Now for the REAL tour

We have now started our tandem bicycle journey. After saying goodbye to Dani, Jochen and Sarah, we started out on our journey. We have generally been following bike trails identified in cycling specific maps that we bought from a bookshop in Stuttgart. The trails are also well signposted along the way, and are a combination of pedestrian/bike tracks, quiet single lane bitumen or paved roads, or unfinised vehicular tracks. Sometimes we have been taken through back streets of small towns, and once we rode on a section that seemed to have been built by the Romans (very bumpy). Since we have been riding near the Rhein and Neckar Rivers, many of the tracks have been on top of dikes. The bike has been going well, and our baggage has not proved too much of a strain (although we haven't encountered any real hills yet).

A summary of the bike tour so far:

July 4th.

Left Weinstadt and followed the Rems river to the Neckar north of Stuttgart. We stopped at Ingersheim for lunch and then rode on to Neckarsulm (just north of Heilbronn) to camp for the night. The route today was very winding and probably twice the straight line distance. We experienced lots of intermitant rain, and it was hard to know what the weather was going to do. 85km.

July 5th.

Started out hoping to reach Heidelburg, but when the rain started things slowed down. A heavy lightning storm hit us at one point, but fortunately we had a railway bridge to hide under. We made our way to Neckagerach where we gave up for the day and put the tent up in the rain. It rained nearly all day.
40km.

July 6th.

We woke up to more rain. We waited for a while in hope of the weather changing, but eventually decided to pack up and leave when we had a short break in the rain. We caught a bike ferry across the Neckar with many other touring cyclists at one point, and the rain started to clear up. Unfortunately most of the tracks we were following were dirt trails under tree cover, and so they weren't drying up. We, the bike and the trailer ended up getting pretty muddy. We even encountered a downed tree over the track that we had to carry the bike over - it seemed something didn't want us to get Heidelburg. We eventually arrived at a nice camping ground in Heidelburg.
40km.

July 7th.

A day off the bike. We explored the city of Heidelburg, including the large castle overlooking the town. We had spatzel and bier on the royal mile and enjoyed the nice weather.
20km (walking).

July 8th.

At the campsite in Heidelburg we met a well travelled Dutchman who was also travelling to Holland by bike. We left the campsite and immediately ran into issues as there was a wheelchair/handbike marathon race in Heidelburg. We travelled to Mannheim and joined up with the Rhein, then headed north and met with some cyclists that guided us to a ferry we needed to use. When we arrived the ferry was stopped for lunch, so we did too since there was a restaurant just there. The Dutchman we met earlier was also at the restaurant.
Once we got going again we often met up with the Dutchman along the way. He gave us a lot of advice with many useful shortcuts. We had a flat on the back wheel of the tandem - some glass we had picked up somewhere. We eventually caught up with the Dutchman again and rode the rest of the way to a campsite at Mainz. The biergarten was visited enthusiastically after a long day of riding.
110km.