I had the afternoon to wander around the city. It’s really quite nice situated behind big walls on a hill and I enjoyed strolling around – but after walking up the hill, I realised I really was quite tired from Sunday’s efforts so returned to catch up on keeping this up to date.

Now it’s Tuesday morning and the sun is shining – will head to towards NW France where there is a long distance MTB trail that I will give a go. There’s more than an even chance I’ll find this unrideable for me, but there’s only one way to find out.

With seeing so much each day, I’m having trouble remembering what even happened this morning and what day it is. Thankfully my computer tells me it’s the fifteenth. It’s coming back to me now. I was awoken early by yet more rain, and as this sent me into despair I lay in so long that it had stopped raining – the day got better from then on. It was not far through the forest to the first town of the day, Lanaken, yet another with a fun fair set-up in the town square (I’ve seen a few since Iepers). More importantly, I found a bakery open so I was able to supplement my meagre breakfast of baguette and danish with a divine waffle filled with stewed plums.

This fuelled me well past the large Dutch city of Maastricht and another crossing of the Albert Canal. More WWII memorials to downed Allied aircraft. I think I skirted the border for quite sometime, eventually the cars parked at people’s homes told me I must be in the Netherlands. Around this time it started to get hillier, finally, and almost imperceptibly the language changed. Slowly I realised that streets were now called Rue, not Straat; houses for sale were no longer marked Te Koot but A Vendre and I was riding a VTT, not a mountain-bike. This must have been when I crossed into Walloonia.

Fewer people speak English out this way, so with my few words of French ordering for lunch was amusing. Nonetheless I was satisfied with lunch in the sun, with a beer and crepes to finish off. The GR5 was generally pretty good today – with some fantastic rocky downhills to enjoy. I had to keep reminding myself that as I was very much alone and with a heavy bike, I had better be careful. It would be easy to say I’d like to be riding such trails with a more normal mountain-bike, but of course I’m only here riding in these places I’ve never heard of because of this particular mode of travel. However, there were some muddy sections – not too surprising considering all the rain. My least favourite was an unmade path through a field – the farm traffic had turned the dirt to that special type of mud that clogs everything up within about twenty seconds so the bike is hardly able to be pushed; such joy.

I was excited when I made it through one hundred metres of altitude, now that I’ve gone through two hundred and eventually reached three hundred and fifty metres I’m almost beside myself with excitement. My knees aren’t; well, the left one started reminding me of the muscle I pulled in it about a year ago on the South Downs Way – but it stopped complaining after dinner. A notably lower average speed today as the amount of climbing was twice that of my previous biggest day – still only a modest amount, but my bike has not been this heavy before. Perhaps I’ll make it over the border into Luxembourg tomorrow, but more of a chance I’ll be just a little short.

For those wondering, here’s my home set up for tonight. It very much looks the same every night, just the location changes.