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

 

 

Errandonnee

Errandonnee. It’s a randonnée, brevet, audax, long bike ride, etc. + getting everyday things done. Ï don’t know, you can ask its creator if you’d like. She lives at chasingmailboxes.com.

Growing up, my dad would frequently use the phrase “running errands”. It was such an alien term to me: what is an errand and why must you run them? Anyway, I realize now as an adult that it’s just a fancy way of saying you have to do all the things that comes along with being an adult. Buying groceries, going to the post office, that sort of stuff. So as a bicyclist, doing these things on a bike isn’t much of a stretch… or is it?

The two bicycles utilized in this endeavor were my Soma Stanyon, for long-distance trips, and the Dahon for local things. Since adding the removable front basket to the Dahon, I’ve developed a convenient method of grocery shopping where I remove the front basket, fill it with groceries, and after checking out, put the contents into the rear basket. I know this must sound incredibly dull, but I’ve always appreciated modularity. It sort of replaces a shopping basket and a grocery bag all at once.

Anyway, on the Soma it was the first time using panniers, which I’ve found to be pretty handy. These in particular are made by Ortlieb. Maybe I’ll do a full review on them later, but they worked pretty well for me in this capacity. On to the actual events…

 

I. Personal Care The dentist. I had my annual check-up and got X-rayed more than I think a person is supposed to, but at least my teeth are clean!	07 MAR 18 mi.
II. You Carried What On Your Bike? A pizza. Not amazing, but luckily the ride home is short enough that the pizza isn’t stone cold by the time I get there.	12 MAR 2.8 mi
III. Store Just a regular grocery run. There was a sale on this breakfast cereal that had chocolate bits in it.	12 MAR 3.1 mi
IV. Arts & Entertainment The woods. I was making a movie for my German class, and rode in with my camera, tripod, and amateur acting chops.	08 MAR 2.2 mi
V. Personal Care A haircut. I’m doing the medium-length thing right now, but I got it trimmed to clean things up a bit.	09 MAR 8.3 mi
VI. Social Call On the same run as visiting the dentist, I stopped by a friend’s house who is recovering from knee surgery.	07 MAR 5.5 mi
VII. Wild Card I went on a bike ride because the weather was nice and I had the time. Call it exercise, getting some air, sightseeing around my town, it’s my wild card I’ll use it how I want!	14 MAR 3.9 mi
VIII. Wild Card Looking for my lost cell phone. It must have fallen out of my pocket during one of my previous outings, but I retraced my routes and it didn’t turn up. Oh well. I got stuck behind this group of 50+ cyclists all waiting at a stop sign. It was the closest I’ve been to a Critical Mass gathering.	15 MAR 10 mi.
IX. Arts & Entertainment I rode to the movies, the longest jaunt of all the errandonnee runs. Chappie was pretty good, and the Dutch theater has Heineken on tap.	08 MAR 24.7 mi
X. Non-store Errand The military post office, also known as an APO. This is where we get our American mail, but sadly, the box was empty. The ride to base was not wasted—I picked up some Scotch at the NATO exchange.	06 MAR 23.2 mi
XI. You Carried What On Your Bike? Eleven (11) VHS from the local second hand store. The Empire Strikes Back, and a bunch of B-movies. Sadly, they are PAL or NTSC or whichever format our American VCR doesn’t play. A VCR must be free by now, right?	14 MAR 7.8 mi
XII. Store More specifically, the pet food store. This is the prettiest picture of cat food I’ve ever taken. It’s also the only picture.	15 MAR 3.8 mi

Total mileage: 113.

Wow, really? Those trips back and forth to the NATO base sure add up. And the movies being over an hour’s ride away helped. Things I learned overall:

• A pizza too hot to eat is quickly brought to eating temperature after 5 minutes on the back of a bike.
• VHS tapes from Europe aren’t compatible with VCRs from the U.S.
• If you’re looking for your phone, but don’t know your own phone number, it makes locating it that much more difficult.

I had a good time completing this challenge (as I also did with coffeeneuring) and am looking forward to the next one. Once again, if you’re interested in the details behind these sorts of things, check out chasingmailboxes.com

Thanks for reading.

- Bicyclist Abroad

Coffeeneuring 2014: The Final Chapter (Waypoints #6 and #7)

So this season of coffeeneuring has drawn to a close and I’m left with having to write about things other than getting coffee. That’s alright though, it’s been a fun event and definitely behooved me to visit some establishments that I might not have otherwise patronized.

My final two excursions were in two different countries, the first being in the town of Montfort in the Netherlands.  I had actually planned on venturing out to the city of Roermond, but found a cafe en route and settled for a cup of coffee there in case no other opportunities came my way.

Like many cafes around here, the ‘t Kefee ane Kerk is suited for everyone, but is particularly accommodating to bicyclists. It is just off the main cycling network road that I was doing my best to follow, and has a bike-parking lot in the adjacent to the outdoor dining area on the patio. There I sat and ordered a coffee as a group of middle-aged German men showed up on their bikes and took a seat on the patio as well. 

As I enjoyed the sunshine and waited for my coffee to cool, I took out the trusty bike map and plotted the next leg of my journey towards Roermond. From the looks of it, I was a third of the way there. Inside the cafe there were maps for sale as well as a kiosk of mostly cycling-related literature, sight-seeing guides, and local attractions. This place gets an A+ in bike-friendliness.

Little did I know however, (though at this point I should be keenly aware) that a map was really not necessary at all. There were signs indicating the bike route to Roermond literally around the corner from the cafe. And of course, bike paths for almost the entirety of the way. Where there weren’t segregated bike paths there were clearly marked bi-directional bike lanes. Even the roundabouts were suited for bicycle traffic.

One place of note nearby is the Roerdriehoek museum [website] that features stories and memorabilia from the Allied liberation of this part of Europe during World War II. I didn’t go inside, but I would like to check it out eventually.       [Note the British and American flags being flown]

I continued on my way, reaching Roermond city limits, but it was getting late in the day so I decided to stop at a Jan Linders grocery store, get something to eat, and return back. I had a pretty significant mechanical issue happen just as I was returning, but I’ll touch on that in a later post.

The final coffeeneuring stop for me was on Veterans Day, at the Cafe am Rodebach in Gillrath, Germany. I had actually been here once before with the Mrs. when we had first arrived to Germany. Its location is convenient if you are coming or going to the NATO base in Geilenkirchen and while not directly on a bike path, it is a dozen meters or so away from one.

There was a large group of older men and women there when I arrived, all apparently having cycled there. I parked my bike next to theirs, which were predominately Dutch-style bikes with electric assist. These upright e-bikes are wildly popular amongst the older population here, and if having an electric motor to supplement your pedaling is what gets you on a bike, then it’s fine by me.

Since the weather was drizzly and cold, I opted to sit inside here and found a table by the window. Advertised were freshly-made Berliners so I could not resist having one with my coffee.

It was pretty delicious and the little carafe held another cup’s worth of coffee, which was just right. It was a pleasant escape from the dreariness outside and a nice finale to my first coffeeneuring experience. I would have to say that this, along with every other stop I made these two months, were places I’d visit again if I had to redo the whole thing. In fact, now that I’m officially done coffeeneuring, I’m looking forward to re-visiting some of the establishements I’ve coffeeneured to.

So this year’s coffeeneuring event for me has spanned two countries and three bicycles, something I’ll try to top next year (Belgium is the next closest candidate). I’ve been both on and off-road, in the sunshine and in the rain, and had a great time throughout. Thanks again to the orchestrator of all of this, MG from Chasing Mailboxes, and to all the other people out there that participated.

- Bicyclist Abroad

Coffeeneur Quick Stats:

Location:	't Kefee ane Kèrk Aan de kerk 2 6065AS Montfort Netherlands [website]
Date:	November 2nd
Drink:	Coffee
Distance:	33 km/ 20 mi.

 

Location:	Café am Rodebach Knuppstr. 9 52538 Gangelt-Stahe Germany [website]
Date:	November 11th
Drink:	Coffee
Distance:	29 km/ 18 mi.