Auntie Helen's July in Germany... with trike!

[Auntie Helen]

My long blurb about the puncture, or lack of, has caught up with me.

Firstly, when I arrived at my German lesson my lock didn't work. I have a pair of café locks which I bought from Aldi some time ago and look fairly chunky. The red one died two days ago - wouldn't unlock reliably, so I decided not to use it. One is enough at the German course as the window in our room looks out onto where my bike was parked.

Today, when I came to lock the green lock, that didn't work either. OK, I thought, I need to retire this lock too - so I didn't lock the bike, but kept an eye on it the whole time.

The weather forecast was for another cracking storm this evening, akin to the one on Monday where two people were killed by falling trees in Nordrhein-Westfalen and there was a tornado in Heligoland. At break time (4pm) the sun was still shining, but at 5:30pm it started looking gloomy outside and the wind was getting up. Oh dear.

When I walked out of the lesson at 6:05 it was clear that we were about to have a huge storm - black clouds visible in the distance coming steadily closer. I didn't need to unlock my bike, of course, due to the lack of functional lock, but as I started wheeling it out of the parking racks... argh! Puncture.

There followed the quickest tube change ever. It was indeed the tyre that I think I had overpumped last night. I had a quick look inside the tyre anyway to check there was no glass (it seemed clear) and when I pumped up the inner tube it stayed inflated. I swapped a fresh one in anyway and pumped it up. At this point one of my fellow students came and did some more pumping of the tyre for me. They were all watching me whilst awaiting their tram. As it happened, I was on my way as the tram arrived.

I was unfortunately having to cycle towards the weather, but soon my route turned parallel with it. As I waited to cross a road (on a pavement cycle path) the wind was whistling down the road at 90 degrees to my route with rubbish, dust and muck flying around in the air. At that moment there was a huge bang and I felt the wind of something on my shoulder. Turns out a huge bit of street furniture with signs on had fallen down, right beside my trike but not quite touching it. A pedestrian asked if I was OK and said a phrase which mentioned something about "being saved by the Virgin" which I assume is a local expression.

I really put my foot down after that, cycling home as fast as possible. I even ran a red (pedestrian) light - where I could see nothing was coming. In Germany you normally wait at red lights and no-one jumps 'em, not even cyclists. There was stuff flying around and then the VERY large raindrops started.

I got back home just as the rain was getting painful. I stashed the trike in the car quick-smart and I'm up now in my room, having shut all the windows and brewing myself a nice cuppa. If it weren't for the puncture I would have been home before the rain, but I reckon a 5 minute puncture repair is pretty good going.

Oooooh, impressive lightning outside!

Tomorrow I plan to cycle to a good bike shop (Olaf from CycleChat has recommended a couple in Düsseldorf) to buy a couple more café locks...

 

[Andy in Sig]

Have you managed to try any of those eating places I mentioned yet?

 

[Auntie Helen]

It's hopeless, I haven't eaten out once (except for a kebab which I took home to eat). It's been so hot that I just don't feel like sitting in a restaurant. I had half a plan to have a chinese takeaway this evening but the storm put paid to that.

I suppose eating out on one's own is less appealing, but I may venture out next week sometime as the weather is due to be cooler, I think.

 

[Auntie Helen]

Thursday 15 July

The plan for today was to re-do one of my original rides, the one round Elbsee and Unterbacher See, but to see if I could avoid the very off-road section that had been a bit awkward last time.

I trotted downstairs and got the bike out of the car. Puncture. Same wheel. Clearly I hadn't fixed it properly last time.

So I fetched my track pump and set to changing the tube again. This time I checked the tyre really carefully visually (couldn't see anything), then decided to run my finger gently around the inside. Ouch! A tiny, tiny green thorn was sticking out. This appeared to be the cause and would explain why it was a slow puncture coming home.

So... I put the tube that I had repaired yesterday back in, put the holey tube and the track pump back in my room, and set off.

Another plan for today was to visit Rad Ab and Magno, bike shops, to buy a replacement café lock. Both shops are in Friedrichstraße which is sort-of towards the main station so was clearly somewhere to visit at the end of my loop.

I set off along the Radwege which were, once again, covered in leaves and twigs and small branches following the wind yesterday evening.

This route is particularly nice to start with as it's all on very decent cycle paths. I was soon cycling through a wood on a gravelly path which is a reasonable surface.

Today was the day for seeing golden retrievers and yellow labradors - I saw dozens of 'em, including giving one rather a fright as he didn't know what I was.

Here is the Elbsee, lovely and still following yesterday's cracking storm.

I then do a long bit parallel to the road, then under it, then back the other way. This wasn't quite as pleasant as you could always hear the road whilst cycling, but visually was very green with dappled sunlight.

At one point the path appeared to be blocked by a fallen tree:

But not with a recumbent trike - I removed the flag whilst cycling along and rode straight under the tree, putting the flag back on underway. Some pedestrians were most impressed.

Then I arrived at the Unterbacher See which is much larger and has a couple of beach areas. Here I am looking across at one of them, although at 10am it was a bit early for the crowds, plus it's a fair bit cooler today.

My trike is flying the English flag again today.

Rather than following the woodland footpaths past the Unterbacher See I used my Garmin to find a road and followed that instead; it had a cycle path by the side and was fine, if a bit noisy and with rather a lot of twigs and branches under-tyre.

When I was approaching Düsseldorf I set my Garmin to take me directly to the bike shops in Friedrichstraße but in fact cycled past a HUGE cycle warehouse (Zweirad XXXL) so decided to pop in there for a lock. They had an excellent selection and I bought a decent but light Abus one. I also bought a spare inner tube in case I had more problems as the two spares I currently have are fairly well covered in patches. I also noticed that this bike shop had tyres my size in stock - both Big Apples and Marathons - if I need any more (which I don't at the moment). They were also slightly cheaper than in England...

I came directly home after that via the bakery at the end of the road and treated myself to a Berliner (a jam doughnut to you, although when in Berlin one calls it a Krapfen).

 

[Speicher]

You have taken lots of lovely photos Helen. I am enjoying following this thread and I think I will be putting Dusseldorf firmly on my list of places to visit.

I particularly like the bridges, river, "beaches", as well as the scenery, boats, trains, and did I mention bridges?

 

[CopperBrompton]

Enjoying the blogs, Helen - keep 'em up

 

[Andy in Sig]

It's hopeless, I haven't eaten out once (except for a kebab which I took home to eat). It's been so hot that I just don't feel like sitting in a restaurant. I had half a plan to have a chinese takeaway this evening but the storm put paid to that.

I suppose eating out on one's own is less appealing, but I may venture out next week sometime as the weather is due to be cooler, I think.

Don't forget that the Carsch Haus basment scoff area is air conditioned. So you can get in there, go to the champagne bar, cool down with a blackcurrant/champagne mix and then start troughing. You know it makes sense.

 

[Auntie Helen]

Today's photos, I shall add the text later (gotta dash...). Or you could supply your own suggested text for me!

 

[CopperBrompton]

When the GPS indicated a right-turn halfway across a bridge, Helen followed the suggested route but immediately felt it might have been an error, and tried to steer right for a soft landing:

 

[Arch]

Cake! Cake! I had cake!

 

[Auntie Helen]

Saturday 17 July

Today was my day to travel to another country (Holland) to meet up with my chum Marieke.

I woke up early enough to go out for a ride before setting off (I was due to leave at 10am for Holland) so I extracted the Trice from the car, where it had spent the night (we had another significant rainstorm last night) and off I went, just following some random routes on my Garmin.

I cycled a slightly different route past the Uni and saw this great dome thingie

The route was alongside the Düssel river (from which Düsseldorf gets its name)

At this point it flows into the Rhein and I turned southwards, towards Benrath, doing a loop which eventually brought be back home after 13 miles.

And then I set off in my car (with the Trice in the back again) to Holland.

After 5 miles I realised I'd left the paperwork for my international car breakdown service back where I am staying in Düsseldorf and ummed and ahhed as to whether to return for it (and make myself late for the meeting with Marieke). In the end I decided not to, as that five miles had been through the town and was pretty slow.

I joined the motorway and after 3 miles, Stau! (Spot all the VW cars. We were stationary when I took these photos, by the way)

Which was boring. It only held me up for 15 minutes, fortunately.

I arrived in Arnhem at 12:10 and Marieke texted me to say she had just arrived (late trains). I got her to meet me at the station and then we drove together to find a car park, which involved some slightly dodgy navigation on my part which took me down a bus lane into a bus station. We eventually found the car park and left the car there, setting off on foot to the pedestrian bit of Arnhem.

We had a drink and some lunch and then wandered down to see the Rhine.

And, of course, A Bridge Too Far

There was an exhibition about the battle of Arnhem and we spent some time in there talking to the lady who was very friendly.

We then wandered around some more and saw this bicycle parking garage.

After all this exertion it was time for cake. This was the selection:

Eventually I chose something that looked like banoffee pie but turned out to have rice pudding as its base, unexpectedly. And Marieke had a cherry cream cake thingie.

Marieke also had some Dutch tea (I had my own teabag) which came in a fantastic pack shaped like a book

With the individual teabags also in a little book inside it

(The orange thing is a Dutch footie toy Marieke bought for me - apparently people twine them round their car aerials, etc).

And talking of football, this was the toilet roll in the café:

I set off home at 4:30 and my Garmin suggested I should be home by 6:00pm. But that wasn't taking into account that this is the first weekend of the German school holidays. Noch ein mal Stau!

Eventually got through that one and enjoyed whizzing along at 90mph down the A3 (Autobahn).

As I approached Duisburg the traffic jam mentioned by the traffic news (I was listening to German radio) appeared.

I sat in it for a few miles and then turned off at Duisburg and went cross-country, knowing that Duisburg and Düsseldorf aren't that far apart (after all, I had cycled between the two last Sunday).

Turns out it's quite hard navigating by car as you can't just pootle along beside the river. But I got back only 30 minutes late. I need to do my homework now - I have to find a newspaper article and write a letter about it (as if I were writing to the newspaper to complain or something). I am hoping to find an article about Paul the Octopus...

 

[skudupnorth]

Really enjoying your reports and photo's on your stay in Germany,wish i was there to have a go at cycling with the tribe.Me and my wife used to enjoy our stopovers during our drive to the Czech Republic and found Germany a wonderful place to stay.Looks like the cycle paths are well sorted and the food just looks yum,yum !!!

 

[summerdays]

Yes it certainly tempts the reader into considering visiting themselves even if their German isn't quite of the same standard.

(Opps - in re-reading that - it almost implies that I can speak some German whereas in actual fact its much closer to zero).

 

[skudupnorth]

Yes it certainly tempts the reader into considering visiting themselves even if their German isn't quite of the same standard.

(Opps - in re-reading that - it almost implies that I can speak some German whereas in actual fact its much closer to zero).

The sad fact is the Germans speak absolutley brilliant English compared to our German language skills !!! Great country with wonderful helpful people.

 

[CopperBrompton]

The sad fact is the Germans speak absolutley brilliant English compared to our German language skills !!! Great country with wonderful helpful people.

Indeed. The older generation will often claim to speak no English, until they hear my pathetic attempts at German (I speak a few hundred words, most of them relating to alcohol and car parts) at which point they generally confess to speaking English.