Trails and Canals [Berlin Bicycle Week #2]

Before we left Sven’s house in the morning, he gave us two pieces of advice. The first was to stock up before we left Hannover, because we’d have problems finding supplies once we were beyond the city limits. That turned out to be mostly untrue, as we passed numerous grocery and convenience stores along the way. The second piece of advice, however, was invaluable; he suggested we follow the Mittelland Canal. We looked at a map and, sure enough, the canal runs through Hannover and nearly all the way to Berlin. This was great news, because now we didn’t have to put any thought into navigating. Stay on the canal, and we would always be on track. So Sven made us a map from his house down to the canal and we were on our way.

The Mittelland Canal stretches over 300 kilometers and is the longest artificial waterway in Germany. And as canals tend to be, largely free of elevation change (except for when we had to cross over bridges to the opposite side.) The towpath we started out on was pretty much dirt double-track that turned to gravel every now and again.  Some of it was really great riding. Other parts… not so much.

We encountered one section in particular that disintegrated into a rocky, jagged path that made for a pretty jarring ride. Thankfully, it was a brief affair, and we were back onto a relatively smooth trail before too long. Then there was another section that was more or less a giant gutter, and I took a spill on some wet leaves but managed to stay out of the canal (almost every time I ride with Will I have a difficult time keeping the rubber side down).

For lunch, we departed the trail and rode into the town of Peine for some baked goods and coffee. Not exactly the barren field or ghost town we had expected, but then again, we hadn’t yet crossed into the former GDR.

A funny thing happened after we got back on the canal after Peine: the sun came out. All of a sudden, we were in good moods and, were it not for my increasingly worsening knee pain, I think we could have covered a pretty substantial distance…

Well, maybe not. There were actually a few other factors working against us. Firstly, the further along we progressed, the more headwind we encountered—the steep embankments on either side of the canal gradually diminished to small mounds that did little to provide a wind break. Then there was the string of consecutive flat tires on Will’s fatbike, all caused by the same branch that neither of us had noticed until he was pulling quarter-inch thorns out of his tires.

He replaced the rear inner tube, only to have it go flat on him again—pinched on the rim during installation. So that one got a patch, and we were good… for a while. The front tube had a slow leak as well. It was deflation city.

We decided that we’d head into the next town and try to find a bike shop for some new tubes, but Calberlah only had a gas station and a café, and we had only a couple hours of daylight left. So while Will worked on his bike issues, I grabbed some coffee and slices of cake. Whether it was the craving for carbs and sugar or not, that cake was damn delicious.

We’d have liked to have made it to Wolfsburg, just another 8 kilometers from the town we were in, but we decided to make camp while it was still light out and so we picked up some beers, rode to our campsite, and called it a night. At this rate, there was no way we’d make it to Berlin by Thursday, but we’d see how far we could go before we needed to take the train again.

- Bicyclist Abroad

 

Finding Düsseldorf [Berlin Bicycle Week #1]

The plan was hatched at a friend’s house over a couple beers— why don’t we just ride from here to Berlin Bicycle Week?  We could leave on a Sunday and make it there by Thursday if we kept a fairly quick pace. 650 kilometers over five days: riding, camping, and a then a huge bicycle expo. Why not?

Well, due to school finals and other reasons, that plan was then revised to include rail travel, cutting down the overall distance and allowing a more relaxed pace on the sections we were to ride. Even more time to camp and drink beers! We would meet up in Düsseldorf and then take the train to Hannover, where we would continue on towards Berlin. It was a solid plan.

Because we wanted to spend some time on dirt and gravel roads, I decided to use my 1990-something Dean Colonel as a touring rig with a hybrid pannier/handlebar roll setup. A drybag around the seatpost was a last-minute addition, but actually seemed to work out pretty well. Not an evenly-distributed load by any means, but it’s all I’ve got to work with at the moment.

By Google Maps’ estimation, 3.5 hours in the saddle was all that it would take to get from my house to the meeting point of Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof, the main train station. So I set out with the assumption that I would be there a little under that time, as Google tends to be pretty generous with their cycling trip estimations, at least in my experience.

I rode along the Dutch side of the border for as long as I could, taking advantage of the cycle paths and abundant signage. The weather was cool but sunny, making for a pretty great start to the journey. I didn’t have, or think I needed, any sort of navigation beyond a compass and the maps provided on the waypoints. That was a mistake.

Dipping down into Germany, it became clear that long-distance navigation is not what the waypoint system is intended for. At any given waypoint, the map will only show you the town you are currently in and the two or three surrounding it. Whether that town will take you to where you’re headed is up to you—a larger regional map  is necessary to make that call, and I did not have one for this leg of the journey.

The other factor slowing me down as I made my way through German farmland was an unrelenting headwind. A set of fully loaded panniers only added to the misery of mashing pedals to a soundtrack of hissing wind. We joked later on that, at least it let us know we were headed in the right direction.

In town, it became difficult to place which roads went where, so I stopped to ask on a couple occasions. The meet-up time came and went, and I was nowhere near Düsseldorf at this point. Finally, I found a gas station that sold maps and picked up one for the region I was in. Was I still that far away? I had one more town to pass through before hitting the western bank of the Rhine, and then it was over the river to the train station where my friend was already waiting, passing the time by watching the bums pick through trashcans.

When I finally did arrive, it was nearly 6pm-- a full four hours later than planned and eight hours since I had left the house. Having done zero training rides prior to this, I was feeling pretty beat, and my knees were screaming. As it turns out, I hadn’t fully tightened the seat collar after adjusting the bike’s saddle height, and it had been slowly sliding down the whole time. Another terrible mistake which would cost me a lot of pain for the rest of the journey.

By now, it was getting dark and we had no place to stay. Had we met up at 2 o’clock and taken the very next train to Hannover, we’d have time to find camp while it was still light out, but that option was now pretty much behind us. We checked out a couple hostels in town, but they were either booked or too expensive, so we figured we’d get on the train anyway and figure it out when we got there. So we bought our tickets and got on board the bicycle car of the train, only to meet another traveler named Sven.

Sven is a German university student just returning from a multiple-month bike tour of his own. He asked us where we were headed, and we told him Berlin via Hannover. Then he asked us if we had a place to stay in Hannover, offering his back yard for us to camp in. We jumped on that offer! Then we spent the rest of the train ride talking about bikes, travel, and Sven’s adventures in Australia.

When we got to Hannover we followed him through the dark, cutting through German suburban neighborhoods and wooded paths to his house where he then offered to let us sleep on his living room floor, another offer we didn’t think twice about. I took a shower, inflated my sleeping mat, and climbed into my sleeping bag, halfway amazed that we had run into such luck. (If you ever read this, Sven, thanks again for your hospitality.)

- Bicyclist Abroad

 

Warming the Saddle

Rural winter rides are special—everything is quiet, the air is crisp with the passing scent of chimney smoke, and you hardly see anyone but the couple out walking their dog or another cyclist who has discovered the charm of a chilly mid-winter ride themselves. This is especially true on a German Sunday when der Ruhetag, or day of rest, is strictly upheld.

It was on one such Sunday that I went for a long overdue ride; Neshanne entertained our two month old at home and I got to put my pedals in motion after what felt like forever. It was a welcome, familiar feeling, but I could soon tell that I was not in the same shape as I had been. What felt like under-inflated tires was in fact, a pair of legs that had metamorphosed into two sticks of cold butter.

Nevertheless I was happy to be “at it” again, and especially happy to have the flat Niederrhein under my wheels. I took the Colonel into the Netherlands, off the road for a bit, through the woods and back out again, getting a little bit lost and then seeing a sign or landmark that cleared up my whereabouts. I’m not certain you could get seriously lost in any part of the Netherlands, even if you wanted to. The cycling network is so robust that even if you are kilometers from the nearest waypoint, you’re never more than a few meters from a marker that points you towards one. Only the most austere, overgrown woodlands are bereft of signage, but in those cases, you’re probably in a protected wildlife refuge and not supposed to be there in the first place.

One amusing sight along the way was a Dutch bike hoisted high atop a pole on someone’s house. Was this a weathervane? Or maybe it was a whimsical piece of art. Maybe someone got sick of someone else parking their bike in the wrong spot. Either way, I’m certain it holds the world record for the bicycle most struck by lightning.

After a couple hours, the sun went down and the rain picked up, so I pointed my fork towards home. There is nothing quite like a bicycle ride when you really need one; it resets something inside of you and clears your mind. I came back a little wet, a little cold, but feeling restored.

 

- Bicyclist Abroad

Not Enough

I didn’t make it. My goal to do an overnight each month in 2015 is already, as the Germans say, kaput. Let me tell you you why.

Firstly, I waited until the last minute. February has only 28 days to begin with, so there’s a little less time to work with. School’s been keeping me busy, the weather’s been crap, yadda yadda yadda, so I kept postponing it until I just figured I’d knock it out on the last weekend. Which brings us to present time. Last Friday, I threw everything together I’d need, testing out a new setup without a rack + panniers, a la your traditional bikepacking setup, more or less.

You’ll notice I don’t have a frame bag, and that’s because they’re too expensive to not get them custom fit to your frame, and I’d rather do that myself… someday… when I have a sewing machine. Besides, for one night, a frame bag isn’t really necessary. The “fuel tank” bag is actually an under-the-saddle wedge that is very obviously zip-tied in place. The seat pack is just a compression sack from the local camping store, and the sleeping bag/bivy sack is wrapped in a military surplus sleeping bag carrier and bungeed to the handlebars. You’re looking at low-budget here, people.

I had stuff for sleeping, stuff for eating, and stuff for making coffee in the morning. So, I set off in search of a place to spend the night.

Since I was just using a bivy and a sleeping bag, which is essentially just a sleeping bag, I figured I could plop down anywhere and hunker down for the night. I got a new inflatable sleeping pad that was insulated, so I should be plenty warm. I meandered through the woods, down dirt farming roads and through some sporadic single track, mostly to see how the load affected the handling of the bike.

 

The sky was clear, and the sun was setting, so the temperature started to drop substantially. I began to think maybe I’d just ride around for as long as possible before setting up camp and going to sleep. That way, I’d at least stay warm. So, I did. I rode down trails and through some rather muddy forest paths, trying to get deeper into the woods. But, because this is the Netherlands, I ended up coming out the other side onto a paved, well-lit bicycle path.

So I rode on that, too.

That lead me to a bar that sits alongside the path, and I figured, why not go inside and warm up for awhile? (You can begin to see a theme of not being warm enough.)

Inside, it was empty. There was the lady tending the bar and myself. I ordered a beer and sat down, trying to think of things I could say in German. I asked her how long she had worked there. “35 years” was her answer. She asked me what I do, I told her I was a student. That was as far as we were gonna get with that conversation. Thankfully, there was a TV in the corner, so I ordered another beer and watched MasterChef Canada for a while.

Coming back outside, it was pretty dark. Thankfully, the cycle paths here are illuminated better than most airports. So, I kept riding, unsure of where to go next. Then I remembered there was a campsite a few kilometers down the road, so I decided that’s where I’m going to stay.

I arrived at the site, unrolled my bivy/sleeping bag/sleeping mat combo (much like the edible variety), and climbed inside to get warm. This is the second mistake I made in preparing for this overnight. I had never used a bivy sack before, I just assumed it was like a little tent just big enough for your sleeping bag. Well, when I inflated the sleeping mat inside of it, and got inside myself, the space diminished very quickly. As you may already know, it’s that space that the heat gets trapped in to keep you warm, so I effectively was losing all my heat through the Gore-Tex fabric that was pressed against my sleeping bag. Not to mention, I brought my intermediate sleeping bag instead of my zero-degree bag, which probably made a big difference, considering it was zero degrees outside.

I ate my small meal, zipped up the bag, and tried to find a position that would be comfortable enough, but everywhere I moved, another cold spot emerged. At one point I had even put the insulated mat on top of me, which was actually really warm, but impossible for sleeping. I checked my phone for the time, hoping that maybe it was midnight and I could count this as an overnight on a technicality, but it was only 10pm. There was no way I’d be sleeping.

So, I bit the bullet, climbed out of my bag, rolled everything up, and pedaled homeward. Upon arriving, the defeat I felt was quickly overcome by the pleasant warmth of being indoors. The next morning, I awoke to find the ground outside had a thick layer of frost covering it, and I was kind of glad I wasn’t laying out in it.

Although I didn’t finish the overnight, I did learn quite a few things for next time. Unfortunately, the nights are still too cold to get away with a minimal load, so a heavier sleeping bag and a tent are probably needed. I did the hammock thing before and in colder temps, but I would need  a pannier or two to carry everything, at least until I have a frame bag. Either way, just because I didn’t get February checked off, doesn’t mean I can’t still shoot for all the other months of the year.

- Bicyclist Abroad

 

Christmas By Bike

For many people Americans, there is a a firm dividing line between the Thanksgiving and holiday period following it, where you must give Thanksgiving its due before moving on to Christmas, Hanukah, Festivus, etc. You put lights on your house before the 28th of November, and your name gets removed from your neighbor’s Christmas card list. You listen to Christmas music at the office and your co-workers groan, visibly discomforted by your eagerness for Santatime to arrive. Getting an early jump on the December holidays is seen as bad form.

Here in Europe, that problem of course does not exist, because they had the sense to clear the calendar of all conflicting holidays leading up to the start of the new year. So from All Souls Day to the 31st of December, it’s pretty much Christmas around these parts. Sure there are special days interspersed throughout, but they all have something or another to do with that big day on December 25th.

The Mrs. and I however, forever faithful to the American way, waited until after November 27th to crack open the bin of holiday décor. And this year, we decided to get a real Christmas tree.

As explained to me by our neighbor, we are fortunate to have a Christmas tree farm right in the village where we live. The other trees you buy are imported from Norway or Scandinavia and will invariably drop their needles all over your house. So we decided to shop locally and pick out a proper German tree (which come to find out, was actually Canadian, in species anyway). They were all rather short compared to giant, SUV-sized, American trees I’m accustomed to, but that just means your lights cover that much more of the tree’s surface area.

Oh, and I really wanted to use the dog-kennel trailer to bring it home.

So we got on our bikes and rode to the man’s house who owns the little tree farm. It’s literally less than two blocks away, but I feel like my plan would have worked regardless of distance. The man asked which variety of tree we would like, and I told him whichever one is best. So he pointed us in that direction, we picked out our tree, and he kindly cut it for us.

20 Euro later, it was ours and we bungeed it securely into the trailer.

[You can see on the bottom of the bike I installed a double-legged kick stand which makes a world of  difference in loading/unloading from the trailer. I was worried it would affect my clearance off-road, but soon realized my style of riding is far too mild for it to cause me any problems. Also, it’s easily removed.]

I almost wish the tree farm was farther away, because I did not have much time to savor the self-reliance of transporting a tree on a bicycle. Alas, the short trip gave us more time to spend decorating the tree and merging two cultures into new traditions of drinking Glühwein while listening to Bing Crosby on the stereo.

 

Happy holidays from Bicyclist Abroad!

 

In Search of Singletrack

Okay, so I’ll admit that even as a bicycle enthusiast, mountain biking wasn’t something I particularly cared for. It was always portrayed as an extreme sport in the vein of skateboarding or I don’t know, pogo sticking, and I’m about as far from extreme as can be. Before I even started riding bikes for transportation, I associated mountain biking with adrenaline junkies who bombed down dangerous tracks in motocross outfits and would suffer from the occasional broken body part. Looking back, I now understand the differences between downhill and dirt jumping and the other competitive sub-divisions, and, let’s say, just riding a mountain bike. It is the latter that lately I’ve grown to enjoy quite a bit.

I’ve talked about The Colonel before, my 90’s Dean Titanium hardtail that I built out of leftovers and other cannibalized bikes. I built it as a rugged, do-anything, weatherproof bike that I wouldn’t mind getting beaten up or tossed around. I think I had intended to ride it in the winter in northern Japan before I realized that you need really big tires to ride through the snow. It’s a single-speed because I like the simplicity and I dislike adjusting derailleurs. It’s titanium because I think titanium is just dandy. It’s a Dean partly because that is my name, too. Anyway, I built it up in Japan and rode it 4 or 5 times before coming to Germany where it has been seeing a lot more use than I had thought it would.

Actually, let me rewind and clarify that last statement—it isn’t Germany where I’ve been riding, it’s the Netherlands. You see, the Dutch aren’t just preoccupied with these beautiful and elaborate paved cycling paths, they also are pretty good about maintaining their off-road cycling network.  The first time I rode an ATB here in Europe, it was with a friend who lives north of Eindhoven, and he took me on some pretty incredible routes through the forests by his house. Impressed, I thought he was a lucky guy to live so close to these trails, but what I didn’t know at the time was that almost every forest in the Netherlands has these trails. In fact, there are some less than 5 minutes from where I live that start just across the Dutch border. Up until last week, I never knew they were there.

So aside from errands and coffeeneuring, these trails have been where I’ve spent most of my saddle time. Lately I’ve even been bringing Ardie along, too, and he runs ahead of me like a dog sled team of one (he’s not strapped into a harness or anything, that’s the just image I wanted to portray). Some of the trails double back on each other, some go to different villages, some are more technical than others, although the flatness of the terrain here dictates nothing too challenging. It’s just a lot of fun, and I wouldn’t have expected to be doing it as often as I have.

Of course, one thing always leads to another, and I’ve got my eye on some of the more famous trans-european bikepacking routes for this summer, but in the meantime I am having a good time clunking around the woods on a mountain bike.

- Bicyclist Abroad

Coffee, Canines, and Cycling on Sundays (Coffeeneuring Waypoint No. 4)

Dogs remember. Ardie remembers he isn’t supposed to eat the cat food, but he does anyway. He also remembers the one time we tipped him over in his trailer and he has never forgiven me for it. Well, as dog’s go, he probably has forgiven me, but he certainly has reservations about riding in it. I am determined to make him enjoy it, I tell him it’s just like riding in the car, except you don’t have to stick your head out the window because you get the wind in your face no matter what. He’s not buying it.

I really wanted Ardie to ride along with me because I knew that treats awaited him and I wanted him to know there were treats coming his way. Besides, he would just sit inside on the couch while I enjoyed the sunshine and coffee by myself, which is no way for a dog to spend his day. So I made the decision for him and set him in the trailer.

He was not happy about that. Trust me, I said. Then we rode off, heading to my fourth coffeeneuring destination and some Sunday brunch.

See? I knew you’d like it.

The restaurant we were headed to was across the border in the Netherlands, a little place called ‘t Bergoes. It is popular on Sundays, not only because it’s a nice place to sit and enjoy food and drinks, but also because it’s close to Germany where nothing is open on Sundays. So you’ll see carriages and people on horses stopping by to get lunch because, y’know, they still do that around here.

You’ll also see a lot of bicyclists—mostly the everyday, wearing normal clothes variety, but a handful of mountain bikers and roadies make their way here for a beer or two on their weekend rides. In fact, I think everyone that was there arrived on either a horse or a bicycle. I’m not even sure how you get there by car.

I sat outside on the picnic table and Ardie sat underneath. Dogs are also very common here and he had plenty of fellow dogs to sniff and stare at. Then the waitress came by, took my order, and gave Ardie a couple of dog biscuits. What a pampered pup.

I ordered a coffee with Schrobbeler, which I’d like to call a Dutch Coffee (as opposed to Irish or Spanish, respectively) even though it’s probably not called that by anyone, ever. Regardless, it’s very good. And I ordered an omelet that was also very delicious. In this part of the world, the bread alone is worth going out to eat for.

Feeling quite satisfied, Ardie and I left ‘t Berghoes and rode back towards the house. For having behaved quite well, I let Ardie out of the trailer so he could run the trail for the last half a mile. Tail wagging, he ran ahead of me, looking back every so often to make sure I was still riding behind him. Hopefully this trip left a positive enough impression on him that he won’t be so reluctant to do it again in the future.

- Bicyclist Abroad

Coffeeneur Quick Stats:

Location:	Restaurant ‘t Berghoes Haarenderweg 1 6105 AW Maria Hoop The Netherlands [website]
Drink:	“Dutch Coffee”
Date:	Sunday, October 19th
Distance:	8.2 km/ 5 miles

A Lesson in Rejection: October Bike Overnight (Coffeeneuring Waypoint #2)

For me, this summer had been filled with many things: moving to a new country, travelling with the Mrs., starting school full-time, and many other events jam-packed (the way that jam is packed) into a few short months (actually standard-length 30/31 day months, but they felt short). The one thing we didn’t get to do was go camping, and this deep-seated summer tradition was gnawing at me as the temperature headed south for the winter. Wasting no time, I decided that I’d go camping this past weekend and knock out a coffeeneuring excursion in the process. An American friend of mine from the Netherlands came down to accompany me, and with my dog Ardie in tow, we set out to the campsite I had picked out a few weeks ahead of time for this very occasion.

The trip to the campground from my house is pretty flat and straightforward, which was appreciated even more so by having to lug a dog and gear. The sites themselves are just plots of grass where you can set up your tent or park your RV (some have electricity and water hook-ups). We rode in, picked a site, and then walked around a bit looking for the management so we could pay him the €15 or so for one night. Finding no one, we passed the time by picking chestnuts off the ground for eating later on. Amidst our foraging frenzy, the proprietor appeared and with a very quizzical expression, asked us what we were doing there?

“Oh, hello! Yes, we’d like to stay one night on site 50…. was it 58? 85! Yes, two people on site 85.”

“You cannot. We are closed.”

“Oh.”

After a few more moments of him asking us how we got inside (apparently the gate arm would have remained closed to a car, but bicycles can go around it) and me asking if he was sure we couldn’t just stay one night, we reluctantly got back on our bikes to find someplace else to camp.

I remembered passing by a campsite the other week on my way out to another town in the Netherlands, so suggested we check that place out. We headed out in that direction and soon I recognized where we were, so we biked a couple kilometers down the road to this new campsite, which we were confident was open. This place looked pretty nice, and it had a waterslide. But the waterslide, like the last campsite, was closed for the season.

I called on the intercom at the front and several minutes later, a woman came out to show us to the tent area. All was going well until she walked up and saw Ardie, sniffing a wall, and told us that no dogs were allowed in the camping area. Are you kidding me? She offered us an alternative: we could set up our tents in the RV lot, but it would cost a lot more, something to the tune of €35. We entertained the idea, but soon found out the plot to be no more than a small grassy parking space next to the dumpster. No thanks, thank you anyway-- we were shortly back on the road.

Luckily, we had passed a small sign on the way to this last campground that showed another campsite down the road. It was well past lunchtime, and we were hoping to finally set up camp and get something to eat. We arrive, and we see people about and dogs barking, a sign that maybe there is hope.

But no, camping is not possible. “It is October. We are closed for camping.” I couldn’t believe it. All of these people were refusing our money, and they would literally have to do nothing in return but let us pitch our tents on their property. “It’s the Dutch, man.” my friend said to me. “That’s how they are.”

So we discussed our options, and decided we would find a spot in the woods off the beaten trail and set up camp there for the night. Now, whether or not this is legal in the Netherlands, I can’t say. I did try to read the sign posted at the trail entrance, but alas my Dutch is lacking,

So, there in the woods we stayed (or might not have, to maintain plausible deniability). Ardie enjoyed being out in nature and us humans enjoyed it too, along with a couple beers. The rain cut the evening short for me as I had got wetter than I was anticipating and was eager to get into a dry sleeping bag. The moon shone bright that night and illuminated the darkness of the forest.

[Above: Ardie (left) guarding the tent (right).]

In the morning, it was time to check off the coffeeneuring box, so I used my Porlex to grind some beans and then made a couple cups of French-pressed coffee for us to share. It was good, but not quite enough for two people, so we ended up getting more coffee later on that morning. All-in-all, it felt good to get out in the woods for a while, and I learned a few things for next time I go, which will be whenever the Dutch deem camping appropriate again.

- Bicyclist Abroad

Coffeeneur Quick Stats:

Location:	Undisclosed, Netherlands
Drink:	Coffee. Starbucks Pike Place Roast
Date:	Sunday, October 12th
Distance:	19 km / 11.8 miles