We decide to continue on the Moselle river south through France for the time being. The bike paths are quiet, there are no streams of E-bikes like there are in Germany, and the people we do pass are really friendly – not only does everyone greet each other, but even when we’re just sitting on a bench making a sandwich passersby call out “bon apetit!”
My saddle is still not comfortable, and I’m also getting some pain through my wrists and shoulders, so I make some tweaks to alleviate that. There’s some immediate relief, but with less pressure on the handlebars I can feel something is very wrong. The front wheel is loose, and it’s not the quick release so it has to be the hub, and that is potentially a major problem. We head for the city of Nancy, as we don’t have the tools or the knowledge to deal with a broken hub.
The surface of the bike paths is incredibly smooth in France, even on the canal paths. It’s something we’d commented on earlier in the day, and is good news for looking after my wheel until we can get it fixed. In the afternoon the bike route ends where a bridge is being repaired, and there are no diversion signs. We try a path running parallel. It’s across grass, but there are well-worn car tyre tracks, so it must either lead somewhere or it’s a popular dogging spot. It gets rougher as we go, but Richard is the world’s most risk averse person, so when I see him carrying on ahead I know we’re good to go. If this was the UK I would be more worried and just assume the track will end in a pile of dumped mattresses and fridges. The track leads to a thicket of nettles with a ravine the other side. Back we go, over the bumpy grass, the worst possible thing for my front hub. As we bounce along my GPS informed me that this is the almost appropriately named Avenue Foch.
The following day we make it to the city of Nancy. The mechanic at the first bike shop we visit tells me the hub is broken, can’t be fixed and I need a new one with a wheel rebuild, and the parts are non-standard and will take a while to order. The last part is definitely true, but he very clearly doesn’t want to help so I’m dubious whether he’s just fobbing me off by making it more extreme than it actually is. The next shop the guy could not be more different. It’s a weekend, so we’ll have to leave it with him for a couple of days, but he’s enthusiastic, knows what the problem is and clearly wants to fix it. Richard takes the opportunity to get his gears tuned as well. When we collect both bikes we are charged less than £30.
We have a brief dalliance into The Vosges to the south, before realising that this is folly. We don’t yet have the legs or the lungs to be climbing on narrow busy roads without stopping. It doesn’t seem safe, so we re-route back onto a canal path and decide to cross the range at a different, easier, point instead.
The first day across country is really remote. We get caught in sporadic heavy showers and manage to shelter under trees in others, but it makes the day really long. We arrive at the only campsite for miles. It is mostly overgrown and full of abandoned caravans, with a smattering of permanent residents who glare at us when we say hello. The toilet block is grim and terrifying. And I just know I’m going to need the loo in the middle of the night and not all the lights will work, and it turns out I’m a prophet.
We make a really early start to escape the camp, and are treated to the sight of lots of rare wildlife continuing along the river. A deer jumps out in front of Richard, we see herons almost every day, an otter, Purple Hairstreak butterflies and wall lizards as it starts to get hotter. Some of the towns as we enter Alsace are beautiful; it’s an area I’d really like to go back to one day.
The next day offers the biggest climb we’ve had since leaving the UK, so we’re keen to fuel up beforehand. Nothing is open. We go through quite a large town; two restaurants, a cafe, a salon de the, a mini mart, all of them are inexplicably shut. Fate intervenes by providing a pizza vending machine, but there’s nowhere to sit and eat it so I strap the box to my bike and we head for the hills.
We manage the climbing comfortably, and at the top is a picnic table and some amazing views, so I settle in to eat my pizza.
As we descend it starts to get really cold, the wind is picking up and the weather is closing in. Richard’s hankering for a coffee, so we circle round a lovely town at the bottom of the hill to find a cafe. The only thing open is a bakery that doubles as a small shop and also a post office. There’s nowhere to sit and no obvious coffee machine, but the staff bring us out big mugs of filter coffee, and also point at a man leaving the bakery and say “also English!” This isn’t true, but the visiting American comes over to chat. He’s from Manhattan, a far cry from this very sleepy rural place in France. He is visiting family here; his father and uncle fought in Operation Overlord, both landing at beaches in Normandy. One brother stayed in France, one returned to the US. People have been friendly in France, but it is nice to have an in-depth conversation, and so we linger. He ends up doing us a huge favour. Leaving town it starts to rain, and when it gets heavy I bail out and head for a forest service road. Richard eventually circles back to join me as the heavens open. Had we not stayed and chatted for so long, we would be out on the open road with nowhere to shelter. We huddle deeper and deeper among the trees as the downpour continues for an hour.
We set off again and join a bike path by the former canal. There were once a ladder of seventeen locks which allowed the canal to cut through the Vosges mountains, but in 1969 an inclined plane (like a lift for boats) was built and the canal diverted to that. The locks and the original canal gradually went to seed, and though many of the lock houses are still abandoned, some are home to sculptors and artists and others to impressive gardening projects, all set against pink sandstone rock faces. It’s the most incredible day of cycling we have had so far. We rejoin the main canal and it’s beautiful, cutting through a lush valley of spruce forest, in an area open only to non-motorised vehicles.
It’s been a few really long days though, and I’m almost out of my mind with tiredness. We stop for the day at a surprisingly cheap motel, where we have the best beer of our re-booted journey, and get to try some local specialities instead of cooking for ourselves.
Our last two days in France are a real slog. It’s a public holiday weekend, and while those have never been a problem in France, they are a real issue in Germany, and we are right by the German border. We have a long day to get to a nice town with a great (and cheap) campsite where we hope to spend a couple of days. They squeeze us in for one night, but then we have to move on because they’re full. On the plus side, there is a Breton galette food cart on site, which not only serves both sweet and savoury crepes, but also great cider. The following day we’re turned away from another campsite and end up making it to the outskirts of Mulhouse and a cheap motel in the rain. The towns we wanted to stay in are gorgeous, so it’s a bit disappointing.
We’ve been a bit directionless across Europe. We’ve really just used it as a training ground to rehab Richard’s knee and to get some fitness back before we do something more challenging. Our original idea to ride across the Baltics would have given us more to aim for, but we had some freezing nights in the tent even much further south, so I don’t think it was the wrong decision.
We booked our flights out of Europe a couple of weeks ago, leaving plenty of time, so we thought, to do one of the national bike routes across Switzerland. The days getting my bike fixed and some more days lost to rain put paid to that. We do criss-cross the German/Swiss border a bit, but we are more-or-less heading directly for Zurich.
We still have another month or so that we could be in Europe for. But it’s becoming too familiar, and doesn’t seem as much of an adventure now as it used to.
A playlist for the ride:
Ride & Seek 
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