A Visit to the Rhenish Hesse Bicycle Museum

Museum opening on April 21, 2002

Germans adore engineering and the country is filled with technical museums covering every possible theme (cars, airplanes, grain threshers, wire, x-ray machines, wallpaper, corkscrews, etc.) and in the wine district of the Rhineland-Palatinate, not very far from Frankfurt and not very far from where Baron Drais invented the bicycle (or at least its forerunner) in 1817, a small band of enthusiastic individuals have established a charming museum dedicated to our beloved two-wheelers in an old Schloss.  Welcome to the Rhine Hesse Bicycle Museum in Gau-Algesheim!


Gau-Algesheim, found between Bingen and Mainz and situated 3 kms from the west bank of the Rhine, is a town of nearly 7,000 inhabitants.  First mentioned in chronicles in 755 it was raised to the status of a town in 1355 and is surrounded by vineyards.  A charming town it does not actually have much to distinguish it from the others in the region except for the impressive Schloss Ardeck, a castle that has been much reconstructed since it was first built in 1112, becoming property of the town in 1925.  But, as is often the case in Germany where there are a lot of impressive old castles in addition to all those technical museums, it is not always easy to find a use for them and Schloss Ardeck was used for numerous local purposes over eight decades.

Enter Prof. Heinz-Egon Rösch, a retired academic who taught sports subjects at the Universities of Mainz and Düsseldorf. A singularly energetic man, he has had 15 cycle touring books published in addition to his academic work and at 82 years of age still rides 4,000 kms annually. With his contacts in the bicycling community he realized that there were some excellent examples of cycling history available that people were willing to donate. With the assistance of the local cycling club and some financial backing by the State of Rhineland-Platinate the Rhine Hesse Bicycle Museum (das Rheinhessische Fahrradmuseum) opened its doors to the public in 2002, occupying the ground floor of Schloss Ardeck. Staffed by volunteers, including the irrepressible Prof. Rösch, the museum is open on Sundays and holidays from Easter to the second Sunday in October from 2 to 6 pm or you can give them a call too. The museum is featured in the book "111 Places You Must See in Rhineland-Palatinate."

Prof. Heinz-Egon Rösch and a high-wheeler

Museum floorplan

Entering the museum (admission is free but donations are welcome) one first enters a nice exhibition area devoted to the origins of the bicycle which economically shows the changes from the draisine to the bone-shaker to the high-wheeler and ultimately to the safety bicycle.

Turning to the left, one next enters the exhibition area covering bicycles used in daily life. Here there are solid Dutch roadsters, an impressive shaft-drive Dürkopp, a Diamant with a carbide lamp and a knee-wreckingly massive chainring and other ancient but honourable machines.  

Shaft-drive Dürkopp

Diamant

Another left turn takes us into the room devoted to bicycle sports. In addition to a number of classic road racing machines (Gios, Bauer, Pinarello) there are some excellent time trial bikes, including a spectacular yellow Giant used by Laurent Jalabert of the ONCE team.

There are the usual items to be found in bicycle museums along with the bicycles themselves: waterbottles, posters, accessories, flags and trophies. This being Germany there is also a display exhibiting cans and bottles of Radler, the beer and soft drink combination known as a shandy or panaché in other countries.

Something very unusual is an example of the bicycle used for Radball, the UCI-recognized sport of, well, bicycle ball (what is this actually called). Imagine bike polo with no mallets but instead you move the ball with your front wheel. Even stranger is Kunstrad, where cyclists, sometimes two on one bike, perform stunts more often seen in a Chinese circus before a panel of serious UCI-qualified judges.



Crossing to the other side of this compact but nicely arranged museum where everything is lovingly labelled there is a display of children’s bikes and an area where children’s educational events are held.

The final area is devoted to changing exhibits and during our visit featured a display about bicycles and art. In addtiion to posters and some original paintings and three dimensional pieces there was a couch with wheels and handlebars. Every cyclist should have one of these in his or her living room!

Prof. Rösch has found a successor (a more recently retired person) and his band of six will continue to manage the little museum. Cycling events take place from its front door and the local tourism office has prepared maps and brochures for suggested riding routes in the area. Educational programs for the local children have been successful and the Rhineland-Palatinate probably does not need to worry about where the next generation of cyclists will come from. Modes but charming and surprisingly effective in telling the story of the bicycle, the Rhenisch Hesse Bicycle Museum is well worth a visit. And you can be sure that Prof. Rösch can tell you where to go for a most excellent glass of Rhine wine afterwards!

The Rhine Hesse Bicycle Museum

Schloss Ardeck

Schlossgasse 12

55435 Gau-Algesheim

Tel. +49-6725-992143

The town of Gau-Algesheim has its website (with bits in English!) here.

Ride of the Falling Leaves: the Ahrtal

After watching a recent episode of my favourite German travel program on television featuring the Ahr River, I checked the map and realized it was fairly close to Düsseldorf and since the weather looked like it would be good enough for cycling on Sunday, I enlisted my friend Henri to tackle another German river bike route. We both hoped it would work out better than the Sieg’s not-always-there bikepath.

Leaving the main train station at 7:02 on a slooooooooow S-Bahn train, we reached Cologne and transferred to the Eifel-Bahn, which took us west and south and brought us to Blankenheim’s station in another 90 minutes. The station is actually some distance from the town and it was a bit strange to get off and see nothing much besides the little station and some fog.

The route was well-marked, however, and we were soon swiftly rolling down the 5 kms or so to Blankenheim proper. Stopping to get our bearings in a park near the rather ugly 1950s Rathaus, we saw the impressive castle overlooking the town. It is now a youth hostel. There were signs for the Ahr bike route, including both regular ones and a big stone bike. We did not see the source of the Ahr, which apparently begins in someone’s basement, but we were soon following the tiny river eastwards.

The Ahr route is around 85 kms in length, and for the first 25 or so from Blankenheim it takes cyclists through fairly wild and unsettled countryside. Many of the trees had already shed their leaves so we took care riding the well-paved bike path. Where it was not paved, it was packed earth that allowed us to travel nearly as fasted. No ruts or holes. The Italians maintaining the bianca strada in Tuscany could learn something from German grading!

We passed around Ahrdorf and then on to Müsch, enjoying a generally downhill ride. It became apparent to us pretty soon that the Ahr bike route has been constructed on an old railway right-of-way, with very gradual grades. In one spot, the old railway retraining wall had been made into an exhibition showing the various kinds of rocks to be found in the Ahr Valley. There was also an interesting sign telling the story of a Wehrmacht supply train that got stuck here in March 1945 and how the locals cleaned it out, enjoying real butter for the first time in years.

We passed a very charming little chapel, built in 1620, near Antweiler. Soon after this our path ended and we found ourselves on the main Landstrasse. The path has a 5 km gap in it and the main road has to serve for the moment, although the speed is limited to 70 km/h for cars. Near Schuld we were back on our path, including a nice ride through a nicely-lit and -paved tunnel that brought us into Insul.

Continuing to follow the now-larger river (and getting a bit lost at one point), we made swift progress. When we arrived in Altenahr just after 1 pm we decided to find a place to eat. The weather was warm enough (just) to allow us to sit outside. We had some hearty food (pea soup for Henri, chanterelles in cream sauce with homemade spätzle for me) in this busy little town with its ruined castle high above before we rode through another short tunnel and into a gorge as the Ahr became more dramatic.

We were passing dramatic landscapes now, with hundreds of acres of vineyards all around us. There were many people as well, both cyclists and hikers, so we had to take care as we rode the bikepath.

Just before reaching Ahrweiler, we came to the massive convent, Kloster Clavarienberg. This is a huge building dominating the floodplain. Apparently founded in 1440 by a crusader who thought the hill looked like Calvary in the Holy Land, it was the site of series of chapels until the Franciscans arrived in the 17th Century and built a monastery. It had its own Stations of the Cross, which are still to be seen, and became a destination for pilgrims until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1803. After several unsuccessful attempts to operate a school there, it was taken over by Ursuline nuns in 1838, and new buildings were constructed at the end of the 19th Century. It remains a Catholic school today.

Time to take a break in Ahrweiler for a few minutes! Inhabited by the Romans (there are foundations of a large villa to be seen), the town’s existence was first recorded in the 9th Century. Ahrweiler was jammed with people on this Sunday afternoon, an unusual sight in Germany. All the stores were open and the restaurants were doing good business, primarily from senior citizens. This very charming town has an impressive gate, which was badly damaged in World War 2 during the battle that led to the famous taking of the nearby Remagen bridge. It had been walled entirely during the Middle Ages but suffered a great deal during the Thirty Years War. On May 1, 1689, the entire town was destroyed, leaving only ten buildings intact.

We had thought about having a coffee but decided to press on to Sinzig as it was getting cool and the cloud cover meant that we were not enjoying all that much light. We wanted to get the next train back as the line would take us directly to Düsseldorf. Ahrweiler marks the northern limits of the Eifel Mountains and as we passed nearby Bad Neuenahr the landscape gradually turning into a flatter, marshy environment. The signs continued to be excellent and we were soon in the rather unattractive town of Sinzig which, being directly on the Rhine, has an autobahn going right over it, and train tracks cutting it off from the river.

After buying our return tickets, we turned back to the only open establishment we saw in Sinzig, which turned out to be a most excellent café. Enjoying some homemade apple cake let us put everything into perspective. The Ahr route is beautiful and would have been better on a sunny day. I will come back to look into some of the vineyards and spend some more time in Ahrweiler and some of the other little towns. The return trip, on a rather crowded Regio train, was only 80 minutes. Although my GPS went beserk at one point and suddenly awarded us an unearned 26 kms, we did ride 85 kms, with a descent of around 500 m vertically over the route. Recommended!