One of the leading lights of the global movement towards giving greater priority to the use of bicycles as a form of transportation, Mikael...
Have you ever ridden your bike in Luxembourg City? In this article I’ll try to dispel common fears and myths about urban cycling, and show that...
Copenhagen cycling infrastructure – a wonderful thing I was struck by the huge number of cyclists in Copenhagen, and how relaxed, good looking and...
This trip was in my cycling plan already for a while, and a couple of days ago I spontaneously decided to do it. After going through my collection of...
One of the leading lights of the global movement towards giving greater priority to the use of bicycles as a form of transportation, Mikael Colville-Andersen, presented his vision of a new kind of city leveraging the huge benefits of the bicycle at a half-day conference held recently in Luxembourg that illustrated three very different concepts for a future of reduced car-dependence in the Greater Region.
The Mobility and Progress Conference (known in Luxembourgish as the Fortbewegung Fortschritt), was held at the European Conference and Congress Centre in Luxembourg’s Kirchberg quarter, presented by Verkéiersverbond, an organisation set up by the Ministry of Transport to coordinate the efforts of transportation service providers in order to improve public transport’s share of the “modal split” or relative share as the mode of transport chosen by the travelling public.
For those interested in promoting cycling in this car-besotted country, the appearance of cycling “rock star” Colville-Andersen, the founder of the Copenhagenize.com and CopenhagenCycleChic.com websites, and more recently, the Copenhagenize Design Company, was the main attraction. As expected, he delivered a blunt critique of the blinkered attitudes of politicians and bureaucrats who cater to those trying to live in the past, missing out on the health, air quality, road congestion, business, and money-saving benefits of using bicycles for transportation (not to mention even trying to reach this country’s emission reduction targets) by continuing to pursue “car-first” urban planning and transportation policies.
The conference got underway at 8:30 a.m., with Minister Wiseler’s 10-minute speech about how much progress this country has been making in creating alternatives to the automobile in recent years. Apparently, much has changed since the early 1990s, when everyone drove, and urban cycling was nearly unheard of.
For the first session, Andrzej Sielicki, an engineer with German transportation consulting firm VGS Verkehrsmanagement-Gesellschaft Saar GmbH, outlined his PhD work on providing improved public transportation to low density rural areas. One of the projects he described would use electric bicycles to link rural users to a high frequency bus line, another involved the reintroduction of the “post-bus” (a public bus service that is operated as part of local mail delivery, as a means to provide public transport in rural areas with lower levels of patronage where a normal bus service is uneconomic). He emphasised the need for high quality, coordinated service to attract a population that is heavily car-dependent. Despite this car-dependence, he said, there are people in rural areas who are mobility challenged, which is an injustice that he said must be addressed by better public transport.
Next up was Dr. Wolfgang Kieslich, of Munich-based MRK Management Consultants GmbH. His talk examined Luxembourg’s current plans to increase the public transport modal share, especially for cross-border workers coming into Luxembourg. Public transport is getting most of the government’s attention when it comes to reducing the private car-driving share to 75% by 2020. This effort will turn largely on increasing computerised and networked transportation information and tracking systems. This will give users access, through a range of personal devices, to real time information about their transportation options. This IT based approach will be combined with optimised bus and train schedules and investments in infrastructure. Such technology, he explained, could also be used to make car-sharing and ride-sharing services more usable and attractive.
Then it was time to hear about the promise of bicycles in solving current urban transportation problems. For readers of the Copenhagenize.com or CopenhagenCycleChic.com websites, none of it was particularly new, but Colville-Andersen’s blunt, outspoken approach contrasted sharply with the less radical (in Luxembourg) views of the earlier speakers. For those who actually cycle for transport, his words seemed eminently reasonable. However, the contrast with the actual amount of priority given to the bicycle in transportation and planning decisions here in Luxembourg’s capital (such as the decisions to rule out cycle paths on the rebuilt Adolphe Bridge and eliminate cycle paths in Kirchberg) couldn’t be starker.
Colville-Andersen started out his presentation by observing how “bicycles are being invited to cooler parties”, admiring the Danish styling on evidence at the European Conference Centre in Kirchberg. The concept of bicycles as transport, he said, is “deserving of spaces like this … this is where bikes belong today”. Cities around the world are investing in cycling infrastructure, he said, evidence of a “change in perception of the bicycle from sport and recreation, to seeing that it can be used for transportation, as it has been used for 125 years.”
But it didn’t take Colville-Andersen long to get down to what he sees as the enemies of urban cycling. Pointing to the high rate of people dying in car accidents that has become accepted as the status quo. “The main reason why all these people are dying is that traffic engineering has failed us,” he said. However, it has become clear that engineers can no longer find ways to create more space to accommodate more cars and that thus, traffic conditions and traffic safety are getting worse and worse. “Traffic engineering has had its day,” he declared.
Colville-Andersen then recounted how car culture has persuaded us that our streets and roads were made for cars, when in fact widespread adoption of cars has overturned 7000 years of streets being a place for democratic exchange, commerce and play. Colville-Andersen pointed out how the car industry had worked with traffic engineers to carry out a paradigm shift, so that roads were to be seen as a public utility for the movement of private automobiles “nearly overnight”. Crosswalks were invented to control pedestrians from crossing. Even playgrounds were invented in North America to “keep the mothers happy”. A name was coined to shame people for doing what they’d done for thousands of years — crossing the street: “jaywalking”. This was part of a strategy of using social shame to achieve car culture’s ends.
Today, Colville-Andersen said, we’re living in cities “controlled by mathematical models, many bizarre and outdated; many of the models that control our traffic and our cities date from the 1960s.” As a result, he said, “cities around the world can’t put in a simple cycle track based on best practices, widen a sidewalk, traffic calm a neighbourhood or lower a speed limit, because it doesn’t fit with the computer models down in the engineering department.” For example, in the City of Luxembourg, traffic calming approaches have been rejected by the traffic department and mayor as a way of controlling high-speed automobile traffic on a city centre residential street: speed bumps make too much noise, choke points hinder the flow of vital traffic.
Colville-Andersen promotes direct human observation as a way of learning about how people actually travel, and providing the infrastructure needed to support that. He gave an example in Copenhagen where cyclists were cutting across a sidewalk at a bottleneck. Instead of handing out fines, he explained, the City of Copenhagen decided to observe. “They accepted the fact that there must be a very good reason for the behaviour of these few citizens.” As a result a temporary bike lane was put in place on the sidewalk, which led to a permanent bike path.
This example led Colville-Andersen to discuss his concept of “desire lines” — “the most beautiful expression in urban planning”. He explained that all cities pre-dating the car era were constructed on desire lines, such as when shepherds decided to wander into town with sheep. He showed how the desire lines of how people actually crossed a public park in Halifax, Canada varied radically with the actual pathways set out for promenading on sunny days.
Islands Brygge Desire lines, Copenhagenize Consulting
To follow up on this notion, the Copenhagenize Design Company decided to study desire lines at a central Copenhagen intersection. They hired anthropologists, set up cameras and filmed for 12 hours: during that time, some 16,631 people riding bicycles passed through, and their chosen directions were traced to produce a highly detailed map of where people’s desire lines track at that intersection. This information can be used to plan infrastructure that facilitates people’s desires, rather than forcing people to adapt to a system designed without reference to them.
Letting non-cyclists plan cycling infrastructure without regard for how people actually travel on bicycles has, in Colville-Andersen’s view, “led to disastrous provision of cycling facilities”. He pointed to examples from North America, including running bicycle paths outside a row of parked cars (readers in the City of Luxembourg won’t have far to go to see this in their own city). “They’re great for protecting the parked cars, they keep the parked cars nice and clean and away from the moving traffic.” He also poured scorn on the North American concept of “sharrows”, which consists of painted markings showing a stylised bicycle and two arrows. The idea is to remind drivers that bicycle-riders can be expected and to share the road while giving them no priority or protection. “It’s kind of embarrassing for them.”
The other conceptual framework Colville-Andersen endorses as an approach to modernising our cities is design. “It’s something that we all have a relationship to”, he noted. “A designer puts himself in the mind of the user, the end user of a product. That human being on the end of the design process is everything to the designer”, he explained, pointing out how design brings us much that we find useful or beautiful (like an iPad or a chair). “It’s a human designing for a human, and that’s a lot more than you can say for modern traffic engineering.” Colville-Andersen’s view is that designing infrastructure for bicycles and pedestrians, or any aspect of a liveable city, ought to be designed like any other product in the world: toothbrushes, toasters, smartphones or chairs. “Imagine if walking in a city or riding a bicycle in a city was as easy and intuitive as how we approach a chair in a lecture hall”.
Colville-Andersen took a moment to note the propensity of Copenhagen residents to keep cycling through the winter in rather greater numbers than they do in Luxembourg. Some 80% of Copenhageners ride their bicycle all winter, he recounted. “These people have been seduced to do so”, he said, “because the design of the infrastructure is very, very good.” This tendency is also helped by the City of Copenhagen’s decision to prioritise snow removal for cycling before the roads are touched. This idea has not yet been imitated in this city, which allows key cycle routes to freeze over, and waits for the snow and ice to melt instead of clearing it from cycle paths.
Good design, he argued, could also deal with a source of controversy involving bicycle-riders: “Oh, those damned cyclists! Breaking the law, going through the red lights, just doing whatever the hell they want,” he exclaimed, mockingly, explaining that it’s a refrain he often hears. He went on: “I always say no: these people have not been given adequate bicycle infrastructure, even worse none at all. Never mind the fact that cyclists and pedestrians are forced to abide by a traffic culture that was engineered to serve the automobile a hundred years ago; bicycles are a completely different form of transport.”
As evidence, Colville-Andersen pointed to the comparatively low percentage of Copenhagen cyclists who commit offences — of the 16,000 cyclists his company mapped, only about 6% did so. “Regular citizens don’t want to break the law,” he explained. What should a city do if it wants to encourage bicycle riders to improve their behaviour? “Build good, well-designed infrastructure and your problem is solved,” he declared. Bicycle riders have very different habits and needs than do car drivers – “There’s a whole bunch of anthropology behind the bicycle that is not considered in traffic planning,” he said.
Presenting a graphic illustrating a short history of traffic engineering, he showed how various modes of transport have been prioritised at different times. Today we have “straight mobility in many cities — the car is prioritised, fast A to B for the car. Everybody else is at the mercy of traffic engineering and it’s an incredibly difficult task just to walk or ride a bike or even take a bus in a city.” How can we change this situation and improve conditions for pedestrians, for cyclists, encourage people to ride a bike, walking more, taking public transport?, he asked, rhetorically. “You make driving a car a pain in the ass. One-way streets. High parking prices.” This will get drivers to look for other options, he stated, leading those options to become more viable. People are always looking for the quickest route, he said. “If you make that the bicycle, if you make that walking or public transport, homo sapiens will say okay, I’ll do that.”
Photo courtesy of Gosia Lawer
While design is important for large-scale planning issues, Colville-Andersen discussed his interest in what can be done on the smaller scale to make riding a bicycle more pleasant and convenient, whether it be people who put up a ramp where they see a need for one, or the City of Copenhagen, which put in railings and footrests for cyclists at 18 different intersections. (Unlike in Luxembourg, where the crossing button nearly always faces away from the bicycle crossing.) The Copenhagenize Design Company put up garbage cans angled for cyclists as well as “love handles” that make it easier for cyclists to hold onto the posts at the stop line, or even use them to push off.
Colville-Andersen often speaks about the urban planning and design wisdom of his two children. He said, recounting stories about his daughter’s and son’s urban planning observations, that he’s amazed that children can figure out better solutions than can professional planners, when it comes to de-prioritising cars and prioritising people.
Colville-Andersen spared a few minutes to make the case for cycling, mentioning statistics from his home country. One study showed that the 36% of people who ride bicycles in Copenhagen contributed 233 million euros to the public coffers. Every kilometre cycled puts 23 cents into the coffers, but for every kilometre driven, 16 cents is dropped into a bottomless hole. “Driving cars is simply not cost-efficient,” he said. “Without being an eco-freak, if you’re looking at cities and at the way you’re planning them, cost efficiency should be a major factor.” Putting money into a mode of transport that only loses money makes no sense when putting it into public transport and cycling has much better returns, he said.
Just before wrapping up, Colville-Andersen turned to his Copenhagenize Index, which ranks the world’s most bicycle friendly cities. He pointed out that it’s no longer just Amsterdam and Copenhagen, “the benchmark cities, the Romulus and Remus of bicycle culture.” Cities like Paris, Seville, Dublin, Barcelona, Budapest – Colville-Andersen explained — have been aggressively improving cycling conditions, through investment in infrastructure and legislative changes. “There were no bicycles left in those cities five or six years ago. Now these are incredibly bicycle-friendly cities — the things that they are doing are absolutely brilliant,” he said. He pointed to Seville as a city which started with almost zero bicycle riders but after five years was able to get to 7%, largely by putting in protected bicycle infrastructure. Buenos Aires has put in 140 km of traffic-separated cycle tracks, with one stretch seeing 5,000 cyclists a day. “It’s a race now to modernise our cities and the bicycle is at the forefront of the charge.”
At this point, Colville-Andersen suggested that Luxembourg should be embarrassed at its 3% goal for the modal share of cycling “in a few years”. However, starting at less than 1% in 2007, Luxembourg reached 3.5% in 2011 and has a goal of 10% by 2020. Still not very ambitious, but not as bad as Colville-Andersen had been given to understand.
Colville-Andersen approvingly quoted Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë saying: “The fact is that automobiles no longer have a place in the big cities of our time,” and mentioned the mayor of New York City making significant steps to encourage bicycle use and make that city more liveable “We have a reason to be optimistic about the future of our cities when we have people like that looking at our cities and trying to change the paradigm.” (Though Luxembourg’s civic leaders clearly have a way to go: witness Luxembourg City’s objections to traffic calming, its project to make it even easier to park in Luxembourg — reserved free 30 minute parking spots for shoppers and its notion that automobile parking fees should be at par with bus fares.)
The presentation ended with Colville-Andersen issuing a call to those in the room: to emulate Copenhagen, whose best monument, he said, was “the bicycle infrastructure network and other Danish cities. This is a human monument, a human-powered monument, something that everybody who uses it every single day contributes to, they’re all the designers and the architects of this monument,” Colville-Andersen said. “And everybody in this room can also contribute to erecting monuments where you live as well. This is the future, this is how we should look at it. It’s not just putting in a cycle track and getting some data, it’s really letting these monuments rise all over the world. And they’re rising in Paris, and Barcelona and Buenos Aires. There is a new paradigm and it’s time to really consider the future of our cities, the next one hundred years. Because the last 100 years didn’t go so well.”
Anyone who uses a bicycle to get around in a city that makes nowhere near as much accommodation for bicycle-riding as places like Copenhagen or Amsterdam, or even Seville, do, cannot help but feeling simultaneously exhilarated by the potential for change that Colville-Andersen describes, and saddened by the seemingly glacial pace with which authorities in this city are seeking to modernise the streets to take advantage of the clear benefits of bicycle riding. It was clear, walking out of the Congress Centre, towards the roaring traffic on the multiple car lanes and the sparse traffic on the reduced, narrow, two-way, substandard bicycle lane along John F. Kennedy Blvd., that car culture is still alive and well in Luxembourg, and that while bicycle riding has official support, the consensus in this city and country is still stuck in the car-happy 1960s.
Have you ever ridden your bike in Luxembourg City? In this article I’ll try to dispel common fears and myths about urban cycling, and show that moving through the city by bicycle in fact has more advantages than driving a car.
Myth 1: Bikes in the shops are so expensive!
You don’t need a professional bike! A used bike in good condition will be enough at the beginning. On luxbazar.lu you can find many offers starting from €50. Don’t worry about the model – just try it and later on you can easily sell it and buy another one.
Myth 2: I don’t have time to bike the whole way
You can combine commuting by bike with public transport at no additional cost. Trains have special bike cars, usually the last one, while buses also have some space in the middle.
Myth 3: It will take ages to get there by bike!
In the city, where cars cannot gain high speed due to street lights, bikes can successfully compete with other vehicles. It takes 6 min to get from Hamilius to Gare Central by bike (3-4 min by bus) and 30 min from Kirchberg to the Gare (around 20 min by bus with all its stops, or longer in rush hour). You can check how long it takes you to get to your office/school, and then find the best way to combine cycling and public transport.
Myth 4: I will be tired when I arrive
The more you ride, the fitter you’ll become. Start with 1-2km every other day and in a couple of weeks you’ll be able to ride the entire way by bike without difficulty!
Myth 5: I cannot ride a bike in office clothes or a skirt
Yes you can! Your clothes won’t become dirty if you ride carefully, avoiding puddles. Skirts and high-heels are also not an issue. Normally your underwear is not visible when you’re on bike. Shoes with high-heels have enough flat surface for pedals. Try and check in which clothes you feel comfortable on your bike!
Myth 6: I can ride a bike only in the summer
There’s no bad weather, there’s only bad clothing. If it rains – put on a rain coat (in HEMA you can get a good one for €2). If it’s cold – put on more clothes. Upon arrival you can take off extra ones. One thing: when you start riding, your body heats up very quickly, and in 5 minutes you don’t feel so cold any more. Hard to believe when you’ve just left a warm building, but it’s true 🙂 The parts of the body that get the coldest are the hands and nose. Put on a scarf, two pairs of gloves and the problem is solved!
Myth 7: I can park only in special bike racks
You can leave your bike wherever you want as long as other vehicles and pedestrians have enough space to pass. If there’s no special bike parking nearby, you can lock your bike to a fence or to a streetlight post.
Myth 8: It’s dangerous to cycle together with cars
At the very beginning, if you’re not used to cycling in the city, you might feel unsafe. But the more experience you gain, the more confident you start feeling on the road. According to the law, a bicycle is considered as a means of transport. You can ride on the right side of the road, even if there’s no bike lane. Don’t listen to the drivers who say “go to the pavement!” – they are utterly wrong. Finally, drivers are not stupid, nobody wants to go to jail for killing a cyclist, remember that!
If you’re still not sure, you can try cycling in a group. The last Friday of every month there’s a group city bike ride called Critical Mass. Cyclists gather at 18:30 near Gelle Fra and then bike in the city-centre. The route is always random and takes about 1h. The Critical Mass rides are aimed to show that we, cyclists, have equal rights on the road. By staying in the middle of the group, you don’t risk touching cars.B:Loft We here occasionally lead free rides in and out of the city, as do B:Loft.
Myth 9: What if my bike breaks?
Usually everything that happens to a bike can be fixed quite easily. It takes several minutes to glue a flat tire, seconds to fix a fallen chain. If you don’t know how to do it, visit a bike shop, or ask somebody. Once you join the cycling community, you’ll get to know keen cyclists and they will always help you 🙂
What else should I know about urban cycling?
Your bike has to be equipped with a bell and reflective elements on wheels (two for each wheel), as well as front and back reflectors. Lights are compulsory only when it’s dark or visibility on the road is less than 200m. A helmet is optional, but highly recommended. You can find all of these things, as well as a bike lock, in big supermarkets like Auchan or Cora, and also in HEMA. The equipment offered by bike shops is more expensive, but on the other hand the quality is better.
It is important to know what you’re allowed and not allowed to do on the road. Read the bike-related chapter of the road code. You can also check the city map with bike paths marked on it.
Conclusion
Urban cycling – it’s more than just commuting. It’s a lifestyle. We love our bikes, and we are always happy to help beginners with advice. I hope that now you see that riding a bike in the city is not so dangerous and not difficult at all. Just try it!
I was struck by the huge number of cyclists in Copenhagen, and how relaxed, good looking and multitasking they were.
They can juggle pedalling, drinking a takeaway coffee, and talking on a mobile phone or chatting with their friend cycling next to them all at the same time. One day later I found myself riding with one hand, looking at a map spread over the handlebars, and shooting pictures with a camera held in the second hand. I felt totally safe and stress-free.
The second thing that struck me was the space and flatness. The wide spacious streets can host all traffic users without congestion. Of course, Copenhagen was not born with cycling lanes, but early on it started to think of liveable spaces for all. That is my impression of Danish urban planners. But Copenhagen undoubtedly has an advantage over other cities: it is as flat as a pancake. I could coast along even without putting much effort into pedalling.
But what makes Copenhagen outstanding is its network of cycle lanes. I realized how extensive and consistent it was while on long rides across the city’s neighbourhoods, where I even ventured towards the outskirts of town to see a futuristic skyscraper called Belle Sky.
You can pick any destination in town and be sure that will be a bike lane to take you there.
The bike lanes simply encourage you to keep cycling. The lanes are broad (two or three cyclists can ride side by side), raised a few centimetres above car lanes, and separated from roads by a curb or parking space.
Some stretches of the network are just perfect: the bicycle lane is separated from the rest of traffic first by a green buffer zone and then by a parking zone. There is no risk of a car parking on the bike lane or cutting you off, no risk of a car door opening into you. The bicycle lanes feel like safety zones. At no time was I disturbed by cars. I never heard any honking either.
To make the infrastructure even more perfect and tempting, the city has made additional improvements. To facilitate climbing the stairs with a bike, wheel gutters are installed on long stairs. There are separate traffic lights for cyclists, green waves which enable them to ride continuously at a speed of 20km without stopping as they always have a green light. There are even special cyclist-friendly rubbish bins mounted at an angle so you can throw your litter in as you cycle. At some junctions, you don’t even need to put your foot on the ground as there are hand and foot rests with an inviting message that reads “Hi cyclist! Rest your foot here – thank you for cycling in the city”.
Cargo bikes are a very common sight but what astonished me was what an awesome vehicle it is for hanging out with your pals and fostering friendships. People cruise around in a laid-back manner carrying their friends who squat inside the trailer with a relaxed smile on their faces and a cigarette or a snack in their hand. I caught sight of a man cycling and walking his dog at the same time, who eventually hopped inside the trailer to travel safely across the junction. Or a girl who was carrying a very large table. The most common local brands are Nihola and Christiania cargo bikes. The latter are hand-built in Freetown Christiania, a self-governed community where both cars and running are forbidden (well, you’re running=you’ve stolen something) and where bicycles abound.
By design, the bicycle is always clean. Ecologically clean. To wash it cyclists in Denmark are welcome by some petrol stations. Statoil has set up this bike wash & repair station enabling cyclists not only to clean their bikes (rubber gloves, paper, water and brush are provided), but also to lube, overhaul and fix them with the use of tools and devices available at the station.
The note on the blue wall reads:
“Dear Cyclist,
You can care for your bicycle here. You can pump and wash your bicycle and, inside the shop, you’re welcome to borrow a free bicycle care kit with oil, tire levers, allen keys, etc.
Enjoy.
Statoil”
In a small yard on Vesterbro street dotted with bikes crammed against the walls, there is a monument. A bike monument. No stone. No marble. Just bicycle frames welded into a maze. A short poem inscribed on the glass that wraps them up appealed to me a lot:
I have felt and thought
and longed on a bicycle
and I believe
I will keep on cycling
right until death tears the saddle
away from me
The excerpt comes from “Cykler i Sommerstedgade” by Lean Nielsen, who lived in this neighbourhood and in whose honour this monument was put up.
This trip was in my cycling plan already for a while, and a couple of days ago I spontaneously decided to do it. After going through my collection of maps, I found the one of the Lorraine region, checked trains for the next morning and set up my alarm clock.
My journey started at 6:30 am from Miersch railway station. So early, because that evening I had a harp lesson in the Conservatoire d’Esch, and before that I was supposed to bike 80 km. I bought a ticket from Bettembourg – Metz (which surprisingly was only €12.60) and took the train.
I woke up 3 min before my station, Metz-ville (which was good because the train proceeded to Nancy :)). It was 8 am. At the info centre of the Gare I got the map of the city and started cycling. Metz is a beautiful city, especially early in the morning, shortly after the dawn, when it’s still half-sleeping (eh, me too, at 8 o’clock :). I was looking for a place where I could drink a coffee, but didn’t find anything and just passed through the city. After 5 km I finally saw the beginning of the regional cycling path Le Chemin de la Moselle.
That’s what I actually saw there. Don’t worry, only the first 100 m were like this. Afterwards the normal bike lane surface with asphalt began.
The cycling path mostly follows the Moselle river, but near Metz it isn’t sign-posted very well, so I had to ask local people the directions several times. The road was rather lonely – an industrial zone on the left hand and fields on the right. And no coffee. Does anyone want to buy an industrial zone, btw? 😉
By 11:30 I reached Thionville, the middle point of my journey. Keeping in mind my harp lesson in the evening, I decided not to stop and passed the town along the bank of the river. The next several hours I spent enjoying nice weather and following signs on the path. I got lost only 3 times 🙂
Almost at the end, near Rettel, I faced a problem. Namely, I was facing a sign that said “Route barrée”. After bypassing that part through the nearest village, I returned to the cycling path and saw the same sign again. Without any info where I can actually go instead. This time I decided that I don’t care and continued regardless of the sign. The route wasn’t barrée that badly, well, for cars may be, but not for my bike 🙂 The road led me to Sierck-les-Bains, a village located almost at the 3 borders. Don’t know why, but all the bakeries, as well as the other shops were closed. No coffee again. WTF?? I want coffee!!!
After lunch in a local supermarket, I continued the ride. At 15h I finally arrived in Schengen. From there only 9 km more to Remich, where I took a bus to the city at 15:40.
The coffee I was dreaming about the whole day finally happened at Gare Centrale. That was the end of my one-day cycling trip. And I even managed to show up at the Conservatoire on time!
