I’ve seen much of Heidelberg now and decided to ride to nearby Schwetzingen which apparently has a lovely castle. After some more issues with German bike path signs (ie. a right pointing arrow with THREE right-turn options!) I arrived but really didn’t feel like paying to see Another Bloody Castle (ABC). There was a car show on in the castle grounds this weekend. This, along with the road sign pointing to Hockenheim, was enough to keep me riding to Hockenheim in the hope of seeing the race track. Yeah, nowadays I’m primarily anti-car, but I did grow up with two speedway drivers as neighbors. In fact, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a car mechanic and race speedway, just like Pete “Spider” McCarthy. I used to “help” him fix cars in his garage. I think “help” was more akin to “try not to get in his way too much”. How times have changed..

Anyway, I kept riding along some rather nice crusher-dust bike trails in the woods until I made it to Hockenheim – made obvious with the motorbike statue at the town entrance!

It was easy to find the track because there was a stream of Porsches, Ferraris, Audis and other “race” vehicles leaving town along one particular road. One of the Porsche GT3’s (on a trailer) appeared to have “met” a wall at a rather high velocity – ouch!

There were cars on the track when I arrived but the mix of vehicles seemed to indicate anyone could drive the circuit now, ie. Ferraris mixed with vans, 4wds mixed with motorbikes and Minis and all manner of family and ‘not-so-family’ vehicles all using the track at once.

I’ll come clean now – I didn’t ride around the “race circuit” but I did ride “around” the circuit. There just may have been a large perimeter fence stopping me from mixing it up with the motored vehicles.. damn it! 😛

It was going to get dark soon (I left Renee’s late afternoon) so I headed back. Without a map and without checking signs, my memory actually did a better job of keeping me on the right path!! I couldn’t believe it!

“Screw maps! Ignore signs! Use your brain every time!”

Just for some extra punishment (or was it fun?) I rode up Heidelberg’s biggest mountain – the Konigstuhl. I still can’t climb, but I reckon it would put some of the Melbourne climbs to shame – or maybe I’m just too damn fat and unfit to climb anything now?

The descent was fast and fun! I totally overshot one corner (a habit of mine that will get me killed one day) and was only slowed down at the end when cars got in my way – I passed a couple but I had no front light and didn’t want to spend too much time on the wrong side of the road in the dark. I could feel my brake pads wearing out behind the cars and was cursing the oncoming traffic that stopped me passing! Let me go freeeeeeeeeee! 🙂

My knee is still sore after rides. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly, but looking down at my right knee, most of the pain seems centred around the area on the outside of the leg, just above the calf muscle at the joint. There is a bone here and I guess some kind of tendon or something is being aggravated by twisting or the like??

Pain Central:

click image for a bigger leg