August 7, 2016
Saarbrücken to Bitche
Well, our destination begs for jokes, but history has beaten me to most, if not all, of them, so I will pass. It is only a 34-mile day and a Sunday at that. Two more days till a real rest day, although this one should not be too strenuous, only 2000 feet of climbing. However, it is mostly compressed into about 10 miles somewhere towards the end, so it may be steeper than one might think! We will see.
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In spite of last night's ongoing activities, we slept well. And we ate well at the hotel's breakfast buffet. The day was bright and beautiful, and we pushed off at about 11:00 AM, made our way through the festival grounds, and crossed the river to the bike trail we had arrived on the day before.
The music was already going strong at 10:30, and the crowds were gathering. And the bike trail was very, very crowded. And stayed crowded for many miles. We were on it as far as Sarreinsming, which sounds German but is in France.
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That almost took us to MP 15 and the first real climb of the day, a 400-foot ascent in about a mile's distance. That's about a 7.5% grade. It kept going up after that but leveled off some.
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Of course, we had been climbing since we left Saarbrücken, but at a snail's pace. We were going up river but only ascended 78 feet by the time we turned to leave the valley! And we must have passed 10 locks and associated canals. Boats seem to have it rough.
But the bike trail along the river is worth the trip alone! So if you're looking for an easy tour, consider a ride for its length. I'm not sure where it starts and ends, but the river is many miles long, starting far up in the Saar and joining La Moselle at Konz.
But as for us, we continued up for another six miles before "leveling" out on some sort of plateau. It was beautiful and expansive. We could literally see for many, many miles. On the far horizon were more hills (more like mountains), but I only knew I was looking (maybe) northeast and southeast. Hard to say where they were.
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We saw many other cyclists, including one touring group that we almost passed before they turned left and we went right. OMG, that led to our next big climb. It seemed steeper than the first, but we just geared down and went at it.
No granny gears today. Or yet on this trip. I am saving that for Switzerland! And while that second climb seemed to go on forever, it was more like 3-1/2 miles long with a few false tops. Good practice. From there it was smooth sailing to Bitche. Any climbing after those two was long and gradual.
I had planned our route to keep us off D620, so we were mostly on a parallel road to that one and then headed north of Bitche before turning south and entering the town on D962. That took us through a town called Schorbach and a nice river valley with quiet roads.
Today's ride: 35 miles (56 km)
Total: 347 miles (558 km)
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