The place that does not exist

You can get the measure of a town by the way it treats cyclists. At first glance this morning I think Dusseldorf is just not friendly, as we battle peak hour streets bottled up by garbage trucks. When we start to cross the Oberkassler Bridge so we can ride up the left bank of the Rhein, I really feel the unwelcome because the cycle lane on the bridge is closed.

But wait! They’ve actually closed one of the two outbound traffic lanes to make way for cyclists! So we ride over the bridge, untroubled by traffic, and turn onto what becomes a wide, red-paved bicycle superhighway for the next 15km or so. Now that’s nice!

On the advice of our semi-trustworthy (let’s say 60%) AI travel buddy, we decided to take the left bank, in order to avoid the concentrated industry around Duisberg. Well … I would have hated to the take the right bank, because we have a pretty intensive load of industry on our side. I only wish we’d had time to visit Chempark!

We knock out half the distance before navigation starts to go wrong. Because we decided at the last minute to take the left bank, we have no plotted route, so we’re relying on the EV15 signs. That turns out to be a mistake.

We stop in a grey little industrial town – a satellite of Duisberg, I think – to buy drinks and snacks at a grey little industrial town discount supermarket, and totally lose our way. There’s not a bike route sign to be seen, and we just rely on hope and a little bit of compass direction to keep us going. There’s a huge bridge crossing the water at, I think, Duisberg and we keep ourselves travelling relative to that.

When we’re reunited with the bike route the other side of the bridge, after a few twists, frustrations and U-turns, we stop at a Biergarten for sustenance. It’s hot, so we need cold drinks. The food menu at the Biergarten offers me a chilli sin carne, and even with misgivings about heavy food on a hot day when there’s still 40km or so to go, I order it. I can always eat half and leave the rest, right?

The chilli is delicious. I hoover it up, my body smiling at the lentils and beans.

It’s another thing when I get back on the bike. The lentils and beans sit like lead in my stomach, churning around while I spin my pedals and try to keep up with Neil. Then we lose the navigational plot again.

The thing is, we are going somewhere that nobody we’ve spoken to on this trip has ever heard of. And to make matters worse, none of the signposting (when we can find it) references Xanten. Are we even going to a real place?

We pull up at a bike path intersection on the top of a levee. There are signs pointing in three different directions, all with different town names on them, but none of them are Xanten. Which way then?

As happens only in these types of situations, a man is sitting there on a bench, out in the middle of nowhere. He says something, and of course we don’t understand him. There’s a bit of shoulder shrugging, and than he says, “Xanten?”

”Yes, yes!”

He points in the direction we’ve been heading, and our relief is huge.

This man, who could be a mirage, or a Rowan Atkinson style angel character, is sitting on a bench in the middle of nowhere, flying a drone that seems to have wandered out of sight, but he manages to send us off on our (correct) way. Thank you random man.

Our navigational woes are not yet over. We are pushed off the safe-looking, EV15-signposted levee by a detour. A really long detour, where there are no signs beyond the initial detour signs to reassure that we are still going the right way. We are off the levee and the river is heading further and further away. Our route should be right on the river!

We wander, hopefully still on the detour, into a small town and where Neil get some drinks from a vending machine. While we’re drinking them, seated on some park benches, the chilli in my stomach reacts to the gaseous cold Coke I’m drinking and I let out the most enormous belch. Never, ever assume nobody is watching! A senior lady walks past right at that moment staring at me as if I am as awful as I sound. I clap my hand over my mouth and try to find the German words to apologise, while giggling like a schoolgirl.

We’ve reached the time of day where we say screw it to the route. If we ever find it again we will have to ride along the winding curves of the river. We have an alternate, “up the guts” way, which will get us to the mythical Xanten in about 10km. It’s a no brainer. We take the beeline for Xanten.

Our beeline takes us on a bike path at the side of a busy road, where several hoons drive along as if they are on a German autobahn. At a small intersection a woman pulls out, not even looking at me and I brake hard to avoid her. She does eventually see me. Neil is riding a short distance behind me and when he gets within earshot I hear him talking about a four-ringed cyclist killer.

I don’t take much notice of cars. The car that tried to hit me … I had no idea, but of course it was an Audi. A four-ringed cyclist killer. Yes! A new name is born.

We reach Xanten, and what a lovely little town it is. Our hotel, the charmingly named Nibelungen Hof is really nice, but not air conditioned! Damn Europe and their non-air-conditioned hotels.

Xanten is the northernmost point the Romans reached on their escapades. There’s no real evidence of Romans in town, but there is an outdoor archaeological museum which, because of our navigational escapades, is near closing by the time we get to town.

Instead, we wander around the pretty little town, hunt down a beer and dinner and take a walk in the twilight. It’s been obvious for a few days that we are getting near the Netherlands – indeed tonight is our last night in Germany for this trip – and we find a Dutch-style windmill on the edge of town.

Stats for today:

• Distance: 78.8km
• Climb: 202m
• Average speed: 16.7km/h
• Average temperature: 27C
• Moving time: 4:43:22
• See our ride on Strava

The beer picture

At the end of a day’s ride, our tradition is to enjoy a beer, and to photograph it for posterity. Today’s beer picture was taken at an eis cafe in Xanten in the main square, with the oldest house in town barely visible in the background, and the huge outdoor screen broadcasting the World Cup.

Along the way today:

Click on an image to scroll through the gallery at full size.