Erlangen to Bamberg — Bicycle trip
Summer of 2017. August 20, 2017
Ahaan, Ashraf and I had bicycled from Erlangen to Nurenberg on August 5, 2017. It was a short ride and was undertaken without special preparations — Ahaan had a new bicycle, but Ashraf and I used old bicycles that were not meant or maintained for long haul and we wore normal clothing (I was in my jeans and half sleeve shirt). I had bicycled after a gap of about 4 years and it felt good to have done 23 kms and encouraged me to attempt a longer ride. Ahaan had opened his cycling innings and he was raring to do one more ride. That is when we learnt about the bicycle track from Erlangen to Bamberg. It runs parallel and alongside a canal and through beautiful countryside. We were determined to try it! Google maps showed Erlangen to Bamberg as 42 kms. We ended up cycling a total of 52.3 km on our Erlangen to Bamberg cycling trip.
It was not meaningful to invest on new bicycles or appropriate clothes just for one ride; so we decided to give it a try as it is. The train route lay alongside the cycling track and not very far from it. “We can hop onto a train if at any time anyone felt tired” was a comforting thought!
On August 20, 2017 at 09:47 hrs Ahaan, Ashraf and I (three generations 30 years apart — aged 8, 38, 69 years respectively) set out from Brahmstrasse, Erlangen. We pedaled 2 km to Sangam Indian Restaurant, Erlangen where Ashraf’s friends Mr Andrea and his wife Tanya were waiting. They were astride bicycles that seemed appropriate to ride long distance and were clothed appropriately too.
After covering 7 kms we left the cycling tracks along main roads and descended to the unpaved path that lay along the Main-Danube Canal.

Main-Danube Canal is also known as Europa Canal. It is a commercial waterway of the southern German state of Bavaria. Completed in 1992, the Europa Canal is 171 km long and runs from Bamberg on the Main River (a tributary of the Rhine River) to Kelheim on the Danube River. It is part of a 3,500-km long waterway that runs through 15 countries permitting traffic to flow between the North Sea and the Black Sea. It can accommodate barges carrying up to 2,425 tons of bulk cargo.
Next 30 kms we pedaled along this path by the side of the canal, which was roughly 3 meters wide, with an unpaved hard surface covered with mild ‘scree’ (loose tiny pebbles). For good part of that ride winds of 6–10 m/sec blew headlong. The scree increased the friction at the wheels and winds added a drag (estimated at 10 kg for winds at 6 m/s for a frontal area on 0.3 sq. m. and a drag coefficient of 1.4). Both factors added to the effort required!
Andrea, Ahaan and Ashraf kept a lead and were always ahead by 100 to 200 meters. Tanya mostly stayed behind me, once in a while pedaling abreast to tell me about the place we were passing through or to make conversation. It was reassuring for me to have someone to turn to in case of need, but it filled me with guilt at slowing her down from her usual pace.
We rode into Forchheim and stopped at a coffee shop. Walkmeter App on my phone had logged 23.94 kms over 1 hr 52 min 58 sec. Accounting for 5 minutes as cumulative time lost on stops — for introductions on meeting Andreas and for drinking water, etc. the average speed was 23.94/{1+(53–5)/60}=13.4 km/hr (slow for cycling). The coffee break at Forchheim lasted 15 minutes.

We then pedaled on to reach Boothaus Biergarten, Bamberg. Walkmeter had logged 48.38 km over 4 hrs 48 min. Accounting for 30 min of cumulative stops (5+15 = 20 min till Forchheim and 10 min thereafter) we had clocked an average speed of 48.38/{4+(48–30)/60} = 11.3 km/hr. Considering the scree, winds, our lack of preparedness and all these factors compounding it was OK! We were in fact glad to complete it!
Ahaan, all of 8 years, was in high spirits and with no a sign of tiredness!

Lalitha, Sharon and Sanjana had driven to Boothaus restaurant and were waiting for us. Boothaus is an open air restaurant on the banks of the canal. It was a wonderful way to end the 48 kms of cycling while still in a condition to pedal more.


After lunch we pedalled to Bamberg Hbf (Hbf = hauptbahnhof means ‘Central Station’), a distance of 2.8 kms and took a train back to Erlangen. At Erlangen Hbf we thanked Andrea and Tanya and parted to head for Brahmstrasse (1.4 kms).

Total distance covered in 4 cycling hops = 52.49 km
Total time for 4 cycling hops = 4 hrs 50 min 44 sec
Breaks during these 4 cycling hops = 15 min
Total cycling duration = 4 hrs 35 min 44 sec = 4.596 hrs
Average cycling speed = 52.49 / 4.596 = 11.42 km/hr
Good part of the cycling was along the the Main-Danube Canal which has interesting history and facts that are worth recounting here. King Ludwig I of Bavaria built the first channel between Bamberg and Kelheim (passing through Nurenberg) during 1836 and 1846. This channel was narrow, with many locks, and was abandoned in 1950, after it suffered major damage during World War II.
In 1917, the Landtag of Bavaria passed a law calling for the development of a major shipping route on the Rhine. The Rhein-Main-Donau AG (RMD-AG) was founded in 1921 to undertake the project to create a new canal. Though the last section of this canal, between Nuremberg and Kelheim became politically controversial work was completed in 1992. Equivalent of some 2.3 billion euros were invested in the construction from 1960 to 1992. Almost 20 percent of that went for environmental protection projects.
The cross-section of the waterway is normally trapezoidal, with 31 meters wide at bottom, 55 meters wide at water surface and 4 meters of water depth. The largest authorized vessels that can use the canal are 190 meters long and 11.45 meters wide. The length of the canal is 171 kilometres.

I write about the canal as Kerala (the Indian state I belong to) and many other places in India have a huge potential to develop waterways!
