Deutsches Tagebuch: Week 55: Riding the Kylltal

The Kyll river runs very close to where we live. The river valley (in German: Tal) also hosts the regional train and a bike path (link in German) that runs from Trier north about 115 km to Hallschlag. We had biked along portions of the path, particularly last summer when we had a visitor and on at least one other weekend. On those trips we just did out-and-back biking, without using the train. On this weekend we decided to use the train to extend our trip a bit.

On Saturday, we left the car at the Speicher train station and rode from there to Trier--about 32 kilometers via the bike path. A few of you may be asking--wait, don't you live in Speicher? Why don't you just ride your bike right to the path. And those few of you are indeed correct. We do live in Speicher, but we live on the top of the hill, above the river valley, so while it would be easy to ride down to the valley, getting back up there after a long ride is really not our idea of fun. Due to that, we strap the bikes on the back of the car and bring them the few kilometers straight downhill to the valley.

The ride on Saturday was quite nice. Most of the trail was in good repair, those about 5 or so kilometers of it near our destination was really beat up concrete and not the best for riding. We made it through no problem, but would probably avoid that section in the future, if possible. At the end of our ride was the city of Trier, which we have been to many times. We enjoyed a beer and some pizza before loading our bikes on the train for the 30 minute ride back to our car.

A mug of beer in Trier

On Sunday, we started in the same spot, with our car in Speicher, but this time took the train ride first, getting off in the town of Gerolstein--located in the Vulcaneifel and famous for its bubbly water. As we were on the train, we could see the bike path for much of the way and one section looked particularly nasty--all crushed stone and sand--due to some repair work on the road in the area. We discussed if it would make sense to avoid that section, especially since Jason's bike is more of a commuter bike and isn't the best on uneven surfaces, such as crushed stone. Even on my mountain bike, it wouldn't have been pleasant.

Well, we got off the train in Garolstein and worked out way south. between the town of Birresborn and Densborn, there was a big sign referring to the missing road section, which included a table of train times. We decided to ride to Densborn, where we arrived about 10 minutes before the next train headed south. We were planning on taking the train a bit further south--from Kyllburg to Erdorf--due to a very steep hill that is part of the route (at the bottom of the linked .pdf is a profile of the ride--note the hill between Kyllburg and Erdorf), so we stayed on the train until Erdorf.

At the Erdorf station, we had some lunch (Currywurst for both of us). In finding the path again, we rode through the train station parking lot and came across the 50 degree parallel. Wasn't expecting that there...

50 degrees North Latitude Line

From Erdorf, we then continued our ride back to Speicher. Part of the bike path went by a section of rode that we travel quite frequently. In this section, we found the sign shown below. The 25% grade is over my right shoulder. Despite requests for bike riders to please dismount, there was plenty of evidence that the guidance was not strictly followed. The steep grade ended at more-or-less a cliff that fell to a stream. At the top of the cliff, was a heavily reinforced, though quiet obviously regularly impacted, chain-link style fence. With a little less mature frontal lobe, I would have been tempted to try it out, but, alas, I am over the age of 25, so will generally think better of such acts. Unless, someone, of course, offers me a dollar...