Day 1

Within a few minutes of leaving Hillesheim, I passed a field full of Colchicum, autumn crocuses. What could be a better start to my gravel ride? It was the first time that I had taken my gravel bike into a hilly area, so I was intrigued as to how it would perform. Komoot promised me 630 height meters of climbing and a 'hard' route. Shortly afterwards, I left the asphalt and started going along an farm track. I had cycled along a lot of this sort of route with my mountain bike and was curious as to how my gravel bike would cope, with its relatively narrow tyres and no suspension at all. In short, it did surprisingly well. I did need to dismount once, for a very steep downhill where broad tyres and preferably a dropper post would have been necessary, but aside from that it did remarkably well. The farm track led towards a castle in the distance, Burg Kerpen. When I got close, the road was closed, so I had to divert through the castle grounds. It was good to see it up close, but at the penalty of having to carry my bike up a long flight of stairs. After going a little further, I joined the Ahr cycle path, which took me to the famous Dreimülen waterfall. Although the waterfall itself is man-made, the spectacular Crataneuron moss growing out from it is a purely natural. The chalk-rich water comes through its leaves, forming chalk deposits and so the waterfall grows outwards with the outer layer being living moss. A couple of tourists asked me to take their photo standing in front of it, so in return they took mine. They were rather disappointed to hear that I hadn't cycled all the way from Holland. I said that maybe I would do it one day, so they said that I should do it 'soon'. I guess looking at my grey hairs they thought that I should not wait too long. The stream leaving the waterfall had a nice patch of Mimulus guttatus (monkeyflower) with large yellow flowers. I think I last saw that in the Yorkshire Dales. Then onward along more delightful farm and forest tracks, interspersed with sections of asphalted cycle paths and the occasional short section of road. There were not many signs of last summer's drought, maybe it was not so bad here. There was one stream which was completely dried up. It had both a little bridge crossing it and a ford, neither of which were necessary today. Some juniper trees had astonishingly abundant berries, apparently they don't mind the heat so much. After the waterfall, the track headed north towards Uxheim, over a modern metal bridge spanning the entrance to a monstrous chalk quarry. Then up a long hill and over the top towards Dollllendorf. The Lampertstal did not have many flowers at this time of year; the odd Campanula, a few yellow composites and the odd Scabious and Knapweed as well as a scattering of Colchicums. I popped into my favorite patch of woodland on the south side of the valley to appreciate the huge old beech multiple stemmed trees. In the spring there are lots of orchids growing there, but nothing to be seen now. Then the track dropped down into the valley itself before heading up (uphill again) towards the end of the valley, where it came out in Alendorf. The route that I was following circled back on itself, and it was soon clear that that was because that was the only way to cycle up the steep track to the top of the Kalvarienberg. At 525m, the hill was the highest point in the surroundings, so there were impressive 360 degrees views. After that literal high point, my route took me back south again, towards Lissendorf and then finally back along a fast straight gravel cycle path, slightly downhill and with the wind behind me, back towards Hillesheim. I had expected to do the 51 km in 3 hours, but the difficulty of the route and the many photo stops meant that it took 3/4 hour longer than planned. It also turned out to be 810 high meters. In any case, a great start to the week.Read more