My plan was simple, meet up go for a ride and hang a bit. It more or less materialised, it a round about kind of way.... I planned to meet the gang half way through one of their longest days, Day 4, on the Trier to Luxembourg stretch. A simple 30 odd miles. I'd thought about it in this way - they need to do like 50K before they get to me (First leg of the day) So that will take them, what 4hrs? Averaging 12.5Km/hr - most of these guys can average at least 16Kph. So I planned to meet them around 1pm. But it being the hottest day in the year in Germany, and they set off a little later in the AM (so that they would benefit from the cooler side of the temperature in the evening) they took it leisurely cause it was a long day... I called the support team enough to bug them crazy, but at about 3.15pm they turned up for lunch, north of Trier.

At 4.30pm they were with me. Oh well off we jolly well trot. Shortly after we broke at Maccy D's to fill up on water.

The fast group sped off on a mission and I magneted myself to the slower group. Down the mosel river was great, cycle paths were great, and we had a merry old time.

About 7pm we arrived in Mertert, Luxembourg - another day another country! The group were feeling pretty hungry and Javier said he needed real food! Since my original plan was to join them earlier, I thought I might make Lux by say 7/8pm and get a train back to collect my car. But it was already 7pm so I was considering recycling the 20K we did back to Trier alone. Then fate made its mind up for me, I mounted and bang. Crack, mega crank failiure.

I could have called the back up team and gotten a spare off of them, but decided it was better just to lump it - those spare might just be needed in the 1200Km+ to come! [unicycle.com has since kindly sent me a replacement] Of course if you've been 3 times world champion then a broken crank won't set you back much:

But me, erm, nope cant do that, so we ate at Pizza hut, yum....

And then we broke off.

I ran/walked to the train section to the train station where I waited for a train back to Trier.

1 hour later I got to Trier, trekked 20mins across town to rejoin my personal support vehicle (my car!)

I then re-traced the route back to Mertert to check the dudes where still on the road to success. I caught up with Javeir and Elijah making progress in the dark, the two nameless females of the group having been left at the station to be retreived by a real support vehcile (i.e. one that has more space). I then zoomed towards Luxembourg (the city) and found the hostel. I was surprised to see the speedier group just arrive after me (11pm), I thought they would have been there hours ago. Aaron had gotten there before anyone. We showered and chilled out till about 3am.

The next day luxembourg was toured at a leisurely tourist pace taking in a Greek restaurant to satifsy Connie's Moussaka desires.

The plan was to have a big group meal in the eve which I missed out on due to family BBQ back in Belgium. Meanwhile back on the repair trail, I suggested a cure to a loose bearing on Tanya's Coker (I cannot personally take credit for the idea!). Coker bearings tend to slide off sometimes sue to poor fitting/manufacture. The extent of the slide can be limited by insertion of a piece of tubing between the bearing and the crank.