Cycling through five countries in one day (April 2016)

Article from the Camcycle Newsletter 130, Feb. 2017. Der deutscheText ist hier zu finden.

I enjoy long cycle rides, and last year I found myself looking for a challenge combining technology (route planning and bike tech), sport and local culture. I am a keen traveller and was attracted by the thought of demonstrating what is possible with lower-impact transport, plus my love of languages and geography made crossing natural and national borders very appealing. So, I thought, why not set a cycling record in this context?
When browsing cycle-touring records in the Guinness World Records database, I found that at the time the record for the number of countries visited by bike in one day, held by Glen Burmeister from Leicester, stood at four. A look at the map of Europe indicated that it would not be impossible to cycle through five countries in a day. But that would be more than just a record that, the challenge would also be a test of the virtual and physical cycling infrastructure, such as cycle-paths, maps, and route-planning applications.
I decided to make my attempt on 22nd April 2016, which would also be Earth Day, the annual global day of support for environmental protection, and would also be the day of the signing of the Paris Agreement on greenhouse gas emission limitation.

Equipment

Since the tour would only take one day, it would be possible to travel light. I would ride my lightweight hybrid bike, which over the last ten years had been used for commuting, shopping, distributing Camcycle newsletters and pulling bike trailers. It had been tested previously in the Cambridge Touring Club Cambridge 200 km Audax. It was fitted with a luggage carrier, mudguards, and puncture-proof tyres. It also had a triathlon bar, something that I had learnt to appreciate on my longer commutes outside Cambridge, and which would protect against 'pinky numbing' (or Guyon’s Canal Syndrome). Generations of parts that had nearly worn out (or been damaged when a minicab crossed my path in London) were replaced, wheels, brakes, chains, gears and saddle. My front derailleur had been faulty for years, reducing the powertrain to a seven speed and preventing the option of shifting between the three front sprockets with the fingers. With regard to tools and replacement parts, I took only those necessary for very basic repairs/adjustments, such as fixing a flat tyre.
To track the route, I planned to use a GPS receiver, and a tri-bar mounted camera for photos (and occasionally films) of the road.  Originally I had planned to produce a time-lapse of the whole tour, but this was far beyond capacity of the camera’s battery life, so instead I decided that I would take photos manually every few minutes.
During my planning stage I also tested Cycle Tracks GPS, a free Strava-like tracking app for my smartphone, but this wasn’t suitable as it drained the phone’s battery within three hours. I also took with me a small portable power bank and a hand-cranked charger to recharge my gadgets if necessary.

Route planning

The starting point of the journey was clear from the beginning, it would be the 'Three Countries Point' on the Vaalserberg near Vaals, where the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany meet. After a few optimisation steps with Google Maps, I selected Évrange as my finishing point, somewhere not too far from Vaals, with overnight accommodation available and acceptable railway connections close to the French/Luxembourg border. I then added the local centres of Vaals, Aachen, Eupen, St Vith and Luxembourg City onto the map for food, shops, bike repair (if necessary), and people to witness my tour, e.g. in town halls and tourist information. All of these places are more or less connected with the motorway called European Route E421.
The detailed planning of my cycling route used the web-based applications Cyclestreets.net and the cycling mode of Google Maps. On Cyclestreets.net, the ‘fastest route’ included roads designated as ‘hostile’ to cyclists. Both the ‘quietest’ and ‘balanced’ routes, as well as Google Maps, favoured unpaved forest tracks over quieter roads, but these would add too much time to the overall ride: over 15 hours versus 11-12 hours for the fast route. Fortunately both apps were also able to find the car-free paths of the RAVeL network. The RAVel (Réseau Autonome de Voies Lentes) is a Wallonian long-distance path network similar to Sustrans that converts disused railway lines to car-free travel paths. It connects with other cycling networks, such as the LF(Landelijke Fietsroutes) in the Netherlands and Flanders, and EuroVelo (especially routes 3 and 5). My planned route was about 180 km long and would lead over Belgium’s highest point, but I also planned a second, less exposed but slightly longer route through the Ruhr valley in case of bad weather. Altogether, I used a combination of Google maps and, for the most part, the ‘fastest route’ of Cyclestreets as a guideline, since I would be using the ‘hostile’ roads out of peak hours.

The Trip starts

To get to the Netherlands, I used the 'Dutch Flyer' offer, which covered train travel from Cambridge via the overnight ferry from Harwich to Hoek van Holland, to Heerlen, the railway station at the other end of the Netherlands closest to the tri-countries point. My bike also a £4 ticket for the ferry, where there were about a dozen or so fellow cyclists, and for the Dutch (and Belgian and German) trains, where the bike storage areas provide a nice meeting space for cyclists.

I set off from Heerlen in my rainproof cycle jacket and jeans (unfortunately the lycra had been forgotten at home; thankfully all parts remained intact). I cycled past deserted border posts to the former Imperial City of Aachen, where I admired Charlemagne’s cathedral and enjoyed the street life and, to a lesser extent, the sulphurous smell of the thermal springs. I then crossed back into the Netherlands and cycled up the highest hill of the country (Vaalserberg, 322 m). It is here the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany meet (in addition to observation towers, there is also a maze there, but entirely on Dutch territory – imagine a maze crossing multiple borders without knowing!). Before World War I, this would have been a four countries/territory meeting point, as it would have also included the Neutral Territory of Moresnet, for which there were once plans to make Esperanto its official language. It is now part of the German-speaking part of the French-speaking part of Belgium through which the first half of the tour would take me. After a rapid descent of the Vaalser serpentines, I soon arrived at the Grunebempt B&B in Gemmenich, Belgium where I stayed overnight.

The Challenge

At 6.09am, shortly before sunrise, I began my journey from Gemmenich in Belgium. The weather conditions were very good, with 15° C, only a little sun and wind, and no rain expected until the next day. I traced my way back through Vaals and, via some excellent ‘Dutch Roundabouts’, then on to Aachen. Cycling on the verges of a rural road I travelled to Eupen, where I dropped into the town hall and was briefly interviewed by the local newspaper ‘Grenzecho’.

South of Eupen, the route climbed up the Ardennes into the desolate-looking, somewhat Siberian, landscape of the Hohe Venn/Hautes Fagnes (meaning ‘high fen’ in German and French). It is in fact a bog: the granite rocks underlying this plateau prevent rainwater draining away, leading over the millennia to the formation of peat bogs of sphagnum moss. The Ardennes have been a classic cycling region for many decades and a handful of racing bikers were on the road over Belgium’s highest point, the Signal de Botrange (694 m). This has a concrete staircase at its peak, which increases its height to 700 m, but I did not attempt that final climb by bike!

After the rapid descent I crossed the Robertville reservoir, followed a fast and very pleasant ride on the Vennbahn cycle-path, part of the RAVeL (Ligne 48). However, near St Vith, I met a dead end-due to construction work on the RAVeL (in hindsight I should have consulted the RAVeL website which has construction updates).

To make sure that my trip stayed something of an adventure, and to stay aware of the local environment, I had decided not to rely on GPS for navigation outside the towns, but instead followed a map and local signposts. This worked well on country roads, but near Oudler unfortunately led me onto gravelly forest paths instead of the Vennbahn cycle-path. After emerging from the woods, I crossed the unnoticeable border into Luxembourg and cycled up to a field where a half-readable plate identified it as the country’s highest point (Kneiff, 560 m).  Then once again I accidentally chose an alternative route, this time the E421 motorway towards Luxembourg city. Thankfully cyclists were well respected; in fact during the whole journey, I was only honked at twice (and once sprayed with windscreen wash, by a Stag Tour with UK number plates). Finally, near Erpeldange a sign commanded errant cyclists off the motorway and onto the more scenic route through the more densely populated valley of the Alzette towards Luxembourg.

The city of Luxembourg is situated above a dramatic gorge but happily by then the shops were closed and commuters were at home so my crossing of the high bridge over the Pétrusse was rather uneventful. I continued south along already very French-looking avenues, lined with trees in bloom, towards Thionville. When I approached the French border, the dashcam which I had set up to record the final approach ran out of battery. Undeterred I used my hand-cranked charger - it was very rewarding to generate such important electricity with my own hands. (Of course, this method is not as elegant as using bike dynamos for charging mobile phones as has been done in Africa for decades; I may invest in a hub dynamo when I buy my next front wheel).  With the camera once again active I crossed the border into France at Évrange around 8.45pm, just when the sun went down, and stopped for a photoshoot at the church.

As I searched for someone to officially witness my arrival in Évrange, I heard music coming from a nearby school. I went in, and was greeted by volunteers who were having a party whilst preparing for a charity event for the next day; a motor bike rally where riders go from door to door selling roses in aid of a local cancer charity. I joined them for a while before retiring for the day at the nearby hotel.

In total, I had taken 14 ½ hours for the journey. I had been in motion for about 8 ½ hours, and spent the rest of the time collecting signatures on the official witness forms, buying and eating food and generally just enjoying looking around and taking photos.

Heading home

Getting out of bed the next morning was easier than I had anticipated! Through the drizzle, which thankfully had held off the day before, I cycled back to Luxembourg railway station.  I dutifully sourced the local drinks and confectionaries that I had promised to export and then caught a train to Brussels, from where I took the Eurostar to London. The Eurostar also transports bikes, but for a price of £25, and they need to be checked in at the station (if you wish to cycle this route then follow the EuroVelo 5 Route). During my challenge I had travelled through regions that had changed hands several times and seen many bloody battles, reminders of which can be found throughout the area. Watching Calais whizzing past made clear that borders can still be a deadly reality.

Back in Cambridge, I overloaded the Guinness World Records website with hundreds of photos, videos and GPS tracks (I used the free GPiSync software to geo-tag photos via their timestamp). When I was checking for updates in June, I found out that my record had already been broken by the audacious Michael Moll who had cycled through six countries in a day, crossing the Alps, which I would not have considered possible – at least not with that powertrain. Not that this mattered when my Guinness World Record Certificate arrived in the post in September, and anyway, what is a record compared to the experience of a day when rider and bike had worked so well together in relation to their environment, so well in fact that despite all the physical effort I really had felt no exhaustion whatsoever.