Six Wheels In Germany – June 2016 (Month 27)

Cycling this month

Cycling statistics this month

This month was a pretty good one for cycling, with over a thousand kilometres ridden despite also working for 110 hours.

June statistics

Notice the increase in my moving average speed since Klaus got his velomobile and I had to speed up (the penultimate column).

And here is the Veloviewer Wheel of where I have been in June.

June Wheel

Metric Century A Month Challenge – my Birthday cycle ride to Overloon

My birthday is in mid-June and so to celebrate turning 45 (yikes!) I planned a cycle ride with Klaus, Jochen and Uli (Hartmut was away) to Overloon in NL, somewhere I had wanted to visit for a year to see the exhibition of tanks etc.

Here is the track from the day:
Overloon track

Jochen and Klaus agreed to come first to my house and we would all set off from there at 9am. Jochen arrived early though… with my birthday present. This amazing cake with a QuattroVelo (new Velomobile) on the top!

Vm Cake 1

VM Cake 2

VM Cake 3

And here is a view of the inside:

Cake inside

Jochen got absolutely soaked on the way to my house. The weather was appalling. Uli had arranged to meet us in Straelen at 10am but we assumed he wouldn’t be riding in the awful weather. So we sat in my lounge with a cup of tea, thinking about a change of plans.

And then we heard from Uli – he was soaking wet and in Straelen. I suggested we at least breakfasted together in Straelen and then decided what to do, so the three of us headed off from my house to Straelen, about 45 minutes away.

VMs in Straelen

We met Uli in Cafe Krone where we enjoyed a nice breakfast using a voucher that Gudula and Frank had given me for my birthday. It was nice to relax and chat, but clearly our 120km ride would be a challenge in the awful weather.

Whilst we were breakfasting the weather improved a bit so we decided to cycle further. Uli said he would come with us at least as far as Arcen, so we set off after a quick photo of the intrepid cyclists.

Ready to leave Straelen

Fortunately the rain mostly stayed away and we enjoyed very car-free roads once we were in NL.

NL roads

We had to cross the Maas river, on the outward trip by ferry

Crossing the Maas by ferry

Jochen took the opportunity to inspect Celeste again. He still has to wait 5 weeks until his velomobile is ready.

Jochen checking out Celeste again

As we approached Overloon the clouds grew dark and the first drops fell as we passed this sign.

Overloon

It was definitely time for lunch as we had cycled 55km and we found a traditional Dutch chips & burger place and went in just as the heavens opened! Excellent timing.

What was even better was that after we had finished eating the rain stopped. However we decided that we didn’t have enough time to visit Overloon the site as it needs several hours, we were wearing click shoes which aren’t too comfortable to walk in and we were a bit wet and with time pressure. So we decided we would come back by car one day and would ride onward.

So we headed now back towards Venlo following the Maas river. We were making reasonable time and really enjoying the scenery and the riding and the chatting.

We stopped for me to fiddle with something (I think I needed to put on my hat or something) and then I noticed that Klaus’s tyre was looking a bit deflated.

Celeste first puncture

Yes, he had his first puncture. It was a quick job to change the tube and then we headed onward.

Celeste on her side

We arrived in Venlo, sheltering under a bridge during a brief rainstorm and then riding up the hill out of Venlo towards Germany. At this point Jochen and Uli were a bit ahead and as we crossed the border back into Germany we watched them cycle away as Klaus had another tyre deflation, the same wheel. This time he used his replacement tyre and borrowed an inner tube from me (to save repairing the one he had from before). The others didn’t notice we had stopped and so when we set off again I phoned Jochen to suggest he went straight home and then came to my house later for tea and birthday cake.

Klaus and I arrived back with me having done 123km. Klaus spent some time sorting out his tyre and re-seating it, using my track pump, whilst I got ready for the visit of a few friends for pizza and birthday cake.

The Velomobile made of icing I put in the freezer; when I take delivery of my QuattroVelo next year I will defrost it and eat it in honour of the new VM…

A visit to Rolf’s again

Every so often friend Gabi cycles up from Bonn to Schwalmtal to have tea and cake with Rolf and I am also invited.

This month was special as it was the first time I’d seen Gabi since January when she let Klaus try out her family’s velomobiles, and he was also invited as he now has Celeste. So the two of us rode together to Rolf’s house near Waldniel and I brought along some clotted cream and jam from the UK and some home-made scones.

It was great to see Gabi again as she has been unwell and it was good to see her back in the velomobile and looking much better. She had a round trip that day of over 200km so clearly is back into cycling!

After the food and general chat it was time to have a good nose around each other’s velomobiles.

VMs at Rolfs 1

Klaus is here trying out the Quest that belongs to Rolf… very similar inside to his Strada. Rolf is disappearing inside the Strada headfirst…

Quest and Strada compared

Critical Mass Viersen

A chap in Viersen has been organising Critical Mass once per month since last autumn (with a break over the winter) and as Klaus and I were free the Friday evening in June when it was on we decided to go along. We met Jochen there at the start.

Unfortunately only 13 people came along and you need 16 to be allowed to ride on the road in a big group and function as one vehicle, so we had to stick to the cycle paths. We rode to Süchteln for ice cream and then Jochen and I decided to ride straight home from there, rather than back to Viersen first, and Klaus came with us to get some more miles in.

Critical Mass return

Tour des Monats mit der Landrat

Once per year Kreis Viersen does a special Tour des Monats event where a local dignitary starts it off and there are some freebies – and a police escort! This time it was from De Witt See in Nettetal so I rode there (meeting up with Klaus, Claudia and Lara on the way) and then rode with more than 100 people around a relatively short route (24km) back to De Witt See.

TdM

Although Hartmut had organised the route it was actually ‘run’ by some of the staff from Kreis Viersen and they were much less experienced in ride leading so the group broke up and eventually I found myself leading a small group of 10 people who had got separated from the main field. I had the track on my Garmin so they followed me. Earlier there had also been an unnecessary 3km diversion as the lady from Kreis Viersen insisted we had to turn left when we obviously needed to go straight ahead. Hartmut, Herbert and I all said “no, straight ahead” but she was 100% insistent so we went left, had about 3km extra including another hill.

I changed to the back of the field to avoid getting snarky with this lady and this is how I ended up leading a group when they were left behind.

Still, it was an enjoyable ride and afterwards we had a leisurely lunch at De Witt See (I also had some cake of course) and Hartmut talked to us about the GBI tour that he does each year – a charitable bike tour over about a week with people from all over the globe. Next year is London to Düsseldorf; I had already said I would go but Hartmut started working on Klaus who is now interested, especially as there might be the possibility to transport the Velomobiles there for the start. Although cycling to London would only take three days anyway from Kempen and is perhaps a better option (via the Hook of Holland ferry). Anyway, that’s for next year…

Some new tyres

Various velomobile riders have told me that they now use Schwalbe Shredda tyres (which are BMX tyres) as these are much faster, maybe up to 2km/h average speed increase. Now this was clearly nonsense but I eventually decided to give it a go…

Shredda tyres

So Penelope was laid on her side and I changed all three tyres. Here she is with new boots just on the front.

Shreddas front

And here is one on a wheel, note the unusual tread.

Shredda in place

And my conclusion? They are a great deal faster! They really do make a difference. The sound is quite different from them, a bit louder than the Marathons perhaps, but the velomobile rolls faster and I seem to have gained the purported 2km/h so it clearly wasn’t nonsense. They have much less puncture protection than the marathons, and the marathons I removed had loads of cuts so I might be doomed to lots of punctures, but so far I’m pleased!

A visit to Dronten

I noticed a slightly unusual creaking sound from the back of Penelope a few weeks ago and after ignoring it for a bit I decided to check what was causing it – and discovered that the rear swing arm could be moved slightly from side to side, around the area of the rear axle.

This seemed like it was probably bad news so I phoned Gerrit Tempelman at ligfietsshop.nl. He said it could be two different things, one was very bad news (cracked Rohloff, but told me what to look for and it wasn’t that) and the other was probably relatively easy to fix. So we made an appointment for me to deliver Penelope to him one afternoon after work and either leave here there or hopefully he could fix her while I waited. He said it was OK to keep riding her at the moment so I arranged to visit him after my Overloon trip as I didn’t want to have to put that off.

I bought a Skoda Roomster in January and had seen a photo of one with a Mango velomobile in so thought I would give it a go to see if Penelope could fit in.

The answer…

Penelope in Roomster 1

First I had removed the three back seats (very easy!) and then Frank helped me lift Penelope in. The clearances were incredibly tight… and I even had to deflate the rear wheel so she could get in. The final test then came – could we shut the tailgate?

Penelope in Roomster 2

No.

Ah.

The problem was the armrest (an extra feature in my Roomster), but Frank, as a very efficient car mechanic, soon removed that for me and we tried again.

Penelope in Roomster 3

I went for a short drive around the block.

Unfortunately, having such a large and high velomobile right beside the driver meant I could only see part of the right hand side mirror and couldn’t see out of the passenger window at all. For safe driving on motorways and in smaller roads with the ‘Rechts vorfahrt’ rule this was clearly too dodgy.

So I returned to the usual method. In the VW Bus belonging to my landlady and landlord.

Penelope in Bus

P in Bus 2

So I drove straight from work at midday to Dronten in NL to take Penelope for her repair.

Gerrit Tempelman is amazingly efficient and knowledgeable and he diagnosed the fault before we had even got Penelope out of the bus. There’s a white plastic ring that’s part of the swing arm and it gets worn away and this introduces play into the hinge.

Here is Penelope ready to be checked out.

P repair 1

The rear swing-arm has to be disassembled.

P repair 2

And a look inside the hinge – the plastic ring was indeed very degraded.

P repair 3

Here is the old ring, it was replaced with a lovely fresh white one.

Old plastic ring

Unfortunately the gunk around the old ring had worn away the metalwork of the hinge so Gerrit said that this is probably the last time he can do this repair (he’s done it before with Penelope), and the next time he will need to mill me a new hinge part. With parts and labour that will be 500€. He said that only the early Versatiles had this design of hinge (for this reason); subsequent ones had an extra part that could be replaced if it got worn. He reckoned I might get another 6000km out of Penelope before it gets very bad. Which, at current distance rates, means that will be before my new Velomobile is ready.

Yes, have I mentioned before that I ordered a QuattroVelo? Mine will be ready sometime around April 2017. I popped round to Velomobiel.nl and picked up some armrests for Klaus’s Strada and had a look again at the QuattroVelos. They are cool! I still need to practice getting in and out though, but the entry looks similar to Klaus’s Strada which I have managed (albeit inelegantly).

The total work time for Gerrit was half an hour so my bill was ridiculously cheap, just 27.50€. I told him he should charge more as he is so efficient and such an expert but he said he was happy with what he got. We had a great chat about trikes – he has recently designed some carbon fibre mudguards for the ICE trikes and he showed me his.

Carbon fibre mudguards 1

Carbon fibre mudguards 2

You can see that they provide a little more protection to the rider from water flicking up from the insides of the wheels.

All in all I was glad to get Penelope so easily repaired but am aware that I have a bigger bill on the way and will need to be without Penelope for up to two weeks.

Cycling miscellaneous

The other day on an evening ride back from Wegberg I found myself riding through the fantastically-named ‘Woof’. I got a photo of a bus stop as proof!

Woof

And I took this photo of someone else taking a photo whilst Klaus and I were eating cake in Geldern.

Photographer in Geldern

Although people chat to me when I am on my own in the velomobile, when there are two of you you get a lot more attention. People seem much more likely to talk too, perhaps because they can see you are slightly more social!

Events this month

Another trip to England

At the very end of May and for a couple of days at the beginning of June I was in England with friend Babs and her husband Micha. I visited my Mum on several days whilst Babs and Micha did some sightseeing in my car.

Here are just a few images from our trip.

The obligatory curry!

Curry

And fish ‘n chips (well, scampi)

Scampi and chips

Babs was brave enough to try a deep-fried mars bar but decided it was overrated.

Deep fried mars bar

We had a visit to Walton-on-the-Naze and the Naze tower but it was super windy and cold so we had to beat a fairly hasty retreat to the car.

Naze tower

We also went to the Tiptree Jam Factory and had a cream tea there.

Cream tea

I organised some essential supplies to take back to Germany.

Tea and clotted cream

In the queue for the ferry on the way back to Germany we spotted these three trikes, made by their three riders from designs/kits from the internet.

Trikes 1

Trikes 2

Trikes 3

Trikes 4

Trikes 5

Trikes 6

Trikes 7

The Brexit Referendum

I voted by post as soon as possible. Obviously for Remain. It’s hard to say how gutted I am about the result.

Referendum

Particularly from my area in the UK, Tendring:

Tendring-voters

Obviously nobody knows what’s going on at the moment with it all but I am very disappointed in the result. Oh well, that’s the trouble with democracy!

Work

I have been working longer hours this month and am now mostly in the office (occasionally helping out in the kitchen when necessary).

Working in a catering firm has some useful benefits – occasional edible goodies come my way. Here was some Panna Cotta:

Work food 1

And this nice vanilla mousse

Vanille Mousse

I also thought this Laugenstange looked rather like a velomobile so added some Mozzarella wheels!

Velomobile Laugenstange

And I was interested to spot that we have Maldon Sea Salt in our stores…

Maldon sea salt 1

Maldon Sea Salt 2

Other randomness

On the last day of June I was interviewed by a very nice chap from Niederrhein Tourismus GmbH, the Tourist Office, for an article for their magazine about life in Niederrhein for a recumbent bike rider. Originally a photographer was coming but as the weather wasn’t great he said he would come another time when he could get photos with blue skies. The journalist and I chatted for about an hour and he had a go in Penelope and Alfie which he seemed to enjoy. When the article is published I will post a link to it if there is an online version available.

Cakes this month

Here are all the cakes that I and my friends have enjoyed in June.

Cakes for June 2016

One comment

  1. Bonjour Helen,
    About the punctured tyres: at least here in France bikeshops sell small “bombs” containing puncture foam and compressed air. All you have to do is to screw the bomb on your tyre valve and push the release lever. When the stuff is inside, you start riding and the foam settles around the puncture hole. It works fine, did it several times with success. By the way, same goes for cars, only the “bombs” are bigger.
    Looking forward to seeing the “four-wheel-recumbent”.
    Georg

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