Ten Wheels in Germany – June 2018 (Month 51)

Cycling this month

This month was a very good month for cycling because of our Helen and Klaus round NL tour. Here are the total distances I have ridden (green = recumbent trike):

And this is where I went (mostly round the Netherlands and a few commutes)

 

There were a number of events on this month for cycling. The Stadtradeln started on 2 June and this is a competition between various towns to get more people cycling. We had an ADFC Kempen team with Hartmut, Klaus, me, Jochen, Ralf, Rolf, Uli and several others, and over the 21 days of Stadtradeln our average distance was just under 1000km (and two of the 11 members rode under 16km in total!). Hartmut managed an amazing 2100km as he set himself a challenge to ride 100km a day. Well done Hartie! Klaus, Burkard and I took the next places, and in fact the first six were all over 1000km I believe. It was good fun!

We also went out on a cycle ride at the beginning of the month with Hartmut and Ralf.

Ralf and Hartmut had been visiting various towns which were having events to start off the Stadtradeln. Ralf was given a flower which he attached to the Cookie Monster velomobile.

There was a ride going from Grefrath but we decided not to join it as velomobiles are too much of a different speed. Instead we rode separately to Landcafé Bruxhof in Klixdorf for some very nice cake!

The Return of Celeste!

As mentioned in a previous blog, Celeste the Strada was damaged by vandals who steamed through a local farmer’s garages/sheds and then set alight his hay barn. We were storing Celeste and a few other bits and bobs in one of his garages and Celeste was damaged by the vandals; they sat on her, breaking her nose, pulled out some wiring and stamped inside.

Anyway, we delivered her to Velomobiel.nl a couple of months ago and they would repair her. Klaus had a message to say that she was ready and could we collect her sooner rather than later as they had so many velomobiles in their shop at the moment.

Klaus had long hatched a plan to cycle her home and so he started putting this into action. I would drive him to Venlo railway station and from there he would catch a train to Dronten (we had a train ticket courtesy of my Mum who didn’t use it, and it would be valid for the trip) and then cycle home. All good, the date was picked.

Then a couple of evenings before, Ralf phoned up. When we were driving up to collect Celeste, could we take his DF? He had broken the chain and was having front shifter problems and wanted it fixed by Intercity Bike in Dronten. All good, except Klaus wanted to ride back! The obvious solution was that I drove up with Ralf’s DF and Klaus, and Klaus cycled home and I drove home with the DF once it was done. Plans all agreed, we collected Ralf’s Sprinter van with his DF on the Friday evening so we could make an early start on Saturday. Ralf had no time to travel to Dronten himself as his daughter was having her Uni graduation ball.

Klaus and I set off at 7:15am and were at Velomobiel.nl by 9:30. There was already lots going on there with several people having bikes repaired/adjusted. We also saw loads of Quattrovelos there, including the gold/yellow one belonging to Ingrid (wife of Gert) who we visited during our NL tour. She wasn’t sure how the colour scheme would work, I personally am not convinced but a colleague at work, to whom I showed the photo, thought it was wonderful. It’s probably a Marmite colour scheme but as long as Ingrid loves it then it’s great!

And then we were reunited with Celeste.

They explained that it had been hard to get a decent colour match. The paint they ordered was totally wrong so they got a local car paint shop to make up the colour and respray the entire top, which they did. The match is very close; not perfect, but good enough! The repair was excellent, we could see no traces of the damage.

Klaus rode her around the block to check everything (he said she felt very different than Humphrey), fitted the cadence sensor and then set off.

I then did the 1.5km journey to Intercity Bike to hand over Ralf’s DF.

Ralf had discussed with Ymte and decided to have the front 2 chainrings replaced with a Schlumpf Mountain Drive. This is partly as a result of our recommendations, and it helped that Ymte had a second hand one that had done just 5000 miles that was an excellent price.

It was Peter who was working there today and he told me that as the chain was broken and one half had disappeared inside the innards of the DF it would take a bit longer to fix, maybe up to 3 hours (as they also had a couple of visitors coming for test rides). He recommended I headed to Kampen for a walkabout and a cuppa, so off I went.

Klaus and I had stayed in Kampen when having servicing done on Millie and Celeste last year and we had had a little walk in the town but I had much longer this time and got to see plenty of it – once I had parked the Sprinter of course. Such a long van isn’t easy to park and I ended up in a normal car park, hoping I wouldn’t get a ticket for being one and a half car lengths long. Fortunately the car park was only half full.

I walked into the main centre of Kampen on what was a very hot and sunny day.

I enjoyed my walk around in the sunshine, looking at the different cafés and restaurants to see where I should have my lunch. In the end I stopped for a Flammkuchen (very thin pizza) at one place and drank a fresh orange juice too. After this I walked around a bit more, bought a pair of shorts, then it was time to stop again for cake and cuppa as I had 25 minutes until my parking ticket ran out.

I stopped at a coffee place that advertised cakes and they had something which turned out to be similar to Lemon Meringue Pie in the UK. I had this cake and a cup of tea using my teabag.

We spent two weeks touring the Netherlands in June and one of the big negatives was the price of the food (and also, to some extent, its quality). This smallish piece of cake and the tea cost me 7,50€. To put that into perspective, the next day in Germany Klaus and I had two large slices of cake, a tea and a Latte Macchiato, and that was 8,20€. If you want good value and large cakes, best to stick to Germany!

Whilst I was sitting down eating this cake (which did taste fine), I had a message from Fritz who is touring Scotland with his partner Brigitte and their two DF Velomobiles. You can see some pictures of his tour on their Facebook page @Tandemontour.

Anyway, a week ago whilst in Scotland they had bumped into Woollypigs and Peliroja, cyclist acquaintances of mine who were on holiday with their dog. Woolly borrowed my old trike years ago. Anyway, Woolly spoke to them and asked if they knew me and of course they did. But now I had another message from Fritz as you can see below:

Joyce, or Mrs Miggins, toured with her husband Simon, me, Klaus and Tigerbiten on our Spezi Tour three years ago. And she bumped into some Velomobile owners in Scotland whilst on holiday and of course they knew me. The world can be so small! It was lovely to have this connection.

It was time to walk back to the van and this time, as I walked past the church tower, some people were hauling life-size models of cows up on giant cables whilst a film crew recorded. I have no idea why.

The cows nearly at the top…

An everyday Saturday in NL?

I drove the 10km back from Kampen to Dronten and Ralf’s DF was now ready. I had a chat with Peter about it, and about velomobiles in general. It’s good to know that ICB are also working on new velomobile models and improvements/enhancements.

Peter helped me fix the Cookie Monster into the Sprinter.

And then it was time for me to drive home. I guess I left at about 2pm.

Meanwhile, Klaus and Celeste had been making their way along a lovely route, originally given to us by the late Robert Frischemeier.

The beginning of this route goes through the Veluwe National Park which is lovely.

It was a really hot day and Klaus was having a relatively gentle ride as he had not ridden Celeste for months and didn’t need to overdo it.

He stopped for drinks and ate food he had brought with him (banana, figs etc).

Because this route was developed by a velomobile rider it is much more suitable for our transport than if we just tried to make a route ourselves. There’s a lovely long section along a canal and Klaus was having a really good ride.

I half planned to ride somewhere to meet him but it was clear from his messages that he was making such good progress I would be too late. I drove the Sprinter directly back to Ralf’s house and helped him unload the DF. After a short chat I drove home again in Klaus’s car that we had left there, going via Aldi as we needed some food. As I was coming out of Aldi Klaus sent me a message to say he was in Issum so only 15km or so away!

By the time I got home from Aldi and unloaded the shopping Klaus was in Aldekerk. He suggested we meet in Kempen for ice cream so I hopped onto the trike and zoomed into Kempen to meet him, arriving to discover there was some big event on in Kempen with lots of people. Klaus arrived five minutes later and we found a seat at one of the bars on Buttermarkt where I had an ice cream and Klaus replaced some fluids and electrolytes with an Alkoholfreies Weizen or two.

We rode home together and he ended up with 190km with an average of 25.7 km/h.

So how was Celeste after her repair? Absolutely fine, but in the intervening time Klaus has ridden 4,000km in Humphrey and has got used to him. Given the choice of only having one of the two, he says he would choose the Quattrovelo. He finds it somehow uses less energy, particularly in windy days, and also seems to find the riding position more comfortable (although this could be changed in both). Here is his report in German from this ride:

Mal ein kurzer Bericht von meiner Heimfahrt. Bei der Streckenführung haben wir uns von unserem leider verstorbenen Velomobilisten Robert Frischemeier inspirieren lassen. Das erste Mal bin ich diese Strecke im Dezember 2016 nach dem OBT gemeinsam mit Helen gefahren. Die Strecke führt grob durchs Veluwe bis Apeldoorn, dann entlang des Canal Zuid bis Dieren, bei Rees geht es über den Rhein und dann ist man schon fast zu Hause.

Die ersten Kilometer waren schon ein wenig ungewohnt aber das gab sich recht schnell. Wie bereits erwähnt, die Strecke ist ein echtes Highlight, Wälder und Heidelandschaften auf den ersten 50km. Nach Apeldoorn hatte ich die erste Pause am Kanal und ich merkte schon irgendwie, dass mein Körper in der letzten Zeit ein anderes Velomobil gewöhnt war. Keine massiven Probleme, aber dennoch spürbar. Was schon nach wenigen Metern festzustellen war; die Ruhe in der Hülle. Das ist schon ein bemerkenswerter Unterschied. Sicherlich kommen da mehrere Dinge zusammen… Die Reifenwahl, Elastomerdämpfung vorne und der Aufbau ansich. Auch die Pflastersegmente in den niederländischen Innenstädten sind mit den F-Lites wesentlich angenehmer zu fahren. Die gestrige Windsituation war auch nicht unbedingt Strada zuträglich. Bei Seiten wind muss ich doch etwas mehr arbeiten. Nichts desto trotz es hat Spass gemacht und die Zeit verging wie im Fluge. Ich freue mich schon auf die nächste Tour.

Im direkten Vergleich QV/Strada muss ich dem QV den Vortritt lassen. Trotz der bekannten Nachteile ist das Reisen weniger anstrengend. Der Kraftaufwand scheint sich gerade auf den längeren Strecken bemerkbar zu machen. Heute (1 Tag später) war ich mit dem QV 170km unterwegs und ich fühle mich wesentlich ausgeruhter. Mal sehen wann mein QV kommt; ich freue mich. Eventuell behalte ich Celeste als Backup. Wir werden sehen.

It’s good to have Celeste back, except she has been returned to the same garage where she received her vandalism. We have no other storage option at the moment. However, she has a more powerful tracker installed which will notify us if someone so much as touches her, and we will zoom straight round there in that case! We need to probably work out some alternative for the future if we keep her as the ‘spare’ velomobile, but we need a bit of time to think about it all. The Velomobile Stable is regularly changing, after all! We were notified in Dronten that Klaus’s new Quattrovelo (to be called Emily) will be ready in August/September so he will have another trip to collect her and once he is happy with her, we will sell Humphrey. If anyone is interested in a 6 month old Quattrovelo with currently 5000km on the clock, let me know!

Searching for some new Landcafés/Bauerncafés.

Since we have been riding velomobiles we have increased our daily riding distance. When we rode the trikes, a ride of 60km was an expenditure of energy and 100km was pretty impressive. With the additional speed and efficiency of the velomobiles, we have effectively doubled our range for the same effort and level of tiredness.

We visited many cafés and restaurants over the years in places like Straelen, Geldern, Wachtendonk, Grefrath, Kaldenkirchen. But these places are all around 20km away or less; we were now on the hunt for a good destination for a ride around the 35-40km mark which naturally could offer good cake.

We already had Landcafé zum Schafstall in Twisteden on the list, Büllhorsthof in Winnekendonk, and cafés in Xanten, Bislicher Insel etc, but we needed some more. So I had a bit of a google and found a few places to visit which looked nice and were at least a 70km round trip.

Reichswalder Dorfcafé.

One of these was right to the north of Kreis Kleve just outside the town of Kleve (Cleeves) itself. I plotted a route there and Klaus and I set off on a ride on a pretty warm day.

The ride ended up at 154km for me and 200km for Klaus (he extended it a bit), and we visited 3 Bauerncafés and an Eiscafé.

It was a fair distance to Kleve so on our way we stopped at Büllhorsthof in Winnekendonk to just have a drink (no cake!).

We then continued on during a pretty hot day to reach our planned new Bauerncafé. This was the Reichswalder Dorfcafé which is in a small residential area south of Kleve right next to a large green area and then the border with NL.

They had cake!

We had ridden fairly speedily there so spent quite a long time relaxing enjoying the cake. In fact, we ended up then sharing a slice of Grillagetorte as we were there so long!

But then it was time to ride home. We were so near NL it would be rude not to do a diversion, so we headed to Ottersum in NL and then south to Siebengewald where we returned to German roads.

We headed south on roads that we now know quite well, and then felt it was time for another drink. We had hoped to find somewhere to have a drink or ice cream in Twisteden itself but there was nothing so we did a mini detour to our third café of the day, Café zum Schafstall, and I had a pancake with strawberries and cream (which I forgot to photograph!)

We set off again, suitably refreshed, and decided to do some mini detours to increase the distance. We ended up in Kempen for an ice cream.

After this I wanted to go home as my knees were hurting but Klaus fancied a bit more riding so our ways parted and I headed back for the 154km, he continued to 200km.

Landcafé Binnenheide

As I am now working just two days a week, I decided I ought to do some riding on my own on my days off. As it was so warm in June this didn’t end up happening very much, but one day I did manage to get out to visit a new Bauerncafé in Winnekendonk. There is already one there that we visit, Büllhorsthof, but I thought I would try the other, which is a little south of the village near the river.

It turned out to be a little trickier to find than I had expected as my Garmin kept routing me down narrow roads which petered out into farm tracks.

I ended up retracing my route a couple of times to get back to proper roads but found the Bauerncafé in the end, although I suspected I approached it from an unusual direction. I saw no signs giving directions on the roads I took, so I wondered if the place would be empty, especially on a Wednesday afternoon in June. But clearly other people knew about it, as it was pretty busy when I arrived.

This was the entrance – they obviously do an awful lot of gardening and decorating of their buildings. It was very country café and pretty.

The cake was called a Frieslander.

In the ladies loo there was an encouraging blackboard message about cake consumption!

(The more you weigh, the harder it is to kidnap you. Protect yourself and eat cake.)

I wasn’t the only strange vehicle parked outside.

It was a very nice café and I will bring Klaus and Ralf there one day to visit, although I will have to work out a slightly better route.

Here is my track for the whole ride:

It was a 72km ride at an average of 27km/h. And fun!

Bauerncafé Winthuis

Ralf appeared on the first Sunday in July (yes, this should be in next month’s blog really, but it’s the third of our “New Café” trips) as this was the day of the Niederrheinisches Radwandertag, the Niederrhein Bike Touring Day. Apparently you could get some document stamped if you visited multiple places and get some kind of prize. It was all a bit hazy, but Ralf knew of a café in Goch that was taking part and we should go there.

He wasn’t terribly sure of where it was or the name, but when he arrived at our house at 9am we Googled it and discovered it was called Bauerncafé Mönichshof and it didn’t open till 14:00. As Ralf needed to be home by around 3, and it was 50km away, this wasn’t going to work. But I spotted on my Google Map another Bauerncafé which we hadn’t previously visited and which said it would be open – Bauerncafé Winthuis. So we headed off towards Weeze (it was between Twisteden and Weeze) and hoped to be able to navigate to the waypoint on my Garmin when we got close.

Sunday mornings are such a great time to ride as there seem to be almost no people in Kreis Kleve. They are all still in bed I guess, but we enjoyed having the roads to ourselves – right until we made our way through Twisteden when there seemed to be more cars than normal. And then we found ourselves in a traffic jam – which turned out to be for Irrland, a children’s play area/destination thingie. I’m not really sure what it is but most of Germany and half of NL wanted to go there today, so there were queues of cars. Fortunately this section of road has a cycle path so we hopped onto that and queue jumped very enjoyably.

After we had got away from Irrland the number of cars rapidly reduced again and we were on our own. Well, there were lots of cyclists about – the Radwandertag had lots of group rides and painted routes for people to ride on their own and it seemed to be very well attended.

We found Winthuis easily enough, although just before we got there we passed a group of cyclists including a lady who had clearly had an accident and was lying in the road. Klaus and Ralf offered help but the group around her said they were OK.

Winthuis turned out to be lovely with that rare treasure, excellent customer service!

And the strawberry cream meringue cake I had was possibly one of the tastiest cakes I have eaten in Germany. And I have eaten a lot!!!

Whilst sitting in Winthuis we had a message from Uli to say he was manning a stand at the Radwandertag event in St Tönis. This was 50km away but naturally we felt we ought to go and support him, so we sent him a message to say we would come and set off back towards Kreis Viersen.

It was a really hot day and for the last 15km or so I was really losing energy, as was Klaus (who had ridden 190km in Celeste the day before). But eventually we made it to St Tönis and Obstgut Tackheide, which turned out to have a café that I had not previously visited, despite it being only 10km from home!

The place was full of bikes and had marked bike parking too.

We helped Uli, Petra and Marlies clear up their stand as they had finished (they had in fact stayed open longer as they were waiting for us) and then we all went to get some cake.

Marlies kindly gave me a bottle of water to drink as I was really thirsty. We had ridden fairly speedily on a very hot day on a ride that ended up 97km for me, so I needed more water!

At Tackheide there was a Stempelstation where I could get my card stamped for the Radwandertag. But I didn’t have a card, and hadn’t visited any other stations, so I couldn’t actually get my badge or whatever the prize was, despite my pretty good distance!

After the cake I decided to go straight home and Klaus once again did an extra loop. He ended up with 167km, which brought his weekend total to almost 350km in two days. Not bad!

So four new cafés were discovered this month, including one in Kreis Viersen. There are still a few more to check out so I guess I won’t get bored (or thin!)

Life in General

Life carries on as normal! Obviously a two week bike tour makes a bit of a difference, as does reducing my working hours. The fact I am only in the office two days a week is probably good as my two colleagues Annette and Alex both are wonderfully slim and yet eat constantly – cakes, sandwiches, chocolate. And they both put on no weight at all! The consequence of this is that we often have pastries in the office…

This second selection of pastries was to give us all energy when we had a visit from my Russian customer for an inventory. This lasted 3 days, and two of those days were full time plus evening meals, so I was barely in the house (and earned a nice amount of overtime!). My Russian contact Julia bought me some gifts…

And as she comes from Moscow, we talked about the World Cup:

And in fact, one evening it was just she and I who went out to eat. It was the day of the England Belgium match so we watched it together after our meal outside a café in Buttermarkt.

Everyone else was cheering for Belgium, but they are a direct neighbour of Germany.

For the World Cup I am of course supporting England (as Germany have gone out). I don’t have an England flag but our house is proudly flying the Union Jack. Which is of course deeply embarrassing for all the other members of the house!

And another local event this month, our little hamlet of Escheln received its first Stolperstein which is a brass plaque on the floor that remembers a victim of the Holocaust where they lived or worked. Here is a news report in German about it.

June was a busy month but I hope you have enjoyed reading all about it!

2 comments

  1. I’m glad that you are enjoying all the km and cake 😉 A friend and I were touring Holland on trikes at the same time! With cycle camping our mileage and speeds were more modest, I did about 900km on the tour, essentially Zeebrugge – Amsterdam (Cycle Vision recumbent event) and back. We must have been quite close as we got to Delft on the 17th , Middelburg on the 19th.

  2. Just checked the final results of the Stadtradeln in Kempen. The relative distance for all members of the ADFC team in Kempen reached 1010 km/member. That’s a great achievement.

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