Nice bit of altruism.

[Andy in Sig]

Yesterday I did my usual Sunday ride to Ulm. There are only a couple of short climbs on it but one of them is a right bugger, a definite get off and shove job. At the top of the climb is a dairy farm and the farmer has put a table and four chairs outside his house with a note, in rhyming verse, exhorting cyclists who have just climbed the hill to take a seat and have a breather while recovering. There's no commercial interest at all: it's simply a pleasant gesture.

The second thing I noticed is that on the edge of Ulm the regional water company has built on the side of the cycle path a small drinking water fountain for people to fill their water bottles at.

It's things like that that make you think there's still hope for humanity.

 

[Globalti]

In Britain the chairs and table would get stolen or vandalised.

 

[zimzum42]

And someone would piss in the water fountain, or vomit in it.....

 

[Aperitif]

Nice Andy - I would be inspired by that. Better still if the farmer made with the refreshments! Only joking Mr Farmer.

 

[Mr Pig]

In Britain the chairs and table would get stolen or vandalised.

That was my first thought. When the cycle path that runs past my house was built they put in seats and benches at various nice spots all the way along it. Every one of them has been destroyed. And some of them were heavy-duty jobs, like a railway sleeper on two posts! Neds still murdered them.

And what amazes me is the effort they must put in. There is a glen near here that had a railway running through it down into Inverhouse Distillery. Across the glen was a huge viaduct carrying the railway, must be over a hundred feet high. Vandals ripped the railing off the middle of it leaving it hanging down the side of the viaduct like a limp rag.

I stood looking at it for ages. Apart from the fact it must have been physically very difficult to do it must also have been very dangerous. How they did it without falling off I have no idea.

The tops of the metal railings outside the community centre in the next village along are bent all over the place. Again, there is no way you could bend them by hand. They must've specifically went and found something to use as a lever to bend these railings! Man I'd love to hammer the crap out of these people.

 

[snorri]

I came across a Milchroute in Ammerland, northern Germany.
A group of dairy farmers had set set up Milkhouses, huts with tables and chairs, on their farms to supply refreshing milk products to passers by, the publicity leaflet included a map with suggested cycle route, called a Milchroute, of the local area which of course included other MilkHouses. The farmer told me that much of his trade came from cyclists out for the day or on longer tours.

 

[Maz]

That's excellent, Andy. Restores your faith in human nature.