A new year and the end of my EU membership
So a New Year has begun. I hope you all had a good and healthy start to 2020.
As January is a cold and grey month I didn’t do much velomobile riding.
And this is where I went:
As you can see from the Wheel above, I went north west of Kempen to Straelen. This was to have Millie serviced as her Lichtkanone (Light Canon) had stopped working. We suspected a dodgy cable/join in the switch box thingie on the left hand side front wheel arch interior.
Because I am no electrician and Klaus had no desire to fiddle about with bad cabling in a cold garage we decided to ask Andreas Beyß the Velomobile builder in Straelen to have a look. He was very happy to do so, and I delivered Millie to him on the 4th January.
We had to hurry back from delivering Millie as we had another Velomobile appointment – a mini gathering in Zons, near Köln. As I had no Milan and we had no time we went by car, which we in fact had done last year on New Year’s Day too!
There were over 25 velomobiles at the gathering, but first we all sat in a café, enjoyed some cake and tea and chatted. Afterwards the Velomobilists were persuaded to stand outside in the biting wind for a group photo.
There was even a lesser-spotted Velayo, which is huge!
It was really nice to meet up with many of our friends again and have a good chat.
We were also visited again by Dirk, someone who came to see us last year to talk about Velomobiles as he was interested in buying one. He talked to us a lot and had a good look at both of ours last year, and Klaus also offered that he could have a test ride in Celeste to see how she might work out for him. So we had to collect Celeste from the other garage. Poppy came along for the ride.
Dirk enjoyed riding Celeste and is hoping to buy her once he sorts out somewhere he can store her as he lives in a block of flats and has no garage or secure storage. Let’s hope she can go to a nice new home in Düsseldorf where she is regularly used rather than languishing unused in a garage.
Klaus and I also joined the ADFC cycling tour Fit Durch Den Winter as Ralf told us where they would stop for lunch. Unfortunately I had the wrong café in my mind with the name so when we arrived at what we thought was Birkenhof it was closed and was called Stemmeshof! We had a speedy ride about 5km further to find the correct café, Birkenhof. We happened to arrive at the same time as the tour group and all had lunch together.
We cycled together with the group for a few kilometres and then headed off home.
I have had some lovely commutes to work this month and the lighting has changed a lot as I have sometimes started work at 7am (completely dark) and sometimes at 8am (sun just appearing). I have also been enjoying using the excellent camera on the iPhone 11 so my night shots are much better!
The photo above is a view from Bertie, who I used for the week whilst Millie was having her Lichtkanone repaired in Straelen.
After a week I had Millie back though, all repaired.
What was also great was that Andreas Beyß had listened to me complaining about having to use SV (Presta) valves in my new front wheels as the holes were too small for AV (Schraeder) and he offered to drill out the rims so I could fit the AV tyres. He did this for me and I am very pleased! He also tightened up Millie’s steering as well, all for a very good price, so I would definitely recommend him to other Velomobile owners who are looking for a reliable person to do some servicing items.
I have also seen some very nice scenery whilst out walking Poppy.
I haven’t walked as much with Poppy this month due to the weather, but she has also enjoyed being lazy with Klaus!
Klaus and I also went to the Fahrrad Stammtisch and took the opportunity to photograph Kempen by night (he has an iPhone 11 Pro). This is my pic, his was much better!
We are very blessed to live in such a nice part of the world.
We have had a fairly quiet month overall. Klaus seems to finally have shaken off his cough which lasted several weeks. I have been very busy at work as there is a change in personnel and I have to cover more than usual, so am feeling a bit overworked at times, but am hoping this will be resolved in February. We have started preparing for our summer velomobile tour along the Elbe river and have booked up several hotels and planned some routes. It should be great fun, and the planning stage is a nice thing to do in winter as it is a chance to look forward to summer and the lovely weather.
Cakes this month
As usual, despite eating generally Keto I have enjoyed some cakes this month when out cycling or being generally social.
I am writing this on 31st January, the day of Brexit. Yesterday my Garmin watch reminded me about it during our Production Planning meeting at work…
And this morning again…
Although I personally will probably not have too many issues, I am very sad for all my European friends back in the UK and the many Brits around Europe who it will affect. I hope that things will settle down soon, and I really look forward to receiving my official German documentation to show I am now a permanent resident of Germany.