We leave for the Eurovello 15 Rhine route in a weeks time! We have 3.5 weeks available to cycle from source to sea. We are experienced at bike packing trips, but normally 3-4 days in the Scottish wilderness or 10 days credit card touring in Italy. This time we are taking camping kit (though will mix in occasional hotels/air bnbs) and 2 pannier each (plus a bar bag) for the first time.
We booked the travel about 8 weeks ago, to try and break the cycle of my poor mental health and burnout that put me off work since Feb (and forced a career change). Since then my Dad had a cancer diagnosis and underwent major surgery. He’s doing well and the family are very keen we still go. We have a pile of stuff on the spare room floor, a flight out and a ferry home, the first 3 nights booked…and that is it! I only came home from my parents again yesterday and we haven’t had time to really think or read up on anything. Any tips/pointers/advice of the Eurovello routes or views of things we might not have packed, are welcome.
Sounds like it should be a good trip. Pace yourself and take breaks during the day to eat and drink.
Rivers are nice to ride alongside and you are riding it in the downhill direction so you should be able to freewheel all the way to the sea 😉.
I look forward to some pictures and updates 🚴
Have you got good mapping apps for the ride? If not I can dig out the ones I used. I found eurovelo routes sometimes to be slow to ride - a mix of them sometimes going a long way for a short cut and poor surfaces / crowded.
How random are you prepared to be? I never booked ahead for campsites as I like the freedom to change my mind but sometimes I had to muck around to find one with space. What I did was start looking for a site mid afternoon. Other folk like to have everything booked up in advance.
Take spares for anything unusual and breakable on the bike. Common spares will be easily available. Carry a couple of links of chain and a couple of spare quicklinks as a chain breakage will leave you stuck ( its the only repair I needed apart from punctures in 4 months riding) Cables tubes etc are easy to find
Keep the weight down. Every gramme counts. Don't take too many " just in case" items. Make sure you have room in your luggage for food for the day. Make sure you have the ability to dry kit on the bike while riding - what I did was to wash the days shorts and t shirt in the shower each day and dry it on the bike the next day while riding. I took 3 sets of shorts and t shirts.
thnk carefully about pedals and shoes. If you are riding in SPDs can you walk in the shoes? sometimes flats are better IMO using approach shoes so you can both ride and walk in the same shoes and you don't need a second pair
Have fun - IMO bike touring is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. don't over think it. read Dervla Murphys books 🙂
I've done EV15 from Oberalppass to Cologne. You'll really enjoy it. The only suggestion I have is to deviate from the main route between Basel and Strasbourg by taking the Alsace Wine route which is prettier and more interesting that that section of the Rhine. Colmar and Strasbourg are especially nice and the villages and towns are very picturesque.
Followed the Rhine route the other way from Rotterdam to Strasbourg last April with my son and loved the trip. Be prepared to deviate from the route at times, either because the flood banks that the path runs on are being repaired (reroutes are well signposted, usually) OR because you find it exposed to wind, or just for a change of scenery. We used Cycle Travel app, seemed to work ok.
We booked guest houses/hotels each day, rode until about 2pm and worked out where we'd be getting to at about beer time and booked online. We didn't have camping gear as back up, but perhaps being April we never had a problem finding accomodation. The cicerone guidebook is useful for planning where to find food, accommodation etc. , you're welcome to ours if you don't have it already.
It's often not the most "scenic" route, often industrial, but I quite like seeing the whole country, the living working river is fantastic. Duisburg was like Motherwell was 30 years ago! I think the upper section, that we missed, is more picturesque.
Gratuitous photo opportunity....
There are plenty of campsites along the way and all seems to have a policy of accepting cyclists without bookings. We rode it in summer holidays and it seemed curiously quiet, we really didn't see too many bikes on the route.
3 nights booked - that sounds well organised! We never had a booking, and as nealc says, campsites always seem to make room for bikes even if they look full. Not having bookings means you can pace yourselves depending on how you feel, short day required - look for campsite nearer. Feeling good, go long.
Enjoy the ride!
For mapping I highly recommend cycle.travel (that's the web address, there's also an app). The map makes it very easy to see Eurovelo and other cycle routes when plotting, but it will also favour these (and low traffic roads in general) when coming up with its own routes.
The only suggestion I have is to deviate from the main route between Basel and Strasbourg by taking the Alsace Wine route which is prettier and more interesting that that section of the Rhine. Colmar and Strasbourg are especially nice and the villages and towns are very picturesque.
I'd second this. I think it's EuroVelo 5 you can follow along this section which is beautiful. We cycled south via this route from Strasbourg to Basel, then back up the Rhine, and the southern leg was much better.
https://en.eurovelo.com/ev5/alsace-vineyards
I'd second Cycletravel as an app. I'm sat in Dublin train station on the next leg home to Arran after riding down from Rotterdam via Cherbourg. I didn't stick to EV4 but used quite a bit of it
Cycletravel was good for finding quiet routes but also useful for campsites along the way. Didn't book anything at first, but sites started to get busier as the month went on, so started booking something the day before.
Like TJ my only mechanical had been a broken chain, fixed with a quick link, but I did then go off route to source a spare chain, which I haven't needed but pleased I got it for peace of mind.
Don't push too hard or fast on the first few days, I did and hurt my knee, which at least forced me to back off for a while. I had to get myself into the 'its the journey not the destination' mindset.
Have a great trip!
Thanks all - this is exactly the sort of info and responses we needed. Very much appreciated. 3 nights booking was to make the logistics work with the trains as much as anything (well the first 2 were, and the 3rd was because it was a Saturday and I was pretty sure where we needed to be at that point). Good to know in general campsites weren’t a major issue.
We are about to spend the evening seeing if we can assemble the stuff that’s collected up on the spare room floor into something sensible; whilst taking into account TJs advice of not over packing (a real risk with moving to panniers!).
Rode downstream from Mulhouse to Strasbourg years ago, 2003. The novelty of crossing a bridge and being in a different country was fun.
Rode along the Main, slight detour and then wherever the Lahn River enters the Rhein all the way to Rotterdam around 2014 on a fixie. Don't do that. I was walking around like John Wayne in a shit cowboy film after the second day.
The Bodensee Radweg on the north side of Lake Constance is nice and the beer is cheaper than in Switzerland.
Camping in France is much cheaper than in Germany.
For a bike path that follows the Rhein it's surprisingly hilly in places. Think it was along the section with all the vineyards.
The surface was crap in places near Cologne, but I would think that's been repaired by now.
TJs advice of not over packing (a real risk with moving to panniers!).
My tip for packing panniers is this... Only put stuff that needs to stay dry inside them and stuff like the tent goes on top across the bags and rack. Your folded ground sheet then goes over the top of everything providing shelter for your gear if it really chucks it down (held down with bungee cords).
That said I've recently purchased a lightweight ground sheet for my tent which packs up small so I'd probably resort to using a piece of polythene too cover all my gear keeping it dry if it does rain.
I’ve just done a few days along the Main / Rhine / Mosel rivers as part of my Tallinn to UK bikepacking trip. The routes along the rivers are good with plenty of services of all kinds. There are approximately 1 million e-bikes being ridden by retired Germans per km so you won’t be lonely.
Get up early to make the most of the early morning cool and calm.
Keep an eye on the weather forecast and if there are storms forecast make sure you have somewhere to shelter (from orange-sized hail stones/flash floods/ falling trees etc.). The weather forecast is looking good: not too hot but the odd storm.
https://www.lachainemeteo.com/meteo-france/ville-12220/previsions-meteo-valence-aujourdhui
Take clothes to cover every inch of your skin if necessary, better than sun cream or insect repelant. A peak cap that fits under the helmet if it doesn't have peak.
Find somewhere cool for a siesta if you haven't reached destination by 14h
For mapping I use:
https://www.weserradweg-info.de/de/tourplanner/?cat=21896084
What are you calling the source? If it's Lake Constance/Bodensee then as you follow the Rhine down it is often the border Germany/Switzerland. And there are a lot of funny bridges with rooves that cross between the two, and there are some funny bits of each country on the wrong side of the river that are an interesting anomaly of Europe's strange borders back when.
The waterfalls at Schaffhausen is impressive and worth a watch and listen.
Further north, on the German side opposite the Alsace is the Kaiserstuhl which has some great wineries and a famous rosé wine spaetburgunder Weissherbst, worth it if the schedule allows
Following on from retrorick, You can split the tent, so one takes the fly and poles, the other takes the inner. Both roll up nicely in a sleeping mat and kive on top of the rack. Share other heavy stuff between you, so split cooker and plates etc.
Heavy stuff goes in the bottom of panniers, clothes higher up. Wrap clothes in plastic bags as an extra precaution vs rain
Oops that méteo link is where I'm going not where you're going, type in Colmar or something.
Thanks all. Years of tripping about and a love of stuff (and no kids!) means we are pretty lucky to have decent lightweight kit so things seem to be packing in well (tent is in a dry bag on top of the rack on @p20’s bike). EV15 Cicerone gpx files and the EV5 detour downloaded, plus the Cycle Travel app. Happy to deviate from the route but at the same time we just needed something that required little thinking this year. Still quite a lot of life admin to do (everything has been abandoned recently) but feels like we are a bit more on top of it. Thanks for the help. Will send updates on the journey in due course.
Just think of all the cake shops! Germany has so many decent cakes you'll struggle to find time to cycle.
Also if you haven't got it you can almost certainly get it within a day or so. Sports shops in every town in Europe IME.
If you think you've got too much stuff after a few days just post it home.
Don't worry too much about anything beyond the next cafe. Have a great trip.
Edit: apart from punctures, quick links and the odd spoke everything on a tour can be fixed with cable ties until the next bike shop.
Alsace, Colmar, Bodensee .. one of my favourite areas of Europe so far. Rode out to the Eurobike show a few times which was near Bodensee, always a really enjoyable ride. Cycle.travel is very good for this sort of trip. My only tip would be to try to stay out of Switzerland for lunch/dinner as it's expensive and you can criss-cross the border so often and easily there. Oh and Weissbier, lovely stuff. Maybe swimming kit for the many swim spots in the river. Would you go into the Schwarzwald / Vosges much? That's a really nice area but hilly once you're out of the river valley.
Enjoy!
Sports shops in every town in Europe IME.
Yes no problem to get spares, servicing or additional kit along the way.
In Switzerland if you are after supplies look for a Migros - probably the most reasonably priced supermarket.
And if you are in the Vosges there is always the Grand Ballon for your TdF climb of the trip