Bikepacking to the Vosges from Maastricht

1st day:
Rode with Rael, her first time bikepacking. Beautiful trail and the Vennbahn-radweg is excellent, surface a very smooth asphalt. Had some good stops with nice food in Aachen and continued on. Nice old rail remnants on the Vennbahn-radweg and lots of cyclists. Rael had no difficulty with this distance, and the bike held up too!2nd day:
Started off by cycling 20km downhill in the wrong direction 😅 Completed the Vennbahn-radweg at Troisvierges with the weather turning on us. Took us a lot of time to get out of Troisvierges and the route was too extreme with S1 MTB trails through the downpour. Rael's lightest gear was not working and my derailleur cable got pinched by my restrap bumper bar. Replanned a bike touring route instead of a gravel route and cycled on most of the planned way, ending a bit short in a forest on a hill. Lots of rain, also now at night. All in all a good experience, bikepacking in the rain for the first time.3rd day:
Got up in the rain and put the tent away wet. Right away looked for a camping to stay the next night, since we were heading into a more populated area. Sent out an email and started riding. Some more rain in the early afternoon and a very pleasant downhill ride for most of the route. Happy with Komoot's "Bike Touring" route setting, this was much nicer than the sketchy singletracks from the previous day. Paid much better attention to nutrition during the ride and that was absolutely a big improvement compared to yesterday. Now a long expected shower :)4th day:
Last day to the camping near the climbing crag in the north Vosges, with quite some hilly stuff including steep descents and ascents.
The weather was quite good with some nice tailwind. Around halfway we started heading into hilly terrain again, with some grueling climbs. Hiked the bikes a couple of times and got my organic pads smoking after a 17% descent, unfortunately. A bit scared to go on the road with cars again after so much beautiful cycling paths and ended up a bit disappointed because of this. Some intermittent showers later we were truly in the Vosges with a stunning descent for what felt like an eternity with nice curvy empty roads. Arriving at the camping we had to cycle around it again because Komoot sent us to the back of the camping, where there was no entrance. Our friends had already arrived and beer was ready to drink :)