Neuschwanstein was out of the question. So it's been a relief to finally get a chance to ride on a sunny day in Germany, and stop being "the woman not on her bike."
I usually don't post self portraits because my arm isn't long enough to hold my smart phone out for a shot that doesn't capture me looking like a crazy mess of helmet hair. But this one isn't too bad.
To ride in Cologne I've left my specialized bike clothes in the hostel. No one wears a bike helmet here, and most women seem to ride sturdy "step through" bikes in their Capri style trousers and high heels. So, to fit in, I'm wearing a knee length skirt over my bike shorts and a cotton shirt that, because of the rain and cold, hasn't seen the light of day for nearly 2 weeks.
All of the places on this signpost aren't on any map I have with me. I got a free "Radfahren im Rheinland" map from the Cologne Tourism Office, and I should have just ridden a piece of Route 24, the 120 km RheinRadweg, which I think is one of the EuroVelo routes that passes through several countries. However, according to the signpost I'm on R19, which certainly isn't the Route 19, the "Panorama-Radweg Balkantrasse", which is the one on my TI map. If I'm in the Balkans, boy, am I in big trouble.
I get the feeling that the various German states make up their own bike tour numbering system. So much for being the EU.
Anyway, like Frankfurt and Munich, the sidewalk is paved in a different color brick, here it's red bricks laid lengthwise, to segregate the bike lane from the pedestrian lane. There are combo bike/pedestrian traffic lights telling you when it's safe to cross the tram tracks and the street. Generally speaking, both pedestrians and cyclists behave themselves, as do the majority of drivers. Twice I've seen cyclists take on cars that are crossing bike paths with insufficient attention. In one case it was a blind spot situation, which, while unacceptable wasn't deliberately provoking; in the other, the driver wasn't paying attention, and deserved the reaming out they got from the cyclist. Still, I wouldn't risk taking on the right hook cars like the Kolners do. After all being dead and in the right isnt a good deal. I'm still marveling at how much attention pedestrians pay to cyclists here. This isn't America, folks, not even bike friendly Seattle.
Biking along the Rhine here is flat and pleasant greenspace meandering, with terrace cafes and happy hour always at hand. There are properly cambered bike/pedestrian ramps up and down all the bridges here, and cobblestones are generally in good repair and blissfully short in duration when they intersect with a bike lane. The bike lanes in central Cologne are more narrow than in Munich, but with care, quite rideable.
As in every place I've been, the bike racks outside subway entrances and the Hauptbahnhof have a lot of dead bikes still chained to them. Flabby flat tires, bent wheels front or back or both, rusted solid chains. I'm surprised that the Germans haven't created a group of bike rack monitors, dressed in neat uniforms and armed with bolt cutters, to keep the bike racks as tidy as everything else in Germany.
Perhaps they'll get around to addressing this shortcoming once they've instigated better anti smoking laws.
Still I guess the smokers self select eventually. As I was riding up and over the Sudbrucke, I had to dismount and walk the 2nd bend in the walkway as I got stuck behind a portly local, winded by the first hill climb. I figured he was a pack a day sort of guy. Poor SOB, out ridden by a middle aged woman from America. Life is not fair.
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