Bikepacking 2025 - Selestat to Selz

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Today's Route

Route So far 

Travelogue 

Oooh la la (as a French lady literally said to us yesterday), what a day!

Yesterday we'd gone to bed wondering if our trip might be over. M2's bike had lost an important retaining screw and her whole left crank, peddle and all, had fallen off. You'd think this a minor thing because surely any bike shop would have such a simple part. Ah but then you don't know bikes, my friend! There's a distinct lack of standardisation in the bike world and manufacturers do like to reinvent the wheel over and over. Sometimes literally!

We'd been told of a bike shop in the town by the campsite that might he able to help. But it doesn't open until 2 pm on Monday. M1 had found a couple of other possibilities on the internet and one opened at 9:30. 

Our next campsite was 110 km away so getting back in the road asap was important and we have an Airbnb booked in a few days time so we didn't want to get behind schedule. 9:30 sounded much better than 2 pm therefore.

So, we walked into the town, pushing our bikes, found an open boulangerie and had breakfast. 

M1 then cycled out of town to a large Intersport and sat outside waiting for them to open. It was a 10 minute bike ride away which would have taken 30 minutes to walk, pushing the broken bike. M1's mission was to find out whether or not Intersport could help. 

They could not. They did have an in store bike repair service but they didn't have the part. Curses.

M1 cycled back to the campsite and joined M2. We waited until about 13:30 and pushed the two bikes into Selestat and found the small bike shop that had been suggested. M1 went in. The place was a real bike shop. Crammed with bikes and tools. 

The mechanic was really friendly and spoke great English. He said he thought he might have the part we needed but wasn't sure. He invited us to leave the bike and return in half an hour.

We did just that and were delighted to see his smiling face and thumbs up! 

M2's bike is fixed. We're back in business.

We'd decided that fixed or not, we'd take the train to Strasbourg. If the bike wasn't fixed, we'd have more chance of finding a well equipped bike shop in a large city. Alternatively, having lost more than half a day, cycling from Strasbourg to Selz would be feasible.

So, we biked to the train station and somehow got the bikes to Platform D. M2's bike fitted in the elevator. M1's did not. Somehow M1 carried The Mule with all bags attached both down and up a big flight of stairs! Must be all the camping mush. It works like spinach does for Popeye apparently!

The train journey was dull and slow but we made it to Strasbourg.

From there the cycling should have been easy. It was more or less flat all the way. But it's been shockingly hot all day. 39 Celsius showed on the Thermodrop at one point. Mid-thirties most of the time. To make matters worse, we cycled into an exhausting headwind the whole time. It was like cycling uphill for 50 km.

But we made it and we're still on schedule! The campsite is by a lake and we're one of only two tents.

We'll leave France for Germany tomorrow.

Photos

The bike shop that saved the day/trip
CEM 67 on 6 Rue du Foulon, Sélestat,

Fixed bike!

Strasbourg 

Bikepacking 2025 - Basel (CH) to Selestat (F)

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Today's Route

Route So far 

Travelogue 

This morning, we left Basel, cycled roughly north and within minutes had left Switzerland and entered France. 

Our route was a good mix of roads, paved cycle paths, and gravel trails. We crossed farmland, passed through small, largely modern towns and occasionally cycled by a canal. The Rhine was largely absent.

About 15 km from our destination, we screeched to a halt outside a very nice looking restaurant/ cafe and ordered ice cream with fruit and Chantilly cream and cold drinks. The ice cream was the highlight of an otherwise nice but unspectacular day. And it would have been the key event of the day except that...

... Literally a couple of hundred metres from today's campsite, M2 disappeared. M1 cycled back around the most recent bend to find her pushing her nameless bike and..... Holding one of her pedals in her hand! "It just fell off!" she said.

M1 looked and found the retaining bolt/screw thing had vanished.

DISASTER!

Quite possibly, yes. At the campsite the guy on reception told M1 there was a bike repair shop 5 minutes away (on foot) but that it would not be open until 2 pm tomorrow. Today is of course a Sunday.

M1 researched and found an Intersport a 10 minutes bike ride away or 40 minutes walk. It opens at 9:30 and some branches of Intersport do bike repairs.

So, the plan is for M1 to cycle to Intersport tomorrow on The Mule and ascertain whether or not they can help. If they can, he'll cycle back and then walk M2's bike to Intersport. If not, we have to wait until 14:00 for the other shop. If they can repair, we'll have to cycle into the evening and tomorrow is a 65 mile ride. If they can't, it's back to the drawing board.

It's all part of the adventure.

It's all part of the adventure.

It's all part of the adventure.

:-)

Photos

Bikepacking 2025 - Rest day in Basel

 

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Route So far 

Travelogue 

We're taking a rest day in Basel having now cycled almost 1,000 miles. We didn't cycle quite as far in week #3 as in the previous two weeks but we made up for this by doing lots of climbing, especially in the Alps. Meanwhile, having put the Alps behind us, assuming this meant we were in for easy peasy cycling from then on, to our surprise it's not all been quite so simple. There have been steep hills and a headwind to contend with and the result is, we're pretty tired. So rest is the order of the day.

But so is tourism. You can't come to a place and not take a look around, can you? So we started our day with a self-guided walking tour that took us a couple of hours. The streets and houses in general are pretty but there are highlights like the Rathaus, the former parliament building and the munster, as well.

M2 particularly liked the Tinguely Fountain. She has a thing for dancing fountains :-)

We saw people floating down the Rhine, often with their flotation bags that also hold their clothes and possessions. Our Airbnb host had explained this tradition when we checked in yesterday. He even pointed out that the apartment was equipped with one of these flotation bags so we could give it a try ourselves of we wanted to. M1 had muttered something about exhaustion and drowning and it wasn't mentioned again, but it was good to have the practice explained. 

Almost next door to our apartment is a fountain which we walked past today. Our ever helpful Airbnb host had explained that bathing in Basel's fountains in a hot day was very much the done thing and sure enough, yesterday right up into the evening, people were sitting in the fountain, sometimes with a beer. It's a very chilled place. 

This morning, the streets were quiet and the fountains empty though.

After finishing our tour we crossed the Rhine on one of the city's ferries, anchored to a cable that spans the river and powered only by the currents. It was a very tranquil experience.

We're now relaxing for a few hours but we'll probably venture out this evening.

Status

How are we doing?

In short, we're doing well. Our route as planned is just over 1500 miles long and we've cycled over 900 miles along the route (actual distance cycled varies because of detours, e.g. to campsites).

So, it depends what rate we progress at now but if we progress in the way we did in our first two weeks, we could be as much as a week ahead of schedule. This will give us opportunities later on, perhaps.

This week we cycled in no less than four countries, as well. Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria and Germany! Borders are relaxed affairs and we sometimes didn't even know we'd crossed into another country!

Solar Power 

As previously reported, a solar panel has been brought along for this trip. M1 is super impressed by it and running an experiment to see how long his heavily used smartphone and his Suunto watch can be powered from the sun. 

The solar panel charges a Belkin 20000 mAh battery pack / power bank during the day and other devices are charged from the battery. So far, the battery pack have not once been charged from domestic electricity and has only been replenished using solar power. This is amazing. It's now 21 days since M1's phone was plugged into a wall socket.

The experiment will continue. Hopefully we'll continue to enjoy sufficiently sunny weather for solar power generation!

Mobile Blogging 

M1 started this trip attempting to blog using his smartphone only. This was not always easy and for a while had been abandoned in favour of a return to using his trusty Chromebook which has been a faithful companion on all bikepacking trips so far.

But alas! Said trusty Chromebook is perhaps not long for this world. Yesterday, WiFi would not switch on and it looks like the wifi adapter component has failed. We can still watch movies on the Chromebook but in most other respects it is now useless. So, mobile blogging is back and so far, going ok.

Photos