August 10th – Oberwesel to Mainz

We once again took it very slow down the hill from the Youth Hostel, stopping a number of times to let the brakes and rims cool. Today we were trying to get tickets to a soccer game in Stuttgart. This turned into quite an adventure. Tickets for the VFB Stuttgart game went on sale the morning of the 10^th. We tried a number of times to get through but had a difficult time. As expected, soccer tickets are in high demand. We tried a number of times. Most times the call would not complete. Every 5^th call, the call would complete and we would be placed on hold. After a few minutes, we would be kicked off hold and we would have to start over again. After about 30 minutes of trying, we finally got through to the ticket line. Everybody did a little dance as we were finally talking to a person. I gave them my American address and they said that they could not send the tickets there. I asked if I could pick up the tickets at the stadium and they said that this would also not work. I was so shocked that they didn't offer ticket pick-up that I didn't know what to do. I hung up deflated. A few seconds later I realized that I could have had them sent to my relatives in Heidelberg. We tried to call back but we could not get through. Eventually we used up all of the money on the prepaid cards. We tried to use a pay phone but could not get through at all. Eventually we gave up but at this point it was after noon.

We ate lunch and started on the remainder of the ride. Usually by lunch time we have 20 or 30 kilometers completed but today we only had five. It was going to be a long afternoon. We started on our ride and had to decide on our path. In this area, the Rhine has bike paths on both sides of the Rhine and you can choose which side to ride on. The paths are not always equal however, sometime one side is asphalt and the other is dirt. Sometimes one side is under construction and the other side isn't. You rely upon maps and word of mouth to determine which side of the Rhine is best. As it turns out we choose the wrong side of the Rhine on this day. There was a long section that was dirt, a section that was under construction with poor detour signs and a very tall bridge with steep on and off ramps. All this added to our ride time. At least Mainz was flat so we would not have too walk up a long hill to reach our accommodations.

We arrived in Mainz and got close the our accommodations. Both tandems had separately rejoiced in the fact that Mainz was flat and that they would not have to climb a hill to get to our accommodations. We found a Youth Hostel sign and this pointed directly up a hill. While the hill was not really bad, both tandems were distraught when we were faced with any hill at all.

In the evening a decision was made to halt riding for a few days and take an alternate mode of transportation to Heidelberg. Rhine boat was the preferred method because of the view and the ease of loading tandems onto the boat. Trains were secondary because we were not sure how our tandems were going fit on the German rail system.