Category Archives: history

bikepacking, bikes, Europe, GPS, history, travel

The hills may be getting bigger

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Well, my commandeered verandah may have kept me dry, but it was a rather broken night’s sleep. I still couldn’t manage to get away before nine – but when I did, I changed course south to cut across the bulge in Switzerland encroaching into France. I was off-road and with the overnight rain things were decidedly muddy. Quite by accident, as I approached the Swiss border I happened across Kilometre Zero – the start of the Western Front in WWI. At that time, before Germany had lost Alsace at Versailles, the German-French frontier was here with the Swiss to the south. The ruins of the German defences were still visible. The Swiss Army had recently reconstructed the wooden fort that they used to keep an eye on the belligerents.

I turned to the road for a while before laying my eyes on a ridge above the valley to the south. This whole time it had been overcast with just enough drizzle to mean that the jacket had to stay on – but with the warmth, the rain trousers didn’t last long. I followed a double-track gravel road to the top of the ridge – it was pretty steep and took me through seven and then eight hundred metres. There was a tiny ski field at the top, but a missing sign sent me on a big loop downhill and then I had to recover quite a bit of altitude – a little frustrating to lose an hour, but hey ho.

There was a big plunge down to the River Doubs, it was rocky, slippery and all kinds of good fun to ride down. It’s times like these that make it nice to have a mountain-bike with big knobbly tyres on such a tour – I do spend quite a bit of time off-road now that it’s drier than the Ardennes. Trying to get a few miles in for the day, I followed the river down the valley to St Hippolyte – a rather nice little town that had a potable water supply outside the information centre (many fountains seen so far today were non-potable) and provided the day’s bakery stop.

Every village has a church and it’s usually the most obvious thing to take a photo of – this one before the first big climb of the day.

The valley from which I climbed.

And into the Doubs valley.

St Hippolyte

The only way out of St Hippolyte, in the southerly direction I was headed, is a really big road climb – my biggest yet that took me up 400 metres on a rather busy road. After giving him a head start in town, I hauled in another cycle tourist – he for some reason had two rear panniers, a bag on the handlebars and a trailer usually used for towing children with who-knows-what in it. That some people manage to find so many things to take on tour continues to baffle me – he really was breathing heavily.

I read somewhere, it doesn’t seem believable, that this area was where the first pack horses were bred. This one certainly had a great deal of stockiness about it.

At the top of the hill it did seem that I was up on a plateau – maybe this is what Adrien was talking about. Through a mixture of roads, forestry roads and mountain-bike trails I continued south. Stopping in Le Russey for dinner I got chatting to a couple of mountain-bikers that were just heading out on their weekly club ride. I was tempted to join them, if I could find somewhere to store my rear bag, but truth be told I was too tired from the day’s climbing. For only the second time this trip I had hauled myself and my load (small compared to some, admittedly) through over two thousand metres of climbing. I didn’t last long after dinner before finding a camping spot – I hope my tent stays up as there’s been a strong southerly all afternoon (which was delightful), it’s just started to rain and the stony ground here was not at all receptive to tent pegs.

Oh, if anyone can tell me what these little towers are for I’d be most interested. I first noticed them back in the Ardennes, they were larger there. I thought first perhaps they were fire lookouts (always in forested areas), but they are much too short. The one on the left is tiny, the platform is barely a metre off the ground; the one on the right is more of a normal size for around here.

bikepacking, bikes, city, Europe, GPS, history, travel

A Strasbourgian Birthday

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I’ve a hour or so up my sleeve while I wait for a train to Basel – yes, a train. But I’ve been convinced that the cycling from Strasbourg to the Basel/Mulhouse area is none too exciting and while pleasant, the ride from Wissembourg to Strasbourg was enough of the flat Rhine valley to see. From there, I think I’ll skirt the French-Swiss border through the Jura range – if I can handle that & whatever the weather does – and somehow get over/through the Alps to Aosta in NW Italy.

As mentioned, Saturday’s ride into Strasbourg was not too thrilling – pretty flat (only a hundred metres of climbing in over ninety kilometres) as I paralleled the Rhine upstream. A lot of it was road too, with not many dedicated cycle routes to be had. It rained quite a bit, but nowhere as bad as the torrents that fell from the sky in Belgium. As I was sitting eating my lunch, through another shower, I saw a couple of Italian flags flying past on the back of touring bikes. Eventually I caught up to Giorgio & Nora sheltering under a shop awning from another shower. From Umbria, they were a week into their honeymoon cycle-touring from Amsterdam back towards Italy – I think they were sick of the same weather that I was.

While we mostly conversed in English as we shared the ride into Strasbourg, it was fun to try out what Italian I can remember. Just as we approached the city, there was a cycle-path off the road and this one was most definitely riding along the top of the Maginot line – it was raised like a stop-bank for the river, but every couple of hundred metres there was a concrete bunker/pill-box. I bid my Italian cycling buddies arrivederci as we neared their campground and I my first warmshowers.org experience (like couch-surfing, but for cycle-tourists).

Adrien greeted me warmly, we managed to get my bike in the elevator up to the sixth floor (29” wheels are almost a bit much for small European elevators) and I even got a loaned a pair of house shoes (slippers) for my stay. Thankfully, Adrien graciously let me stay an extra night to what I initially proposed – this meant that I could have my birthday completely off the bike – and cooked me dinner and made tea. Like a lot of border town/cities around here – Strasbourg has at different times been German & French.

More TPHS history classes here: Germany lost Alsace (the region of which Strasbourg is the largest city) and neighbouring Lorraine back to France after Versailles, I’m unsure how many times before the area has changed hands. So there is a big German influence in the city’s buildings and language. In fact, Adrien is a primary school teacher and he shares two classes of six to seven year olds with another teacher – he teaches in German, while the other teacher teaches in French (I think I’ve got that correct). But Adrien is from Brittany, so not a native German speaker – but then Europeans do so much better at learning languages than Kiwis.

I slept well on a proper mattress, slept-in & missed birthday calls from family back home, returned said calls, slowly got organised and headed into the city for a leisurely look around – snacking regularly on various baked goodies. A climb up the cathedral (also called Notre Dame) tower was the most strenuous my day got – but 330-odd stairs take a little effort. As it was Sunday, there were only really tourists around but the city gradually woke up and was nice to walk around looking at the buildings and canals. I sat writing postcards, finally, with a beer looking up at the cathedral.

I did enjoy looking at all the steep roofs from the cathedral tower.

The view from Adrien’s apartment

Upon my return Adrien & his mate had returned from a couple of hours of road riding to the west towards the Vosges. I had suggested that I take him out for dinner as thanks and also for my brithday – but he was keen to cook crepes and somehow with the help of his ex-flatmate, it turned into a dinner party of nine. We rearranged the kitchen and living area to try and hold nine people and then Adrien dragged out his crepe hot-plate, for want of a better word. Bretons take their crepes seriously – this hot-plate was a 30th birthday present and it was hefty, weighing in at eighteen kilograms! That’s getting up there with my loaded bike. A vast amount of batter was made up, with buckwheat flour – this is best I’m told and gradually people started arriving.

Over a few hours the crepe hot-plate was in constant use and over good conversation (although I was lost whenever it strayed from English, which was often) and three bottles of champagne a most memorable birthday was rounded off. Somehow during the course of the evening my named morphed to Brian – to which there is only one answer. “I’m not Brian!” – of course that is slightly wrong with the negative, but it’s always surreal to me to be discussing Monty Python with people from foreign-speaking countries, for some reason.

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Adrien with the tools of the trade

By the time I ran a few errands this morning (another kilogram shed from my luggage and rear bag structure now more secure), it was getting close to noon – Adrien has definitely gone out of his way to accommodate me. What a great stay and a nice break from the bike (only two weeks in), thanks Adrien and au revoir.

bikepacking, bikes, engineering, Europe, GPS, history, travel

Volklingen Iron Works

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[Content Advisory: Here follows a gratuitous amount of industrial history, associated photos and general talk of ironmaking. If that doesn’t interest you, too bad – it was the highlight of the trip so far. Yes, I know that that is quite sad.]

When I chose my camping spot for the night, I did not realise there was a chiming church clock just the other side of the river. Or a building site. Still, I slept well enough and had a pretty good gauge of the time each time I awoke. Eager to see it, or with nothing better to do, I was first through the gates at Volklingen Iron Works. I was quite nervous about leaving my bike unattended for so long with only a lock that serves only to thwart the opportunist thief. But the attendant assured me that it was quite safe, I suppose you don’t get a lot of thieves frequenting industrial museums early in the day. By the time I returned three hours later, there were many more bikes around – so mine was less conspicuous.

When they shut the plant (six blast furnaces and much more ancillary equipment) down in 1986, they really did just leave it. I couldn’t believe how much there is to see – I was fascinated and even though the multimedia presentation wasn’t in English, all the signs were, so it was easy enough to understand. You could wander around an awful lot without barriers getting in the way – obviously some areas are off limits as the platforms and walkways have decayed over time, but work continues. Donning a hardhat, you could even climb through forty-five metres of height up stairs (brought back a lot of memories of getting around the NZS Iron Plant) to the charging floor and then go even higher and get amongst the off-gas system.

The explanation of the process was very well done, and only later on in a hall under the burden room did you get to read/hear a few stories of what it was like to work there. I would have liked to have seen more of that – at one stage in the sixties, some 16000 people were employed making iron. Incredible to think; although each blast furnace only had the daily capacity of one NZS Melter (of which there are two). Well, obviously I loved my visit there – as shown by the fact I took so many photos. I will let some of them tell the rest of the story.

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Hoist controls in the inclined ore conveyor machine room.


I’d noticed these two hills the night before – completely different to any others in the region. I should have known that they are slag heaps from almost one hundred years of operation.

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Charging floor – the cars on the monorail used for feeding the furnaces.


Top of the inclined conveyor.


Off-gas system, part of.


Still an industrial town


More off-gas system.


The hood that is raised to charge five cars at a time into the furnace – there is another such bell cover further down to prevent the furnace gases escaping.

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Nature taking hold at height.


Work continues all around the site still – I was surprised by how much exactly. All to broaden the areas accessible to visitors.


Metal tap hole


Mud gun – used for closing taphole


Slag taphole

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Coke ovens – coke side


Coke ovens – machine side


Inclined ore conveyor, built in the 1910s – took the sintered iron ore up to the charging level. The main reason the plant could not be expanded to compete in the 1980s by making the furnaces larger (taller) is that this conveyor could not be heightened.


The charge cars used on the monorail system.

After all that excitement, the time available for riding was cut back substantially. It was a very easy eighty-odd kilometres. Mostly following the Saar upriver, stopping at a bakery in France somewhere before following the Blies upstream back into Germany. This turned into an old rail trail, sealed as they mostly are, so was rather quick – well, for my bike. There were many people out riding beside the river all afternoon. Which would be why there were multitudes of beer gardens backing on to the cycle routes. I stopped in at one for a drink and what turned out to be a strange rectangular pizza-like dish – very white & runny cheese, much onion and pancetta.

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The signs I’ve been following for three days.


A glorious evening to be out riding – sun setting on fields just cut for haymaking

Tomorrow, I should make the town where the TransVosges MTB route starts – it’s only fifty kilometres as the crow flies, but after my northern Luxembourg experience that could be quite hard work, although it’s not as hilly around here. I’ve enjoyed the last two days’ riding with no rain and occasional warmth; a bit of rain has fallen at night, so my tent is wet again – but, hey-ho. Hopefully the TransVosges has had a chance to dry out – I’ll shall have to see if it’s suitable for me.

bikepacking, bikes, engineering, Europe, GPS, history, travel

Deeper into the Saarland

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After a particularly poor night’s sleep, I was taken aback to find it almost nine o’clock before I got up. It was a still and clear, but very chilly, start to the day’s riding. I had better luck finding villages with open shops – so much so that first lunch was at 10.30. I think that I didn’t eat enough for yesterday’s 115 km – more bakery stops required. It was more of the same sealed trail through farmland – much easier to appreciate in the sun. Every so often I do remember to take a photo just so that I don’t forget it all in many, or a few, years’ time.

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While the scenery is nice, it doesn’t thrill me the same way as riding the North American West does. Thoughts throughout the day return to the still vague possibility of riding Tour Divide 2015. While I’m beginning to realise that open-ended solo bikepacking might not be best suited to me – I’ve always loved riding singletrack unencumbered and with good mates, not much of that is happening here – a crazy undertaking such as the Divide would be quite an achievement to work towards and be lighter-weight bikepacking with more of a purpose…

As I dwell on this the route enters forested areas much more and as, I assume, there are less tractors to churn up the paths they are now gravel and that is much better. I see a lookout ahead as I approach the top of a climb, the GPS shows two small lakes below it. I was rather underwhelmed. A big disused mine, a large power plant in the distance and some other factory off to the left.

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All through this trip so far I’ve been trying to remember much that I learnt about where I am from various high school and university history classes. I think, I’m sure someone will correct me below if I’m wrong, that the Saar was lost by Germany at Versailles and that was a blow as it was an industrial powerhouse – with coal and iron, & therefore steel predominating. I’ve noticed that I’m missing researching a bit about the areas I’m visiting beforehand – the reasons for this are twofold: 1) I don’t really know where I’m going until I get there and 2) I’ve such irregular internet access, such research is not possible to do on the fly.

In one small town I spied a collection of new MTBs on display down a driveway. It was actually a very small bike shop. I stopped ostensibly to look at what bikes might be popular in Germany. While the trend for e-bikes (bikes that electrically assisted, mostly uphill I think) has been around for a while, it is a little concerning and bewildering to see the popularity of full suspension e-MTBs. While I was there, I mentioned the little bit of play that had started to develop the day before. I was in luck – the guy had the correct one in stock, so I had it changed then & there.

Past Saarbrucken was my goal for the day, but only ten or fifteen kilometres short I was on the outskirts of Volklingen. The trail board mentioned an old steel works that had been preserved after the blast furnaces closed in 1986, I could see it not far away – I couldn’t resist taking a peak as I’m a sucker for industrial history, steel in particular. It turns out that it’s so well preserved that it was the first industrial site to be given UNESCO listing as a world cultural heritage site. Well, I just have to see this properly – but as it was closing for the day, it will be tomorrow – which puts everything back a couple of days. Oh well, it’s not like I’ve got a schedule.

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Being a steel town, I can’t say I was surprised that the centre was pretty dead and difficult to find somewhere suitable to eat. It was a little unnerving to ride under a rail-bridge that I’d seen torpedo ladles of molten hot metal roll over a few minutes before. The bridge held.