Day 4: Bad Bellingen (DE) to Strasbourg (FR)

Today I mostly rode north, on some flood control dam on mostly unpaved roads / tracks. Which was a bit boring. From time to time the route departed into the floodplain forest ("Auwald"), which was much nicer, though we have basically the same landscape in Lobau (~30 min by bike from where I live..). I saw a lot of waterfowl, but did not manage to take any decent pictures.

One highlight was having to pass a ford. Luckily a car travered it in the other direction just as I arrived, so I could gauge that it was not too deep. As the groud was slippery, I pushed the bike (I didn't fancy getting my laptop all wet...). The current was neglegible, so I stopped in the middle for some action shots, which did not turn out too good, but I again did not want to risk dropping the bike (and thus the laptop) (note to self: next time maybe do get the completely watertight Ortlieb panniers).

I had ice cream for lunch in some very small village, and the ice cream turned out to be vegan. With no (other) hipster in sight...

Crossing the Rhein at Strasbourg totally changed the atmosphere - obviously Germany and France are not as similar as Germany and Switzerland; or maybe this change is more about a big city vs small villages?

My bike computer says I did 137.93km in 6h16m, with an average speed of 22km/h. I have to admit the the high speed was not (mainly) caused by my mighty leg muscles, but because I have seemed to have rolled a natural 20 on the wind table, resulting in constant tailwind from the south. Part of this benefit was cancled by the unpaved roads, though..

Download GPX

Cycle Route 5028013 - via Bikemap.net