After riding 2 months through Japan in autumn of 2017, I am now back in Europe, working... but still riding on my brompton whenever possible. Currently this is mainly in the Netherlands, close to home. But hopefully other countries will join the list.

Tuesday 31 August 2021

TdE - Day 18 Miltenberg - Bad Mergentheim

Route: Miltenberg - Main - Wertheim - Tauber - Bad Mergentheim 
Distance: 93 km
Elevation: 442 m
Duration: 5:04 h
Weather: cloudy, more sun in the afternoon, 19 C


Today I moved from the relatively big river Main, to the much, MUCH smaller Tauber. The day started in Miltenberg, with some old buildings and then I quickly hit the Main. 

When traveling with my father from Frankfurt to Bayreuth (where he worked many summers in the festival orchestra), he used to explain me during the trip all the different rock layers. It seems that around Miltenberg there is the layer of red sandstone to judge from these pictures. 

Midway through to Wertheim, there was this castle and it wasn’t the only one today:


The kilometers until Wertheim passed pleasantly but without other outstanding views. In Wertheim however I took a longer break. First to buy a new cycling shorts. With the current bicycle related shortage I was lucky to find a well fitting pair at a local cycling shop. I needed a new pair as one of the shorts I brought, has a loose seam in the chamois and I think it creates some unpleasant friction. Not what I need!

After that acquisition I went (literally pushing up - and later DOWN) to the castle above the city, where I enjoyed the view and lunch on a balcony above the city,

Wertheim was also my goodbye to the Main and up the Tauber I went. And while there wasn’t a lot of ship traffic on the Main (less than what I had expected at least), the Tauber is a small river. Probably the smallest I have been riding along on this entire ride. Definitely smaller than the Sauer

Being a smaller river the valley is also different. Sometimes much narrower and generally less flat. So I did have quite some ups and downs to master today. Which I did. If I remember correctly the only time I pushed the bike was up to the castle in Wertheim, which had a crazy incline (e.g. 14 % according to Komoot). 

Along the way there were several nice small towns/villages:

One of them, Tauber Bischofsheim, a town that for me is very famous for its sports school for fencing. Not sure if all Germans know about it and think it is famous, or if you need to be of a certain generation or just have a strange liking for fencing… At least for me it sounds like the place where all the German fencing legends trained. I haven’t done fencing myself nor have I any connection with that sport, but I guess I liked it when watching the Olympic Games. And it helped that Germany was very successful in fencing, at least back in the day. 

An other quick stop I made on my way was at this abbey with a nice small garden in front. 

The day concluded in Bad Mergentheim with my daily wash, this time also including the bicycle which got very dirty yesterday. The hotel didn’t want me to wash it on their premises but instead recommended a car wash, which turned out to have a very long hose and no one seemed to bother that I was using it for a bicycle not a car. While I don’t wash the bicycle every day, I do wash my cycling clothes daily… and then need to find innovative ways how to dry them.

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