Fair Weather Bikers

We woke up to dreaded sound of heavy rain again. We packed the bikes and prepared for the off. We had discovered that Nig's brake problem was caused by a dodgy brake lever and we bodged a solution by sticking a small stone in the adjuster and securing it with bodging tape.

Jane, with the help of our German friends Anke and Nette, had found us a Hein Gericke in the town of Freiburg but we had a decision to make. We could either go 30km back south to near Basel and then join the motorway to head north to Freiburg or we could go 20km north. The tricky thing was we'd been told that morning that on the road we were on there was rain south and snow north!

Nig decided that he could manage going north with his sunglasses and neck-scarf protecting him from the elements, but said he'd pull over and we'd turn back if it got too much for him. So we set off north.

To start with it wasn't too bad, the rain even eased a bit, but then the road got really twisty and we started climbing. Up and up we went until we rounded a corner to see snow on the next hill. We hit the snow line and still the road continued to climb. When we reached the summit it was snowing heavily and the roads were very icy. Then the road began to descend steeply with lots of very tight bend (read u-turns). I thought climbing was bad enough - but going down a very steep, twisty road in icy conditions is far worse. The cars behind weren't helping either - harassing Nig who was at the back - trying to overtake and undertake him at stupid points - he needed all his attention and as much room to manoeuvre as possible and did not need them idiots distracting him.

Eventually, and with much relief, we got to the bottom and then onto Freiburg. We stopped at the first petrol station in the town and asked for directions to Hein Gericke. Luckily a bloke in the petrol station told us we could follow him to the shop. Once there Nig managed to get a new lid and lever for 60 euros - an absolute bargain! Daz bought himself some waterproof gloves.

We decided to continue north to try and escape the weather. It didn't work - the rain was relentless and at the next petrol stop we decided to push onto Mainz. It was a hard ride but by the time we got to Mainz the weather had cleared.

By this time we were all thoroughly fed up with getting wet and being cold so we rang P & O and asked if we could re-arrange our ferry to get home early. They said we could get on the Saturday ferry but it would cost us £120 to which we agreed.

We had a nice meal at the restaurant near the site and a quiet night.