Paddling out

When surfers head out to catch the big waves, whenever possible they would paddle out in deeper water, like an estuary, where the waves are not breaking, otherwise the journey out would require battling through the breakers resulting in much lost time and energy before catching the big wave home (if they even manage to paddle out that is).
Thats the way I designed todays ride, the "big wave" being the ascent of Belchen, or at least as far as a road bike would go. So I stayed on the French side of the Rhine for the first 50km, the idea being to "paddle out" down the river then swing in to the east and ride the big Schwarzwald mountains from the north back home.
This section really is a time triallers dream (ie flat and boring), so little traffic it was easy to cruise along and be disappointed when my computer said 32km was below my average speed.
I was aiming to the Rhine at a place called Fessenheim. Tell tale signs alerted me before I arrived at this place, seldom used rail lines, large amounts of barbed wire and many security cameras around the perimeter that this was not a normal hydro electric power station. Only when I got to the main gates did I realise that yes, this is a nuclear power plant, and the oldest operating one in France - really not far from Basel and many other populated areas so not surprising to discover later about the many campaigns for this place to close down.
Hazy days, and it wasn't before I was 10km from Staufen that the Blackforest mountains appeared before me, rising up from the flat plains around the Rhine. Busy roads at first, but somewhere the traffic dissolved away, and I was left with the outstanding ascent of Wiedener Eck, and further up to the cable car below Belchen, @1160m. I had been hoping to climb further, but it looked like the road from the car park to the top was for mtb or 4 wheel drive only.
The big wave of Belchen carried me onwards towards Todtnau, but turning left through Prag and on to the next wave in the set cresting at 1050m. Its here that riding waves of mountains as opposed to waves in the ocean has the benefit that I can stop and have a huge slice of Blackforest gateau and large coffee (at Hochkopf) before moving on. After this, I had no need for the energy gels kept in my saddle bag for emergency use.
3 smaller waves continued in the set, the climb out of Zell being the most significant and soon I was fast approaching the Rhine to the south and with it the Swiss border. Here I was fortunate to be overtaken by a speedy pair, and as I had been debating with myself whether to ride home on the Swiss or German side of the river, sticking on their wheel was clearly the best option and so helped the average speed for the day to a respectable 26.4kph for the 172km ride. Strava says 3042m gain, mapmyride says 1968m but as I have joined the Strava Classic Climbing challenge I am happy they are giving away as many meters of ascent as they do.