Go All the Way.

Today's ride was for a short distance only, downtown to Pints&union, then walking the bikes up the city side of the rail embankment to reach the amphitheater. We rode down to Loop Island and returned on city streets.

They're baby steps, but it's been eight years, after all. The instincts remain, pleasingly so. The self-obsessed idiocy of most drivers bothers me when I'm sitting at home in a chair thinking about it; once outside and on the street, far less than I imagined.

It isn't that they're any better. It's about my game plan, feeling I have a measure of control in spite of it all, along with fairly sound fundamentals. I also never go for a ride without a mirror, something I wouldn't do in a car, either.

Seeing posts like this one sets me to salivating. It's 77 miles in all, easily broken into a leisurely three-day ride, with ample time for sightseeing along the way. Troisvierges is only 50-odd km from Luxembourg City -- but even more enticingly, a mere 15 miles from Achouffe (near Houffalize), home of the Chouffe gnomes.

I might be daydreaming quite a lot in the months to come.

Vennbahn: How a historic German train line became a popular cycling path, by Tamsin Paternoster (The Local DE)

Today the Vennbahn bike path is one of the longest cycle trails of its kind, running along disused railway tracks in Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium.

The path offers more than 125km of landscapes that stretch through Europe and encompasses three countries, as well as a distinctive history. The Local unpicks the story of the Vennbahn.

The Vennbahn wove through three countries, starting in the western German city of Aachen before making its way through Belgian territory and ending in Troisvierges, a small town in northern Luxembourg.

Along the way, the path winds itself in and out of Germany and Belgium, in territory which once wholly belonged to Germany before the borders were redefined ...