Bingen to Mainz (Updated with pictures)

Today (Monday) was to be a half day riding. Our normal schedule would give us a rest day in Frankfurt but not only is there no interesting beer in Frankfurt, hotels were all booked for a trade fair. So we decided to do two half days in lieu of a rest day.

View of the Bingen Burg from our hotel

So we left at 11am instead of the usual 9-9:30am. We made our way along the Rhine until Ingelheim, were we heading inland to visit the Brauhaus Goldener Engel. Along the way we stopped at the most excellent Fahrrad Rosskopp bike shop. Tim bought a couple of tubes to replace the one he used and I had them adjust my shifter.

We were soon at Goldener Engel. The brewpub is in an industrial area, is fairly new and was build specifically as a brewpub. They have a decent sized indoor area an a huge biergarten. The interior design is modern and minimalist and works very well.

Friday wants a Golden Angel

Kaspar Shulz brewhaus (from Bamberg)

As is typical, they have three beers: Hell, Dunkel and Weizen. We ordered one of each. The hell was unfiltered and a bit too young, but tastey nevertheless. The weizen was very "Schneider-y" -- a bit darker and a nice wheat flavor. The dunkel had nice dark malt flavors and a good finish. We all had another dunkel with our lunch.

Helles, Weizen, Dunkels -- where have we seen that before?

Examining the map, it looks like if we stayed on the current side of the Rhine we would be mostly off the river and riding thru a lot of industrial areas. So we took a ferry across and decided to ride along the eastern (really northern here) bank.

Our Ferry

Rhine

More Rhine

For once we had a nice tailwind and were soon speading along. Around one bend was a gasthaus with a biergarten and two signs -- Kloster Andechs and Budweiser Budvar. This warrented investigation.

A sign we need to stop

Well, the Andechs was just the Weizenbier (which while not bad was not what anybody was in the mood for). In addition to the Budvar they and a "Breznak Lager" -- which none of us had heard of. Tim had the Beznak, Tom and I the Budvar.

The Budvar was a expected, very soft and very nice. The Breznak was not quite as good, but much better than the Bitburger we all had had quite enough of.

Bikes by themselves

Back on the trail we soon had to decide where to cross over to Mainz. I was mistaken about the location of the hotel and had us cross over on the first bridge, which was a railway bridge with a bike/pedestrian lane. Big mistake. There was no ramp, just stairs with a groove on the side for a bike, so we had to push them up 60 stairs (Tim counted) ride across the Rhine then repeat the process on the other side.

We headed for the center of town and Tim had another flat and in trying to pump up the tire, managed to damage the valve (or maybe it was already damaged which caused the flat). I fired up Google Maps on my smartphone and found a nearby bike shop. I rode off to find it while Tim and Tom walked their bikes.

I easily found the bike shop, but it was closed on Mondays. I located the next closest and this time called them. Also closed Mondays. Finally the third bike shop answered and said they were open to 6pm. By this time Tim and Tom and arrived, I told them the bad news and good news and went off to locate this shop. Tom and Tim arrived and Tim bought a new set of touring tires.

We retraced our steps back to the Rhine and headed for the town center. There was a lot of construction along the riverbank and got separated from Tim. Tom and I ended up going around the long way, into the "upper town" while Tim took the more direct route. After a nice ride thru the Volkspark we came to where the hotel was but couldn't find an easy way down the hill.  We finally worked our way down and found the hotel, only to find out the only beer they had was Paulaner, oh and by the way, the restaurant is closed today.

We decided to take a taxi into town and visited the local brewpub, Eisgrub Bräu. I had been there five or six years before and didn't really remmber much one way or the other, which meant it was probably a typical German brewpub with decent food.

Eisgrub

Yep. Three kinds of beer: yellow, brown and white (wheat). We ordered one of each. Tom and I found the yellow one (I think they called it a Märzen, which was very Austrian of them) to have too much diacytl to make it enjoyable. Tim thought it reminded him of a favorite old Best Better from East Anglia and loved it. What you are used to, I guess. The wheat was average and the brown one (I think they called it a "Black Pils") was nothing special but drinkable.

Hard to tell, but the usual three kinds of beer

Dinner was good and we called for a taxi back to the hotel. Tuesday will be a longish day, riding thru Frankfurt and stopping at Seligenstadt on the other side.

Distance Ridden: 55km
Total Distance: 597km