We woke to rain.
No worries…only 85km today! Although…after yesterday’s soaking…we were not wanting a repeat!
So no rush to leave.
The sun came out…so we left at around 9am.
Rain threatened…but the first 20km were just fine!
Interestingly..yesterday..in the wet.. my rear brake pads packed a sad!! And were making extraordinary noises..like a tank really!! So we found a bike shop 30km or so down the road….who could replace the pads.
No problem…to fix on the spot! What an amazing bike shop…& this was seriously in the middle of nowhere!!! Huge business!!
And what a trail…Vennbahn…an old railway…& a full 125k of sealed bike path.
(The cycling infrastructure in Northern Europe really is spectacular…a new experience for me!! ….not so exciting though to be honest!! as Mountain roads..trails…unknowns…etc!)
And it is indeed a really important old railway…apparently taken over by the Belgians in WW1….creating weird enclaves of Germany on the “wrong” side of the line. And even today..the route is Belgian!!! So..twice at least we were travelling through Germany (ie both sides of the line) whilst never leaving Belgium!! Very weird really! By way of example….
We had decided to take the (slightly) longer route..to stay on our wonderful rail trail all the way to Aachen. But that ‘slightly’ turned into a full 30km+ longer…with lots of wiggles as the map indicates!
We were but 3km down the road from the bike shop alas…& the heavens opened!!
Really serious rain!! We were wet wet wet once again! Underpants wet. Everything wet! At the same time my front tyre lost air. All but flat! What timing! No sign of a puncture per se…..so a full pump…and it seemed to be holding. Fingers crossed!
Only 30km to Aachen..Google said…but Google kept tempting us off the old railway..so it turned out to be at least another 45km to Aachen..staying on the wiggly route! The day just kept getting longer…!
In the wet!!
To be fair..it cleared up! The sun shone briefly …
We pedalled on…
And then just 4km short of a planned longer stop at Aachen….looking forward to a dry coffee etc….the deluge started!! Probably the heaviest rain I have ever biked in!! No shelter!! Two minutes in…the rain had crept everywhere. Five minutes in…& we were just soggy!! (..even soggier than before!). Thunder..lightning….a deluge!
We stopped under a bridge!!
We were sopping wet..and cold! The wetness had got everywhere…again!
We had to keep going to stop the shivering!!
…crotch-squelching….to Aachen Cathedral!! For coffee…!!
It did indeed take a while to unthaw!! (..actually Corey didn’t!)
…& then the sun came out!! All over!!??
Celebration!!
So we set off again…only 33km more to our overnight in Maastricht in the Netherlands! (I needed to take Corey back to his roots….for interestingly he has two sets of grandparents from the Netherlands..one on his mum’s and one on this dad’s side!…ie they both married kiwis!)..
Sun? No kidding!
….drying out we were…again!…
….and another ‘weather bomb’ hit. Actually just torrential rain…just two minutes down the road!!
We were a seriously soggy mess for the third time today!!……
As we pulled into a relatively dry Maastricht!
Phew!!!!!!!
To a very unusual hotel! …”The Social Hub”..part student hostel ..part quite fancy hotel!!
It was great though….just to arrive!!!!!!!
This is what we saw of Maastricht (prior known to me only as the name of an EU Treaty!!…)….
And I rather liked the name of the beer we enjoyed!!
More than one gulp…as you will know!!
Ps…I asked for hot sauce with my pizza. And it was a really seriously chunky hot chilli sauce! Cory spooned it on!! I dribbled a bit on (plenty!!)
After a visit to the loo…..he left to find ice cream!!!!! Haha!
I discovered the roof top bar at our hotel!!
To celebrate really!! I think the two of us have done really well…to have survived a full 250km of really very miserable sogginess!!
But we’re still smiling!
(..actually after too much chilli… and ice cream…Corey might not be!! Probably better than protein powder though…haha!)
