May 26: Day 29, Bonn-Düsseldorf

I’m going to Düsseldorf today: that’s roughly the midpoint of the tour, and I’m pausing there to take a mid trip break. I’m going back to Amsterdam for four days, I’ll be back on the road on Wednesday 31st. Maybe earlier if my family doesn’t recognize me.

The hotel didn’t have a breakfast buffet, I had to choose between a few options ranging from toast & jam, up to a full cooked breakfast. My preferred breakfast is to to eat everything at the buffet, I miss it! I took a civilized breakfast option and it wasn’t really enough.

From left to right: rush hour on the cyclepaths. My favourite sort of cable-stayed bridge. Ramps made these stairs easier, but if I couldn’t lift my bike, this trip would have been a lot more complicated. Nice cyclepaths on the south side of Cologne. There was a sign explaining that the left path was for cyclists, right path for pedestrians.

Today’s route roughly followed the Rhine, which meant quite a bit of time in towns, checking the map every few minutes so I didn’t go the wrong way. It’s slow and careful work and not much fun. Less headwind though.

Back on the Rhine there was more headwind. The route turned back and forth so it wasn’t head-on but it does slow things down. It’s noticeable when in shelter, or during a lull, that it’s possible to go faster. Maybe one day this trip there will be a southerly?

From left to right: nice design. Me, on the north side of Cologne. Today’s ferry; I’m still dubious about ferries after the problems in Noord Holland. A roundabout styled like a record player - it’s at 51.08237, 6.8831648. Last sight of the Rhine.

The cycle paths are excellent, got me out of Bonn and through Cologne with no stress, for which I’m always grateful. No engineering showiness today though, it was all straightforward.

Less straightforward were the trains. I got to Düsseldorf at about 1400. I’d booked a ticket to Amsterdam but it was from Cologne, because the plan changed after I’d booked.

Bikes aren’t allowed on the fast trains; the only option is the slow short-trip ones; so the trip to Amsterdam needed four (!) different trains. So I figured that I’d get a ticket from Düsseldorf to the nearest one of those stations and then switch over to my prebooked ticket.

Well, I got home in the end, but my opinion of German organization has dropped somewhat. Here’s how that happened.

I started by going to a ticket machine and trying to buy a ticket to the nearby station of Mönchengladbach. The ticket machine simply didn’t have that city an option. How about Venlo, the next stop on my trip? Likewise nope. I was so stunned I went to the information desk, where they said this is normal, go to the ticket office which is hidden at the back of the bookshop. I was not happy leaving my bike in the busy concourse so I took it with me into the bookshop, parked it so I could see it from the ticket office, and joined the queue. Because there was only one person working at the ticket office and the queue was out the door.

I’d been waiting for about 30 minutes and was third in the queue when a disgruntled bookshop person appeared looking for the owner of the bike. (As you know from the photos, it isn’t looking so classy now.) They made it pretty clear that it wasn’t welcome in the bookshop … I was resigning myself another 30 minutes of queuing but also having to leave my bike somewhere unsafe where a second ticket office person appeared and said it’d be OK to park the bike in the office! Which I gratefully did. And I was even able to rejoin my place in the queue! My faith in humanity is restored, for ticket employees in particular.

So I got tickets to Mönchengladbach for me and the bike, had a look at the screens, saw that the next train left in three minutes and hustled. I took the bike up the escalator (roll on, put both brakes on, look nonchalant) got to the platform. Slightly late. Fortunately, the train was a few minutes delayed. On the plus side, this meant I was able to catch it! The train was packed, but I managed to squeeze the bike in; there was nowhere to sit down though.

The delay mean that it was ten minutes behind schedule into Venlo, which meant I missed my next connection. So no need to rush; rather than carrying the bike down the stairs I thought I’d use the lift instead.

Venlo is not a big station, so the lifts are small. I carefully rolled the bike in, but the back wheel was still out the door. Turn the front wheel sideways: not quite enough. Some older gents waiting to use the lift after me suggested something in German. I tried lifting the front wheel onto the metal skirting board thing, and the bike fitted with a centimeter to spare; the elevator door closed, heard an “ayyy” from the queue and down we went.

This is where it gets cruel. Because then I saw I wasn’t going out the same way: the lift had two doors, 90 degrees apart, and when the other door opened the bike was wedged in so well I couldn’t get it out. The back wheel was not going to move so I tried lifting the front wheel further to unwedge it, but it didn’t work; after a few other false hopes I gave up, took the lift back up. The waiting crowd gave me a mild hoot of sympathy or something, I backed out in shame and carried it down the stairs instead.

My ticket had two more sections: Venlo to Utrecht, then Utrecht to Amsterdam. While checking the screens I noticed that there was a train direct to Amsterdam Centraal, maybe my ticket covers that? Let’s assume it does! I headed to the platform at the right time, but there were a lot of other bikes, so I had to go all the way to the far end of the train to find a space. No problem! Well, a bit after departure the conductor dropped by and explained that bikes aren’t allowed on trains during rush hour. He’d cleaned all the other bikes off the train but ran out of time to do the last carriage, ie where I was. Since the next two stations were really small he said I could stay on to Eindhoven and get out there, which was kind.

From left to right: Bus shelter with a neat design on the glass. Arriving in Düsseldorf. The train station; end of the first half of the tour. Me looking very pleased that I’ve made it this far.

At Eindhoven I had time for a coffee, then got the next train going towards Amsterdam. It didn’t actually go to Centraal so I got off at ArenA and cycled for 30 minutes home. This is a somewhere I haven’t cycled before and for all those kind words about Germany, Amsterdam is undoubtedly better, there are cyclepaths everywhere, and they’re excellent.

Komoot was being stupid. I’d ignored some directions because I saw a faster way out of the station and it had pettily created waypoints back there… So while I was going in what I thought was the right direction, it kept trying to make me do U-turns. And creating a new route is not as easy as it should be.

But I got home in one piece! Four days off, I’m really looking forward to it. First time I’ve needed a holiday break from a holiday…