Ten Wheels in Germany – May 2018 (Month 50)

The fiftieth month of my life in Germany!

Cycling this month

This month has been good for cycling.

Here is where I have been (Green = using Alfie the trike with motor):

And these are the individual rides:

Regular readers of this blog will notice that the listing of rides looks rather different. This is because there have been a few technical changes around here over the last month, which included a new computer and, consequently, a new rides tracking software. More on this below.

As you can also see above, Humphrey was used very seldom by me. This was mainly because Klaus was using him as Celeste was out of action following the vandalism last month.

We delivered Celeste to Velomobiel.nl for repair and in the meantime Klaus is really enjoying using Humphrey as he awaits the production of his own Quattovelo which may now be ready earlier than expected, perhaps after September. Klaus is getting a blue and cream one that will be called Emily.

A Velomobile Comparison in Zons

There has been much discussion on the German Velomobile forum about the Quattrovelo and how best to optimise it. Most owners seem very happy with them, but a few owners have made comments that made me realise I was not entirely alone with the problems I had found. Many mentioned the noisiness of this Velomobile and were trying to work out the source of the noise.

Friend Jupp/Josef, who has one of the earlier Quattrovelos and lives in Bonn, suggested a Sternfahrt (an arrow ride) where we met in Zons which is roughly halfway between us and tried out each others’ velomobiles. This sounded like a great plan, and although the idea was first mooted early in April the first date we could all make was early in May.

So Klaus and I set off, Klaus riding Humphrey and I in Millie. We were returning to the cafe in Zons where we had visited last year and I had been chilled to the bone. This time the opposite problem was possible – it was a very hot day!

This was the route we took:

Klaus and I gave ourselves plenty of time to get there. Klaus had plotted a route and it went through the middle of Neuss. As we had lots of spare time we decided to stop for a cuppa in Neuss.

We had just drinks, no cake, and of course found ourselves being asked about the velomobiles by various other cafe customers. This is both a good thing about velomobiles and a drawback. If you want to just drink your tea in peace it isn’t always very easy!

We rode on to Zons, once again being caught out by some roadworks which meant we had to get out of the velomobiles and push a short distance under a bridge. We had the same issue the year before, so work to fix it is not exactly speedy!

Jupp was already there when we arrived. We parked Humphrey and Millie near his blue and white Quattrovelo.

First order of business was more tea and a piece of cake.

As we sat, more and more people arrived. We had publicised our meeting on the Velomobile forum but were very surprised how many other people were able to make it. More velomobiles kept rolling up to join us.

We sat for a couple of hours so a waffle was also consumed.

We were generally chatting with chums but in due course the time came to compare the two Quattrovelos. Jupp’s Quattrovelo is the same specification as Humphrey; in other words, it has a Schlumpf mountain drive and the standard rear luggage cover, not the Alienhaube that extends over the rider’s head. Klaus and Jupp hopped into each others’ velomobiles and set off on a short ride.

They returned about ten minutes later with the conclusion… that Humphrey was MUCH quieter than Jupp’s QV. I wonder how Jupp can stand the noise levels in his QV if that really is the case, but different things affect people differently. He loves his QV and gets on with it really well.

So it was a very worthwhile day as we discovered that Humphrey runs normally for a QV and is quieter than some. His initial slowness seems entirely to have been down to the weather, the fact he was new and not run in and possibly the tyre choice. Klaus finds that he runs fine, smoothly and fast.

Thanks to Jupp for organising the Sternfahrt. It’s starting to become a rather nice tradition! We enjoyed our 114km ride at an average of 23 km/h.

Hartmut’s maiden VM Sunday Morning Cake Run

Having been longing for a Velomobile for years, Hartmut finally got one for his 60th birthday, as mentioned in a previous blog. It was now time to induct him in the traditional Sunday Morning Cake Run that Klaus, Ralf and I had developed as a habit.

As usual we planned to meet at our house earlyish on a Sunday and make our way to one of the excellent cake emporia in Kreis Kleve. This time I had planned a route to Bullhorsthof where Klaus and I had enjoyed a very nice cake previously.

This was our route for the day:

This ride was the day after the Sternfahrt to Zons so Klaus and I both had some kilometres in our legs, but we felt good and the open roads were calling.

So off we went at a cracking pace. I started us riding at around 30 km/h and the others pulled ahead a little. It is 31 kilometres to Bullhorsthof and we made it in exactly an hour, so the speed calculation isn’t tricky! It is a perfect route for velomobiles and we enjoyed it immensely.

We also, of course, enjoyed the cake.

Hartmut had mentioned a friend in Xanten so we had decided to ride on to there afterwards. We zoomed along to Uedemerbruch and then Marienbaum, following the old Alleenradweg into Xanten. It’s a perfect route for Velomobiles.

As we arrived in the central market square of Xanten a load of classic cars were pulling in too. They were some kind of gathering from Wuppertal, and when a British Racing Green Triumph Spitfire parked near where we were sitting we had to take Humphrey to have a look.

Humphrey’s British Racing Green is metallic so actually quite a different colour.

Whilst watching all the goings-on we fortified ourselves with ice creams.

The route back was not quite as nice and we had a snarky car driver as well, plus a bit of off-road which we decided not to use. Ralf also unshipped his chain and to put it back on has to remove the inspection cover on the nose of the DF which takes a little while. This gave us a great opportunity to make ribald remarks about his choice of Velomobile. He has had shifting issues on his front changer and needs to get it sorted.

In total we rode 97km at an average of 27 km/h. Hartmut was well and truly inducted into the Sunday Morning Velomobile Cake Experts.

Ralf’s birthday ride

Ralf is one day older than Klaus and so the Christi Himmelfahrt public holiday would be very busy. Ralf’s birthday was on the Thursday (Ascension Day) and Klaus’s on the Friday. Klaus and I booked his birthday off work and decided to have a mini tour.

But first, Ralf’s birthday. He had invited us all for breakfast at Landcafe zum Schafstall in Twisteden which is one of our favourite cafes. His wife and daughter would come by car and the rest of us (Klaus, me, Ralf, Jochen, Hartmut) by Velomobile. We arranged to meet at our house at 9:30am which should give us plenty of time to get to Twisteden by 11:00.

This excellent plan failed at the first moments when Hartmut rolled up. His WAW was making weird noises and he said this had started the night before when he lost the chain from the front chainring in the dark and had to somehow put it back on again. It hadn’t been right since and he had cycled several kilometres on it.

With four experienced velomobilists on hand we all took a look.

The interesting thing about the WAW is that you can disassemble it rather effectively. We took the back and the front off so we could see what was happening. It’s surprisingly short with the back off!

It involved lots of peering inside and scratching of heads, as the chain was almost completely jammed.

In the end we decided to split the chain and see if we could work out what was happening. Of course, the last thing you want when splitting the chain is for it to disappear inside the chain tunnel of the Velomobile so Frank provided a bit of metal to bend around the end of the chain.

It’s dark inside the Velomobile so the torch was necessary.

In the end we discovered that the chain was lying on its side going through two of the idlers which didn’t do it or the idlers any good. The chain itself hadn’t got in a knot, it had just twisted inside the chain tunnel. Opening the two halves helped us to see what was happening and it was fixed after 15 minutes.

We put the WAW back together again and then set off on the ride, knowing we were running late.

It’s a lovely fast run to Twisteden though so we ended up only being 10 minutes late. We enjoyed a very tasty breakfast with Ralf’s family and then it was time for Klaus and I to continue our trip for our mini weekend away… all of 6km further.

We decided we would do a bit of a detour to get to Weeze and Ralf said he fancied coming with us a little way. The detour into the Netherlands developed into a bit more of a detour as Klaus overshot the turning to return to Germany so we carried on anyway, up to Siebengewald, and then headed back on brilliant roads to Weeze. Our 8km trip had become 25, but that’s half the fun of velomobiling!

I remembered a couple of years ago I had found a nice cafe in Weeze so we went searching for it. In due course we found the Market Cafe opposite the church and stopped there for some cake.

It was time for Ralf to head home with Jochen and Hartmut. It was only 2 o’clock which seemed a bit early for Klaus and I to go to our hotel, which was a mere 1.6km away, so we decided to ride with them a bit more, heading south along the B9 and riding as far as Kevelaer before we turned eastwards to Winnekendonk and then round to Weeze again.

Today’s tour was 85km at an average of 25 km/h. However, with our huge breakfast and then the cake I suspect we didn’t burn off the calories we took on.

Klaus’s birthday trip to St Hubert via St Hubert

Klaus and I had booked to stay in a castle, Schloss Hertefeld. It is the oldest inhabited ruined castle in Germany and the family who own it have a very interesting history. We had read up about them before we stayed, of course.

Here are some pictures of the castle and its surroundings and our rather posh room.

We had a lovely comfortable room with a view of the ruin out of our window.

The Velomobile parking was very spacious.

The next morning we enjoyed a great breakfast and then when it was time to leave did a bit of photography.

We had planned a route home which would take us through St Hubert in the Netherlands.

This was our track for the day:

We headed first towards Gennep and then more west towards St Hubert. We had to do some photography at the sign of course.

At this point we were looking for somewhere to have a tea break but didn’t find anything in St Hubert. However, shortly afterwards we found a bakery that was opened and stopped for tea and cake.

We were having a good day’s cycling and so pottered on, not going particularly fast but enjoying the fresh air and the time off work.

As we rode into Deurne at almost the most south part of our trip we spotted four velomobiles outside a cafe. Of course we stopped… these were people going to the Grensrijders tour from Roermond the next day. We were considering doing this tour too, so it was good to meet them.

We were on the final section to home which included going through America and then eventually Venlo. We made our way home on really familiar routes and our total distance was 119km at an average of 22.5km/h. We have learned that average speeds are much slower in the Netherlands than in Germany because of the cycle paths. We hold this in mind as we are doing a two week tour of the Netherlands in June and so have reduced the daily distance to about 100km.

The Grensrijders

As mentioned above, the Dutch group Grensrijders who are a Velomobile gathering including friends Oliver, Chris and Jean, had organised a weekend tour from Roermond. On the Saturday they were riding to Kessel/Reuver and then Brüggen which are both within comfortable cycling distance from here so I decided to join them on the ride at Kessel/Reuver. Klaus was breakfasting with his daughter that morning so would come along later.

This was my route for the day:

I had the track of where they would ride and a rough guide as to what time they expected to be in Kessel/Reuver. I set off, giving myself plenty of time but once again underestimating the faffing time that you need when cycling in NL, especially through Venlo. But eventually I made it to Reuver and had just sat down in a cafe when I saw a lot of velomobiles arriving. I hadn’t been sure where they were stopping for lunch, but it was fairly easy to spot 30 velomobiles in a small town so I went and joined them.

It was lovely to see chum Gabi again who I hadn’t seen for ages, and Rolf, Chris, Oliver, Jean and Roef were all there too, as well as the chaps we met in Deurne the day before.

After lunch Oliver shot this pic of me leaving:

And here are some of us on the ferry crossing the Maas. We didn’t all fit on one ferry!

The pace was quite quick and they didn’t stop to let stragglers catch up so we were quite strung out by the time we got near to Brüggen. I peeled off to go home, expecting to see Klaus but he had continued to Elmpt with them as that was where my Garmin track went to (that had been my original stopping point). He soon caught up with me in Brüggen though and we had an ice cream before heading home.

My total ride was 87km but at just 21km/h. I was being a bit careful as I had a broken spoke on my front wheel, which was fixed the next day at Jochen’s (he is good at wheel repairs). Getting a front wheel out of a Milan is a bit of a challenge but he and Klaus managed it!

Anyway, the ride with the Grensrijders was very good, especially as there were so many of them, but I did feel as someone at the back and not so fast that I was having to work really hard to keep up as no-one was waiting to mark junctions or corners. I was glad I had the track.

To Rees via Weeze

In English this ride title looks like it rhymes. In German it doesn’t, as it’s actually “To Rhays via Vay-Tsuh”, but I call it Weeze/Wheeze anyway.

May is an excellent month in Germany because we have lots of public holidays. We had the two days of Christi Himmelfahrt (Ascension), Pfingsten (Whitsun) and then also Fronleichnam (Corpus Christi). For Pfingsten Klaus was busy on the Saturday but we had Sunday and Monday free so this was long enough for a short bike tour, and as Klaus and I had nothing to do we decided to stay overnight in Rees again where we had previously stayed. We liked the hotel so much we decided to return, especially as the weather forecast was great (last time it had snowed on the way there).

Here is our track for the day.

Ralf said he could ride with us for a little way on the Saturday morning so we headed off to go to Weeze for a cake.

We had made good time so Ralf decided to ride a few more kilometres with us. I thought Goch was about 12-15km away so he said he would come with us, along the old railway cycle route which I had done once before.

My memory was a bit faulty and it turned out that Goch was only 7km away! It was still worth stopping for an ice cream though.

We waved goodbye to Ralf and then continued on towards Bedburg-Hau going through Pfalzdorf which has links with Klaus’s home territory in the Kurpfalz. Some people from Kurpfalz who wanted to travel to America weren’t allowed into the Netherlands so settled in Kreis Kleve and eventually this village, along with Louisendorf, grew up.

We arrived in Rees in brilliant sunshine and then went to our room. We’d chosen a bit more upmarket one – we had a floor-to-ceiling window which looked over the Rhine. We had the windows open all night to watch the barges going past.

We wandered around Rees again and had an evening meal which was very nice. Such relaxing rides are really good fun and it is lovely to spend time in other towns in Niederrhein. We had ridden 95km to get there at a very comfortable 25 km/h.

The next morning after a good breakfast we headed home but this time following the Rhein to Wesel. Here is the track for the return journey.

We stopped in Wesel for a cuppa and then continued on, crossing the Rhein at Orsoy/Walsum. It was very busy with cyclists on such a warm day!

Our ride was 83km in total at an average speed of 24 km/h. It was a very successful weekend and reminded us again how lucky we are to live in Niederrhein with such great cycling territory all around us.

Alex and the Little White Whale

Sometimes the world seems small. The world of velomobiles is very small, but was made even smaller this month.

Four and a half years ago I bought my first Velomobiel, Penelope the Versatile, from Alex in Rotterdam. We kept in touch and he sent me a message recently asking if I was considering selling Millie as he had a hankering for another velomobile. I said no, I was definitely keeping her, but a Quattrovelo might be available. He then said he was actually really looking for a Quest XS but there aren’t many of them.

Now I happened to have a friend who had a Quest XS which wasn’t getting used much as she had a new one. Gabi was the person who first introduced me to Velomobiles, long long ago before LEL 2013. I contacted her and asked if she were considering selling her old Quest XS. She said she had begun to think about it so I put her and Alex in contact and lo and behold the deed was done within two weeks. Alex bought the Little White Whale as this Quest was affectionately known and would ride her home from Bonn to Rotterdam.

This is too far to ride in one hit, especially if you don’t have recumbent legs as Alex didn’t, so I offered that he stayed overnight with us. He agreed and we said we would come to meet him on his journey from Bonn to Kempen. Gabi provided him with a track and we followed it in the reverse direction to meet up with him.

We met him and then all rode together back along the track, stopping in Schiefbahn for some food as time was marching on. Alex hadn’t had the easiest of rides as it was a baking hot day (28 degrees) and he had struggled to keep hydrated, plus had hit a kerb and damaged a wheel rim and a tyre. But he managed the 100km in comfortable style.

Here is the track where we rode to meet him, 70km for us:

We took a more scenic route back as we could guide Alex and he enjoyed seeing some of our countryside and a lot of wildlife too at 8pm.

The plan was for us to ride with him some of the way the next day. Unfortunately Klaus’s hay fever/allergy really attacked him in the night so he felt he shouldn’t come along, but Alex and I prepared to head out. He had 200km in front of him to get to Rotterdam, I thought I’d go as far as the German/Dutch border with him.

When Alex fetched the Little White Whale out of our garage he noticed she had a puncture, the same wheel that had been damaged when he collided with the kerb yesterday. So it was time for a bit of wheel rim repair and I supplied him with some spare tyres (we have loads).

Poppy was of course helping!

Alex had wanted to get going really early as he had so far to ride but because of the bike maintenance we weren’t on the road until past nine o’clock.

Here is my route for the day:

We rode pretty much non-stop to the border at Siebengewald where I had originally planned to turn back but my legs were feeling good so I decided to carry on a little further with Alex. Just as we were approaching Gennep we were on the road (rather than cycle path as I had not seen the path was there) and I noticed on the cycle path a Quattrovelo in yellow and light blue colours coming the other way. Amazingly he didn’t spot us!!

When we got to Gennep I decided to turn around as the going was much harder in the Netherlands and I was much slower. So Alex and I said our goodbyes and he headed off to Rotterdam (he arrived safely in the evening) and I headed back, doing a more scenic route home via Weeze (for a sandwich) and then  Landcafe Bullhorsthof so I could have some cake.

I was going so well that I thought I would do some extra loops to increase the mileage, only stopping this when there were rather a lot of electric storms on the horizon. My ride ended up as 136km at an average speed of 24.5 km/h.

Humphrey and Celeste

We delivered Celeste to Velomobiel.nl to have her repaired. Interestingly they had in stock a gelcoat lid in almost the same colour, but we decided to go for the proper repair instead.

We also talked to Velomobiel.nl about the noise coming from the transverse beam across the back. We had identified the problem as the ball heads which make a horrible clacking sound under load.


(Photo from Velomobiel.nl, it’s not that Humphrey is red inside!)

They said they now have new ones that they are fitting on new Quattrovelos so gave us a pair and we swapped them. Here are old (below) and new (above).

That fixed this problem, although the clacking of the ball heads has now started on the two suspension arms too. We have contacted Velomobiel.nl to find out the part number of the replacements so we can get four of those too. But in the meantime Klaus is riding a velomobile that’s got rather noisy again, unfortunately. Whenever you fix one noise issue another one pops up!

My issues with Humphrey have led to a lot of thinking. What should I do with him?

The main drawbacks for me are as follows:

  • It’s not very easy for me to get in and out and it puts a strain on my arm if I do it too often
  • In the rain it’s almost impossible for me to get out as my hand slips
  • I have ripped two work shirts getting out – they get trapped under the lip
  • It’s too noisy for me and it is strangely tiring for me riding with such a noise from behind the whole time
  • The Milan is more comfortable and easier to get in and out of. I would choose the Milan instead of the Quattrovelo in all but the most appalling rain weather circumstances

So what is the solution? Sadly, I think my difficulties with Humphrey mean that he is not the right Velomobile for me and I am planning to sell him once Klaus receives Emily and so no longer needs to use Humphrey.

For the winter commute, I am considering either getting another car (which I really don’t want) but would be a lot cheaper than Humphrey, or perhaps buying another Versatile/Orca which I can use as the bad weather commuter. That’s currently the favourite option but I have many months before I have to decide.

Life in Germany

A trip to the beach

The last of our Public Holidays in May, Fronleichnam, coincided with mega hot weather and thunderstorms in Germany. Klaus was really suffering from his allergy, finding breathing quite hard work with the close air. He said he would love to go to the beach somewhere for some fresh air, so we decided to drive to NL. We looked at the weather forecast and it looked as if Zaandvort west of Haarlem ought to be free of storms until later in the afternoon. As we would take Poppy with us we needed a dog-friendly beach and there weren’t many on that coast but Bloemendaal a bit north of Zaandvort said dogs could go. So we set off on the two and three quarter hour drive there with Poppy in the boot and the air conditioning on.

We arrived at a lovely beach which was fairly empty. This was because of the massive thunderstorm heading to us which duly dropped gallons of water on us 5 minutes after our arrival. We left it a bit late to walk back to the cafe above the beach so were drenched when we got there, and our towels were in the car which was too far away in that weather. So we slowly dripped dry and eventually got a table to sit down and have some cake.

The cake was OK but the price for two slices of cake, a Latte Macchiato, a cup of tea and then a cup of milk (which should have been a tiny amount of milk for my tea but ended up a glass of milk) cost 18 euros. Very steep!

But by the time we had finished our lunch the thunderstorm had cleared and the beach was lovely again.

Klaus played ‘fetch’with Poppy who really enjoyed running about. She’s almost eight years old but still likes a run on a beach. She had a great time!

The beach air was wonderful for Klaus’s lungs and he felt really good there. We drove back through more thunderstorms and his allergy started immediately again after we got home, but at least he had enjoyed a refreshing day!

An expensive month for gadgets.

February was an expensive month for Velomobiles (I bought Humphrey) but May turned out to be an expensive month for gadgets.

A MacBook Air

My trusty iMac 28″ which I have had for nine years (and was a year old when I bought it) was struggling rather after an ill-advised update to High Sierra operating system. I wouldn’t normally have risked the update but my banking software required it because they stopped supporting currency conversions in the old software (Banktivity 5) and as my transactions are in both pounds and euros this was hopeless. So I updated to High Sierra and could use Banktivity 6 (which I like a lot) but unfortunately various other programmes were really struggling.

Still, ten years old for a computer… it doesn’t owe me anything. I decided it was time to replace it.

Clearly I would replace with a Mac, but for the first time I went for a MacBook Air (a laptop) rather than a desktop machine. I can actually use my old iMac as a separate monitor with the MacBook and have been doing so. But overall I love the convenience that I can use the MacBook sitting on the sofa, and the smaller screen isn’t too much of an inconvenience.

So anyway, Banktivity 6 worked really well, but when I loaded Ascent the cycling tracking software all seemed fine until I tried to change the set units from Miles to Kilometres. It crashed every time, and I couldn’t get this fixed at all. Ascent had stopped being supported about seven years ago, so I realised there would be no help on this one so I needed to find something else.

There aren’t that many Mac programmes for this. Klaus uses SportTracks on the PC but I find it looks super-cluttered like many PC things and was more powerful than I required. After some research I ended up with RubiTrack which, despite its silly name (which is almost as bad as Banktivity, and indeed the Warehouse software I chose for my workplace which is called WeClapp) seems to be a very good option. All this year’s rides are on it now and it is performing well.

As is the MacBook. It took me a while to get settled in with it as I just don’t find buying new computers interesting anymore, it’s just a pain as you have to copy things over, remember mail settings etc. But now everything seems to be working fine and the old iMac is just functioning as an additional monitor. The last job is to see if I can load my Adobe Creative Suite 5.5. First Klaus had to fetch a portable CD drive that he had so I have a chance of loading the disks, but I haven’t yet started this job as there’s no crushing need. When I next need to use Photoshop or Indesign or Illustrator I guess I will finally get round to it!

A OnePlus 6 phone

And the second gadgety purchase this month was… a new phone.

I have had iPhones since I started with Smartphones and of course they fit well with my Apple environment (2 iPads, MacBook Air, iMac), but I have been one of the users afflicted with battery issues with all my iPhones. The current one, an iPhone 6 which is two and a half years old, really drains the battery if you do a lot. In consequence I have to carry around a battery pack and in cold weather I can almost guarantee it would shut off. There was the possibility I could get the battery replaced but I decided I was fed up with this issue and no doubt the new battery would soon start failing so I would go for something completely different.

Actually, you have to go for something completely different if you’re not having an iPhone as there’s nothing else comparable. In other words, I had to switch to Android.

I bought a OnePlus 6 as the reviews were good, the price was pretty decent and it fitted my requirements. The things that are less good on it are not important to me (no inductive charging – I don’t need this; not waterproof – I have never had this; etc etc).

It arrived and was easier than I expected to set up. I had prepared the way, transferring my iCloud stuff to Google Drive. Just like with the MacBook I was pretty unexcited about the whole thing; the phone is a tool for me, rather than something to get really excited about, but I have to say I have warmed very much to the phone and I like it a lot. I still haven’t worked out which ringtones mean what and I find them all very quiet (and of course I am hard of hearing so miss a lot of the notifications) but all in all I think it was a good choice, and the battery lasts for ages!!!

Two trackers

One thing we learned from Celeste’s vandalism was that the Trackimo tracker on her would have helped if Klaus had been around when the tracker went off. I decided that it is a very small investment to make and so bought two different trackers, one for Millie and one for Humphrey.

The one for Millie is fairly small so needs to be recharged once per week.

The one for Humphrey is much larger (about four times the size) and the battery could last for 90 days, although because it sends out a location every 5 minutes when moving, and Humphrey has been moving a lot this month as Klaus has done lots of riding, it actually lasted three weeks instead. But that’s still fine!

I bought separate SIM cards for both of these trackers with two different German companies in order to make the most of their special offers. One trackers uses GPRS mostly, the other just SMS messages.

An unexpected side benefit is that when Klaus is out riding on his own I can see when he is nearing home and put the kettle on for him. I guess it will also help if in the future we get lost when riding together. We just have to phone the tracker’s number and it sends an SMS with a Google Maps location. It works well so far.

Of course I now have two more Pay-As-You-Go phones to keep topped up, but the cost should be about 3 Euros per month each which is OK. The damage to Celeste is expected to be about 500 Euros so that would cover an awful lot of tracker time if having the tracker prevents vandalism, and if it enables us to find a stolen Velomobile then all the better.

The larger one on Humphrey has a movement/vibration alarm which is extremely sensitive and shows me if anyone has so much as touched the Velomobile. This is good, but I expect will make for quite a lot of false positives on our bike tour when people are looking at the Velomobile. The smaller one doesn’t have this feature in such a convenient way, I have to set it if I want a vibration alarm, but it’s not something I should need too often. If I were buying again I would get another of the larger ones as the battery life is really useful.

Other news

In other news, my customer where I work has reduced their orders with us. This is just after a new member of staff was taken on to help as I was so overwhelmed. She has other duties too and so I offered to reduce my working hours so that we didn’t end up sitting around with nothing to do. My boss agreed to this, so from 1 June I am working just two days per week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. It will be nice to have a bit more spare time in the summer!

It’s maybe not a bad thing to be away from the office a bit more as my lovely colleagues keep bringing in cakes to share…

Here’s another cake that I had in Tönisvorst…

And here is a little reminder of my life now in Germany… Klaus has been living with me for almost a year, and our blend of German and British works pretty well for us two!

Next month I will only be working four days in total as I have two weeks off for a cycling tour around the Netherlands with Klaus. Watch this space for daily reports!

One comment

  1. For future reference you can transfer settings between Macs by using migration assistant and a Time Machine backup. It transfers programs and all the settings.
    Passing near you 23/24th July cycling down the Rhine from Bodensee to the Hook, this time on my ICE B2 bike.

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