So we knew the bikes were pretty average, but over the course of this bike ride we FULLY appreciated just how shit they were!
We caught the train from Lux City to Troisvierges (pronounced 'Twaa-vee-air'), that was easy because it was a sunday morning, also only cost us 2 Euro each for a ticket. Troisvierges is where the trail begins (If you go the direction we wanted!). It's a 132km rail-trail with a lot of history behind it due to the proximity of so many countries borders. We had planned to ride approx 35-45km a day. Should be a breeze. no.
The moment we reached the start of the trail we hit a 10% gradient. On decent bikes you'd piss up that without breaking a sweat, however we quickly learnt that Julie's bike (a fixie) was only mildly possible to ride on gradients up to 4%.
We lucked out though by riding the direction on the trail that was more downhill than uphill.
We pushed through on day one and after 35km arrived at our destination, St. Vith. We stayed at the Jugendherberge (Youth Hostel) in which we were the only occupants. This place was massive and built in a square formation with a grassy area in the middle, so it felt very creepy walking around at night.
Ate some Italian for dinner & treated myself to a Belgian beer when I realised we were in fact in Belgium! Side Note: It will be interesting to see how many times we eat cuisine that are not authentic to the country we are visiting.
Day two was a planned 42km trip to destination Monschau, it didn't look to harmful gradient-wise but still appeared to be the hardest day on our bikes made of bricks. After about 12km, I realised that my front tyre was giving up on me. The tread had ripped down the middle and the tube was bubbling out of the rip. Consensus was to keep riding until the next town (Waimes) and find a bike shop. No bike shops in Waimes, fuck. Tyre blew up on the ride out of the town... The only option left was to ride the remaining 28km to Monschau on a flat tyre, so that's what I did.
The banging of the flat tyre destroyed my wrists and loosened up all other bolts on the bike. This forced me to do some bush mechanics, but in the end we made it to Monschau.
Upon arriving at our Monschau-Hargard Hostel, the owners immediately attacked the task of fixing my bike! They ended up driving us to a bike shop, helped translate, buy the new tread & tyre, provide tools AND help replace everything! It was just the best thing anyone has done for us all trip. I would not have been able to fix it without their help.
The hostel was occupied by a school full of children but it was fine and I was too happy to let niggly things like that annoy me! A note to anyone else wanting to stay there on the ride: It's about 3KM off the Vennbahn trail, 1.5km downhill, then 1.5km uphill. Hostel is also situated about 1km uphill from the town.
I forgot to mention the old bloke we met and asked directions off before we got to Monschau. He did not speak a lick of English but proceeded slowly describing instructions to get to our accom. He knew his shit. I'm now led to believe everybody in this town is awesome.
Went down to the small but beautiful old shanty town for dinner & got a 3-course meal for 12 Euro!
We were ready for Day 3 (29th) of the ride, despite our really sore bumholes. We knew today was the longest ride at 47km, and we knew we had a hard start uphill, but we also got about 25km downhill which was just awesome after the last painful 2 days.
We still arrived at Aachen pretty wrecked but we had made it! This city was another good looker, it had Germany's first UNESCO world heritage listed Cathedral, a large university and a lot of cool streets, shops & buildings. Had some Lebanese food at AKL. Huge portions, cheap price. Julie ate so much she felt ill the rest of the night.
We caught the train from Lux City to Troisvierges (pronounced 'Twaa-vee-air'), that was easy because it was a sunday morning, also only cost us 2 Euro each for a ticket. Troisvierges is where the trail begins (If you go the direction we wanted!). It's a 132km rail-trail with a lot of history behind it due to the proximity of so many countries borders. We had planned to ride approx 35-45km a day. Should be a breeze. no.
The moment we reached the start of the trail we hit a 10% gradient. On decent bikes you'd piss up that without breaking a sweat, however we quickly learnt that Julie's bike (a fixie) was only mildly possible to ride on gradients up to 4%.
We lucked out though by riding the direction on the trail that was more downhill than uphill.
We pushed through on day one and after 35km arrived at our destination, St. Vith. We stayed at the Jugendherberge (Youth Hostel) in which we were the only occupants. This place was massive and built in a square formation with a grassy area in the middle, so it felt very creepy walking around at night.
Ate some Italian for dinner & treated myself to a Belgian beer when I realised we were in fact in Belgium! Side Note: It will be interesting to see how many times we eat cuisine that are not authentic to the country we are visiting.
Day two was a planned 42km trip to destination Monschau, it didn't look to harmful gradient-wise but still appeared to be the hardest day on our bikes made of bricks. After about 12km, I realised that my front tyre was giving up on me. The tread had ripped down the middle and the tube was bubbling out of the rip. Consensus was to keep riding until the next town (Waimes) and find a bike shop. No bike shops in Waimes, fuck. Tyre blew up on the ride out of the town... The only option left was to ride the remaining 28km to Monschau on a flat tyre, so that's what I did.
The banging of the flat tyre destroyed my wrists and loosened up all other bolts on the bike. This forced me to do some bush mechanics, but in the end we made it to Monschau.
Upon arriving at our Monschau-Hargard Hostel, the owners immediately attacked the task of fixing my bike! They ended up driving us to a bike shop, helped translate, buy the new tread & tyre, provide tools AND help replace everything! It was just the best thing anyone has done for us all trip. I would not have been able to fix it without their help.
The hostel was occupied by a school full of children but it was fine and I was too happy to let niggly things like that annoy me! A note to anyone else wanting to stay there on the ride: It's about 3KM off the Vennbahn trail, 1.5km downhill, then 1.5km uphill. Hostel is also situated about 1km uphill from the town.
I forgot to mention the old bloke we met and asked directions off before we got to Monschau. He did not speak a lick of English but proceeded slowly describing instructions to get to our accom. He knew his shit. I'm now led to believe everybody in this town is awesome.
Went down to the small but beautiful old shanty town for dinner & got a 3-course meal for 12 Euro!
We were ready for Day 3 (29th) of the ride, despite our really sore bumholes. We knew today was the longest ride at 47km, and we knew we had a hard start uphill, but we also got about 25km downhill which was just awesome after the last painful 2 days.
We still arrived at Aachen pretty wrecked but we had made it! This city was another good looker, it had Germany's first UNESCO world heritage listed Cathedral, a large university and a lot of cool streets, shops & buildings. Had some Lebanese food at AKL. Huge portions, cheap price. Julie ate so much she felt ill the rest of the night.
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