Tea in the Trees (Coffeeneuring 2015 Finale)

The weather had finally got on board with the calendar, turning cold and wet like a dog’s nose. I had put off my last ride until I was faced with this, or nothing. It didn’t bother me too much though—I knew exactly where I would go.

While the Mrs. and I were in London we stopped into Fortnum & Mason, the self-described “most luxurious department store in the world”, a title I won’t contest. All sorts of fancy things to buy there, including a fairly generous selection of tea. Now, I’m pretty much a coffee guy, but I do like smoky teas from time to time, often as a substitute for scotch, when I still need to get things done. Browsing Fortnum’s selection, I saw they had a ‘Smoky Earl Grey’, so I picked up a box of it. It’s pretty good—not sure if it’s better than Lapsang, but I like it well enough. Anyway, that’s what I was brewing today.

A short ride on the Dahon, and an ever shorter walk into the woods, I arrived at the jumble of branches I‘ve adopted as a fortress of solitude. It isn’t much cover from the rain, especially this time of year when the leaves are on the wrong end of the trees, but it contributes to the effort of staying dry, and I can appreciate that. So there I sat on my log, heating water on the stove for the final drink to finish out coffeeneuring for 2015. I remember thinking last year about how I’d make this year bigger and better, but then I realized that’s not what matters. I’ve got a lot of years ahead to ride bicycles and drink coffee or tea, no need to up the ante so quickly. Besides, these small moments, waiting for your drink to cool and listening to the rain through the trees, are just as rewarding as anything.

- Bicyclist Abroad

 

 

Coffeeneur Quick Stats:

Destination:	The woods
Drink:	Smoky Earl Grey
Date:	Thursday, November 19th (Vacation Day Rule)
Distance:	4.6 km / 2.8 mi

Boys on Bikes (Coffeeneuring 2015 #6)

[Another short entry before the coffeeneuring 2015 finale.] This ride was going to be with a friend of mine, but ended up being with him and his two boys, one in the child seat behind him, the other on a push-bike. This limited our range, but I had just rode 11 or so kilometers from my house to his, so I wasn’t concerned about the distance requirement. We decided to check out a café just a ways down the nearby bike path.

The bike path itself winds through a wildlife park, and we had the pleasure of seeing moose, boars, and deer on the way. Then, the path brought us right out in front of the place we were headed to: the Etzenrather Mühle. It looked like a charming café on the outside, but after going in, we realized it was a bit fancier than we thought. We felt a little out of place with two rambunctious kids sitting at candle-lit tables with high-end décor. Nevertheless, we were already committed, so we got a couple coffees and two hot cocoas for the boys.

The restaurant sits at an intersection of a couple bike paths, and at first I wasn’t sure exactly how you’d arrive in a car, so there’s definitely a sense of bike-friendliness to it. Additionally, there is ample bicycle parking and a nice outdoor seating area for when the weather is warmer. The Etzenrather Mühle (or mill in English) is someplace I’d like to ride to again. 

- Bicyclist Abroad

 

 

Coffeeneur Quick Stats:

Destination:	Etzenrather Mühle Schinvelderstr Gangelt, DE [website]
Date:	Saturday, November 14th
Drink:	Coffee
Distance:	13 km / 8 mi

Around Town: Coffeeneuring 2015 #4 & #5

The following two jaunts were all basically within town, even though one is in Germany and the other is in the Netherlands. The first place is a local friterie (a place that serves croquettes and other fried items) and the other a relatively new pizzeria just down the way. On both occasions I ordered an espresso, mostly because of the convenience. If you order a “coffee” it could mean any number of things, but an espresso is usually always just that. Both establishments have on or near-premise bike racks, or in the case below, a giant cannibalistic bag of fries that will hold on to your bike for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coffeeneur Quick Stats:

Location:	Christianes Friterie & Café Brabanterstr. 65 Waldfeucht, DE [website]
Date:	Sunday, November 8th
Drink:	Espresso
Distance:	15 km / 9 mi

 

Location:	Pizzeria Bei Mimo Waldfeuchterbaan 108 Maria Hoop, NL [website]
Date:	Wednesday, November 11th
Drink:	Espresso
Distance:	16 km / 10 mi

Whilst In London (Coffeeneuring 2015 #3)

Whilst is a British way of saying “while”, though now that I think of it, I’ve never actually heard anyone use it before. Maybe on the BBC. Anyway, Neshanne and I did not travel all the way to London just for the purposes of coffeeneuring, we had tickets for the NFL game at Wembley to watch Buffalo lose to Jacksonville in person. Also, we hadn’t been to merry ol’ England before, and wanted to check it out before our little one shows up and keeps us under house arrest.

We stayed on the South Bank right next to the London Eye, which it turns out, is just a giant Ferris Wheel. As our luck would have it, the night we decided to ride in it, it broke down for half an hour keeping us hostage at 200 feet with a pod full of friendly strangers. Not that it happens frequently, but I would recommend using the restroom before boarding, just in case. Especially if you’re pregnant.

We walked all over London, scouting out areas we wanted to see and places to come back to, with a little random wandering mixed in there. We watched a rugby match in a pub over fish and chips (and mushy peas), strolled through several  of the city’s parks, popped on by the British Museum and shielded our eyes to the giant strobe light that is Piccadilly Circus at night. We rode the tube around, tried to figure out which bridge was called what, and spotted Her Majesty feeding peanuts to a squirrel. (One of those things isn’t true).

When it came time for coffee, we took a couple Santander bicycles, or Boris Bikes as they are affectionately known, and rode along the Thames from Waterloo to the Winchester Market. It being Sunday, and also daylight savings the night before (not to our knowledge, of course), there was nothing there. So we settled for some coffee at the Caffé Nero close by. The Mrs. got a yogurt and I had a scone with clotted cream, which sounds disgusting but was in fact pretty tasty.

London was a great time, and it was refreshing to be a tourist in an English-speaking country for a change. It’s tough to say whether or not the city is bike-friendly, because one the one hand there are a good number of bike lanes and we saw plenty of cyclists, but on the other hand, a lot of those bike lanes were pretty awful. I will say that I finally understand why Bromptons are so popular, however, as you’re unlikely to fit anything larger than an umbrella with you on the tube.

 

- Bicyclist Abroad 

 

 

Coffeeneur Quick Stats:

Location:	Caffé Nero 3 Cathedral St, London, UK [website]
Date:	Sunday, October 25th
Drink:	Coffee
Distance:	3.25km / 2 mi

Cocktail Hour: Coffeeneuring 2015 Ride #2

For my second coffeeneuring ride, I had no particular destination in mind. I was going to pack my coffee gear, some beans, and a little bottle of Irish cream, and ride to wherever looked like a nice spot to sit awhile and drink coffee. So with a considerably light pannier, I rode off in search of that perfect spot.

 

About four kilometers down the road, I found a picnic table tucked under some trees alongside the bike path and thought that would be as good a place as any. I unpacked the pannier, setting everything out to make a cup or two of coffee. After I filled the French press with water and set it on the stove to heat, I took out the Ziploc bag of beans and… did absolutely nothing with them. You see, I had forgotten one key piece of equipment: the Porlex coffee grinder.

After a couple of minutes trying to think my way around the problem—could I crush them with my pocket knife? Probably not a good idea.—I decided I would ride back, sort of in the direction of home, but past where I knew some places might be open. One café looked promising, so I stopped, only to realize that the money in my pocket was no more than 15 Euro cents, not nearly enough to buy a cup of coffee. So I went home to get the grinder and start again.

By this time, it was getting dark so I didn’t want to travel very far. I figured the previous eight or so kilometers covered the distance requirement, so I rode just outside the neighborhood to a lonely picnic table set in the middle of a field where a 9th century fortress once stood.

There I was able to grind the beans and make a proper cup of coffee. Its warmth was pleasant in the cool October evening as I listened to the sound of the wind rustling the nearly bare tree branches and the sound of cars driving home in the distance.

My cup empty and the streetlights turning on, I packed up my things and made the quick ride back to the house. One weekend down, several more to go to finish the 2015 Coffeeneuring challenge.

- Bicyclist Abroad

 

 

Coffeeneur Quick Stats:

Location:	Picnic Table, Waldfeucht, Germany
Date:	Sunday, October 18th
Drink:	Coffee
Distance:	12.9km/ 8 miles

Better Late Than Never: Coffeeneuring 2015 Ride #1

Only two weeks left to finish the 2015 Coffeeneuring Challenge? “I should probably get on that”, says I.

Since there was an optional category this year of “theme within a theme”--  as in, having one-- I jokingly quipped that my theme was procrastination, because I hadn’t started my coffee rides yet. How true that statement has been proving, because it’s really down to the wire and I need to use every remaining day to get all 7 rides accomplished. Luckily, as of this blog post, three of those are complete, leaving me with 4 rides to go—one per each day of the weekend for two weeks. I do have a Veterans Day option I can claim, but we’ll see whether or not that comes into play.

So on to the first ride.

One of the reasons I haven’t had a lot of time to ride is because I’ve been working on a Haunted House on the NATO base. With Halloween getting closer, we needed to spend a lot more time getting things finished there, and so my options for a coffee ride were limited. Nevertheless, the Mrs. gave me the idea that, since there is now a Starbucks on the base (where isn’t there one?), we should do a circuit to meet the 2 mile requirement, and ride back to the Starbucks to get coffee. I’ll admit it didn’t sound like too exciting of a ride, but I needed to log a ride and it was a good idea.

I had my Dahon already on base, and the Mrs. brought her Japanese folding bike along, and we rode around the perimeter of the base, taking roads we hadn’t been down before, and ultimately arriving back at the NATO Exchange for a cup of overpriced Starbucks coffee.

Nothing glorious, but a good (and late) start to the 2015 Coffeeneuring season. More more info about Coffeeneuring (in case you’ve no idea what I’m talking about), check out Chasing Mailboxes’ website [chasingmailboxes.com].

- Bicyclist Abroad

 

Coffeeneur Quick Stats:

Location:	NATO Airbase Geilenkirchen, Germany
Date:	Saturday, October 17th
Drink:	Coffee: Pike Place Roast
Distance:	4.5km / 2.8 miles