Middle-aged flash packers

Oh the humiliation!

Decided to hire some bikes and go cycling today. This area is very well set up for cycling – lots of riverside routes that are flat.

We went to the cycle hire place which, bizarrely, was also the car park public toilet!

The couple that run it are a Thai lady and her German husband.

Although we started off talking to the husband it soon became clear that Thai Lady was the boss. (I’m going to call her Lilly from now on.) she took one look at me and said,”Bike too big! Franz, get kinder bike!”

Franz went off for ages and eventually came back with a young girl’s bike. Luckily it wasn’t pink all over with tassley things hanging from the handlebars but it was still a child’s bike. Swallowing my pride, I got on it. It was the perfect size.

“You wan basket?” Lilly enquired.

We said yes as we had quite a heavy rucksack with 2 litres of water and a picnic lunch beside it. So Franz fixed it to MY bike!! 

Lilly nearly wet herself laughing but we left it on anyway as we wanted to get on our way.

Steve asked Lilly for some advice re which cycle route to take but she just laughed and said “any one you wan” . Very enigmatic if a bit unhelpful. I love Lily.

So off we went, heading in the direction of Trier, some 50 kilometres away. Our aim was to ride in one direction until 1pm then turn back and ride on the other side of the river.

There was some low cloud around but it soon burnt off, revealing a beautiful sunny day. We pedalled away, enjoying the exercise and the scenery. You can really do a lot of kilometres quite quickly – a novelty after walking everywhere.

We had a couple of stops and ate our picnic. 

Eventually we passed Piersport (very famous wine place) and went on to the next town. We noticed that there seemed to be a long break in the path on the other side of the river. We decided the best thing to do was turn back, cycle on the other side where we could and when we got back to Bernkastel, carry on towards Traban.

Thank God we turned back when we did. What started as a bit of bum ache from a hard bicycle seat became a burning, impossible to ignore, arse agony. To make matters worse, we were riding into the wind. 

Steve didn’t seem to be suffering as much as me so I tried to be stoic, but after a while I saw him start to lift himself out of the saddle at every opportunity. My suggestion to stop and have a beer was met with even more than usual enthusiasm.

 God was looking down on us as the hostelry we stopped at had squishy cushions on the chairs. Heaven.

I broke the news to Steve that my backside had come to the end of its tether and we needed to take the bikes back and no I wasn’t going to complete 80,60 or even 1 more kilometre. He took the news well and we rode our bikes back to Lily and Franz.

Lily roared with laughter and hugged us both when Steve used his non-existent German and miming skills to explain why we were back so early. Giddy with the relief of never having to sit on a bike again, we headed off into town for a giant ice-cream then back home for a nap – lying on our fronts.