What a difference a day makes, a good nights sleep after an easy days ride and we all felt fresh. We left at 11am, not early, but we are not an early family. We found a good bike track to Dormagen where we stopped for our obligatory ice cream. Just after Dormagen we joined the Rhine path for the first time and we plan to stay on this all the way to Basel, about 500k. Route finding should now be very easy and the vast majority of the route is on cycle paths.
We stopped before Cologne for a picnic lunch, there were now lots of cycle tourists, most seemed to be camping and there were a few young families with kids on tandems or in trailers. In cologne we visited the cathedral which is enormous and very impressive. Chris, Sarah & myself went in first, it was glorious sunshine when we went in, then a storm arrived from nowhere with strong winds, heavy rain. Divine intervention?
For the rest of the days ride it rained lightly, but was not cold. Rachel did not even bother with her raincoat. She is the best person to follow as she rides at a perfectly constant pace, always picking the best line around the potholes, she even puts her hair in a pony tail without slowing. She is also still taking 2 panniers, with Paula only having one and Sarah and Kate none at all. Chris and Kate have a series of "intermediate sprints" Kate attacks from nowhere, gets into a time trial position with her forearms on the handle bars like David Miller and just hammers it. When chris is about to catch her the "sprint" is declared over and Kate goes through her array of victory celebrations ( usain bolt, mo Farrah, Peter Sagan etc). Sarah has also found the cycling easy and is cruising along.
We crossed to the East side of the Rhine and found accommodation in Bad Honnef as darkness was drawing in. A great day on the bikes.
Today's stats
Distance 103.8k
Time 5.23.21
Average speed 19.2kph
Climb 237m
Total distance 701k
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