It was the day of encounters. At first I cycled – for a change, in sunshine – along with a Swiss from the town of Zug, in his mid-60s, tanned, on a mountain bike that had already seen better days. “I’ve stopped working after 45 years,” the cyclist told me. “And now I am fulfilling my life dream. I always wanted to make a long bike trip.” I asked him how much time he took for the ride along the Rhine. “I’ll see how far I get until winter,” he said, grinning. In the further conversation it turned out that he was also a passionate mountaineer. He had climbed all four-thousanders of his home country, said the Swiss: “Actually, I had always dreamed of climbing Mount Everest one day. But tourism on this mountain has nothing to do with the way of climbing that I like.”

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I am exhausted. What a day! I feel I have fought constantly. Against the heavy legs, my weaker self, against some, thank God, only short rain showers – and especially against the headwind. It has made me almost see red. It began already shortly after the start in the town of Kreuzlingen, when I rode along the so-called Untersee, the lower part of Lake Constance, before it flows into the River Rhine again. I was happy that the announced rain showers first stayed away, but the wind blew straight in my face. And this in addition to the fact that I really felt the first two stages of my donation bike tour “School up! River down!” with a total of 226 kilometers within two days in my calves.

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“Gruezi” from the Oberalp Pass at an altitude of 2044 meters in Graubünden in Switzerland. After a ten-hour train journey, during which I had to change trains four times with about 40 kilograms of luggage (including my folding bike), I have reached the starting point of my donation bike tour “School up! River down!”. One of the Rhine sources is located about three kilometers from here. When I arrived up here late in the afternoon, I was surprised: early September and already winter conditions.

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Despite my love for the mountains, I am also a river man. More precisely, a Rhine man. I was born in the Rhineland and grew up there, I live 30 meters as the crow flies from the river and work 100 meters from the Rhine. Day after day I ride the bike along the shore. I was exactly doing this when I came up with the idea of my next fundraising campaign for “School up!”.

Along with the climbers Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and Ralf Dujmovits, I had launched “School up!” two years ago to rebuild the school of Thulosirubari, a mountain village about 70 km east of Kathmandu. The school had been destroyed by the devastating earthquake in Nepal in April 2015. Despite the heavy monsoon, the construction work has continued in recent months, the school building is increasingly taking shape (see the slideshow below). But we have not yet reached the goal and need more donations. That’s why I’ll start a week today a donation bike tour under the motto “School up! River down!”.

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