Short but sweet

It was a cool start, only ten degrees, but the hills soon warmed me up. The route was 30 km and I have discovered that I cycle at about 16 kph round here, so I estimated about two hours cycling, which turned out to be about right.
Once I had climbed out of Hillesheim, the route followed an old railway line. Various signals and levers for changing points were left in place for my entertainment. I was just thinking that the easy cycling along new tarmac was all very well, but not really very exciting, when my route dived off across a field track (or what was once a track, a few decades ago) which was the very opposite of smooth and required quite some concentration. After a kilometre or so, that came to an end, and I headed off up a gravelly farm track (a perfect surface) going up a very long (3 km) hill. Its average gradient was only 4%, but it was up to 10% in parts.
I was now heading west, along the top of my loop, through nice forest. At one place, I saw a deer with small antlers, not far away.
The track came out in Lissendorf and then I headed east across the fields in the direction of Hillesheim. After a few kilometres of that, I veered off to the right and found another hill to ascend. This was on tarmac (albeit old and broken up). To my left was a hedge, or at least I thought so until I looked closer. It turned out to be an old sunken way, at least five metres below the surrounding area, all grown over with trees and shrubs and quite impassable. It went on for a considerable distance. Amazing that this ancient landscape element has not been filled in by the farmer.
By then, I was almost back at the cottage, so it was just a short ride before I was back, in time for coffee.Read more