Friday 29 July was the day. At 8 o'clock we boarded the train in Delft.
Transfer in Eindhoven turned out to be the same platform; seas of time left. In Venlo, the lift to get off the platform turned out to be broken. No escalator. Take off the luggage, bring it down, carry the bike down, pack it, walk in the tunnel. Elevator to the top occupied and seemingly very small. Riedeltje again, but now up. If you are on platform 1, sprint to platform 1a. Unfortunately: The train runs away in front of us. Next train is in an hour… fortunately, we can afford that. Transfer in Duisburg was spacious and so was the bicycle car(!). Only he was delayed by 5 minutes. Conductor thought that this would be caught up. Not so. Finally 1/2 hour delayed From Mannheim to Karslruhe. Wait an hour or take an earlier train and accept an extra transfer? We chose the latter…
That train turned out to be a bit full… Even the rear wagon already had quite a few cyclists on board and so we ended up on the balcony with front wheel against one door and rear wheel against the other. Fortunately, there was a kind of wagon coach who, after some consultation, moved people and bicycles in such a way that we could still reach them. In Offenburg we had a big change to the train that we would otherwise have taken in Karlsruhe … where there was room …
In Mulheim it turned out that work was being done on the track to Mulhouse. Buses would be used… Then cycling; it is only 20km and flat. At 11pm we arrived at the (booked a few weeks earlier) hotel to the station.