Cycling from Rotterdam to Cologne on the EV15

rollingscone

As Mrs Rollingscone has begun to develop a tentative fondness for cycling I was looking at setting a mid year goal next year of a short touring holiday in a safe un-intimidating environment which also satisifies her backpackers urge to go to strange cities and look at things.

So I raised the prospect of some credit card touring of the Netherlands, which she was interested in (the idea of no interacting with cars), so now we're looking at doing a sub 300km route from Rotterdam to Cologne; and I was wondering if you good gentlefolk might have any experience or advice about the EuroVelo routes and light touring in general.

Specifically:
- Realistic daily ranges (pretty sure that even by next summer Mrs RS won't be cracking out the metric century every day).
- Accommodation considerations - it'll be hostels or budget hotels all the way, what's the bicycle security situation with these?
- The route, is it boring?
- Bicycle logistics - would we be better off hiring or flying in?

bambergbike

I haven't done Cologne to Rotterdam. I have cycled along the Rhine around Cologne (up as far as Krefeld/Duisburg and down as far as Mainz.)

Whether you find it boring or not will depend on what bores you and what holds your interest. If you want to connect a series of city trips by bike and aren't madly into scenery, the route should do what it says on the tin - lots of chugging along through peaceful rural(-ish) areas in a largely car-free environment with few junctions. Traffic = overtaking barges only to have them pass you again while you're stopped having an outdoor pub lunch on a quay. Interesting city stops, but not so much by way of fascinating, constantly changing views in between - you could get a bit sick of the sight of looking at a very large river placidly flowing through very flat fields. (I can remember cycling against the wind along the lower Rhine and the lower Elbe: the view changes only agonizingly slowly and you feel like you're not making any headway.)

If you want to combine leisurely cycling with more dramatic and varied scenery, either for the sake of the scenery itself or just for the sense of progress that you get when the views keep changing, then you need to pick a downhill and/or flat route that follows a river through hills without going up any. You still get to SEE hills (and to tick off landmarks - castles on hills, churches on hills, towers on hills.) The lower Rhine doesn't tick this box - the river just flows along in its plain. The middle Rhine is more scenic and valley-like:

The romantic Middle Rhine is a river valley straight out of a picture book, with precipitous cliffs, steep vineyards, a castle perched on virtually every hilltop and pretty villages lining the river banks on either side. Myths and legends abound here, such as the story of Loreley, the beautiful siren of the rocks. The scenery is the stuff of dreams and villages and towns like Bacharach, Boppard, St. Goar and Linz epitomise the charm of this remarkable area with its rich cultural heritage. UNESCO has recognised the importance of the region by designating the Upper Middle Rhine Valley a World Heritage area.

So my suggestion would be to do a day along the middle Rhine, and then hop on a train with your bikes and chop a few km off your route to skip some boring bits downriver (I can certainly recall boring bits between Düsseldorf and Duisburg, for example.)

Or - and at this stage I'm just playing Devil's advocate - you could pick a different river valley altogether. Practically every river in continental Europe has a bike path running along much of its length, and if you choose your route carefully enough you will find gentle gradients and flat routes even in the Alps.

It might be more motivating to cycle along an entire smaller river (the Lahn, the Ruhr, the Meuse) than along a small section of a bigger one where not much happens in terms of changing landscapes.

If you do want to stick with big rivers: I would personally be much more tempted by Prague to Dresden (along the Elbe) than by Cologne to Rotterdam along the Rhine. That said, while I have enjoyed what cycling I've done in the Czech republic, the infrastructure there is not uniformly up to Dutch or even German standards. You could also consider the Danube - maybe around Wachau - for a combination of interesting landscapes with reasonable cycling infrastructure.

Finally, if you want to forget about rivers altogether, you could cycle around Lake Geneva, or Lake Constance, or Lake Balaton ...