Nice brekkie with BANANAS! Yes, I can still recognise some fruits!

Mmm.. they were ripe ones too, not those greenish ones that Jane likes.. bleh!

I left quite early for a change – unintentionally – perhaps 8.30am?

Is it normal to listen to a train pass and bop my head to the click-clack? Probably not. I was getting into it though! Thinking: “If I just sampled that and added a filter here and there, add some crunched up 909, lay down an evil bassline..” 😀 Definately too much time on the road!

I know why Mr. Ullrich always looks mad. It’s not because Lance keeps whipping him, it’s because he rides in Germany! I thought with these funky new maps I’d be flying and all would be cool. Nuh uh! The paths are still crap – damage from allied bombing?!?! Signs send you off into carparks and then intersections where you can loop around looking at signs, scratching your head, wondering what drugs these people were smoking when they developed the path network.

It’s now 8.30PM. Am I in Hamburg? Hell no!

8hrs of riding, 11hrs on the road, 140k and I didn’t even fscking make it!

Oh, I covered the required distance to be in Hamburg (100k away direct, according to maps, 140k away according to bike path signs) but I was in Fuckknowswhere, Germany, not Hamburg, Germany.

Around 7.30pm I had completely lost the plot. I was physically tired, mentally dead, screaming obscenities at trees, panicking because I’m stuck in the middle of a forest with no idea where I am or which way to travel. I was contemplating just stopping and lying down but was worried it could get too cold or rain. I found some houses and asked directions to a hotel. “Follow the main track” doesn’t really help when the road forks into two equally “main” pieces of singletrack. Yeah, singletrack. I’m not talking about roads or even bike paths here, this was frickin’ muddy, pot-holed bush track. About 5hrs ago it might’ve been fun, but my NEW wheel was failing due to insufficient spoke tension, it was late, I was stuffed and worried about stacking or flatting. Basically, I was having a Real Bad Time(tm).

The track smoothed out a bit and I spotted a runner who I stopped for directions. They pointed me towards some houses and I asked a woman about hotels. (At least I was back in civilisation now!). She ended up sitting me in her front yard while her kids played and she went inside. I wondered to myself if an Aussie woman would be so unconcerned with a hairy, borderline psychotic, lycra-clad man near her young kids? She even told me her husband wasn’t home! How’s that for trust!

Anyway, she found a map of the area, brought me out a drink, rang a few places to check for rooms, PHOTOCOPIED THE MAP and marked on it where I had to go, after BOOKING ME A ROOM!!!

HOW FUCKING COOL ARE GERMAN PEOPLE?! VERY FUCKING COOL!

Anyone who says otherwise has never been here or is blinded by the same stereotype I had before I visited last year. Germans rock!

Anyway, I didn’t write much during this ride because I was busy planning the ‘bikepath-designer killing spree’. I didn’t see much because I was too busy looking for signs that weren’t there or looking at maps every 5mins. Even if I did see stuff I wouldn’t remember it because I was so brain dead by the end. Oh, I did write something about the couple that were doing the same ride as me. Guy and a girl a bit older than me were riding from Bremen to Harburg (near Hamburg and near where I actually ended up). They had different maps (secret German ones?) but even they spoke of “horror” sections of path and we ended up riding a stupid cobbled section together. I left them when his wife/gf stacked in a sand section. I dont think she stacked but she stopped and he went back for her. I almost stacked. It was fun, where fun is like pulling teeth sans anasthetic.

I then proceeded to take more wrong turns, climbing a hill here and then “hang on, didn’t I just ride this in the other direction?” Ahh.. it was just ridiculous! This was with me looking at maps too. As soon as I thought I had it nailed I ended up somewhere else entirely. I went into a pub for some water and they were nice and the water was free. I saw a hotel in the hills for 25euro a night and actually stopped and was almost going to stay there.. and then I got lost in the forest.

Finding the “Betti Meyer” hotel/pension in “Neugraben” from the woman’s house was no problem at all. Which makes it all the more puzzling why I struggled with the ride in general. The room was 50euro for the night. I didn’t care. I would’ve paid more. Scoff pack of peanut M&Ms watching Sumo Wrestling on cable TV. Wash myself and my kit in the shower and get directions to “Jagerhof” restaurant/bar for dinner.

I order another “Jagerschnitzel” and a half-litre “Flensburger Weizen” beer. Entree is bread pieces spread with lard! I’m sure it’s lard.. It has meat pieces in it and tastes surprisingly good. The beer isn’t going to do my dehydration any good but I NEED it after this ride. Tastes nice, interesting flavour.

The Harrod’s pen Shane gave me finally stopped working while I jotted in my diary during dinner. Well, when there’s no dinner companions to talk to, you have to do something while waiting! A Pacer acts as temporary backup but I must buy a new pen. New pen? Riveting stuff eh?

Speaking of rivets.. I can eat cucumber now without gagging at the taste. Burping later still has that overpowering cucumber taste though – gross. Yes, that had nothing to do with rivets. I’m like that.

ThisJagerschnitzel totally kicks the arse of the one in Bremen! It’s big, covered in a tonne of mushrooms and lovely gravy. Accompanied by a seperate bowl of baked potato slices and another bowl of really nice apple salad! All for about the same price as the Bremen joint! This is the German meal I’ve been hanging out for! “Another one of these beers please!” I say to the lovely old lady waiting on me, who speaks not a word of English – I think the pointing helps :). My body’s only liquid is now beer. Beer is mostly water though, so it should be okay.

I guess she asked me how the meal was when I finished and she was stoked when I said “wunderbar”(sp?) I only knew that word because she’d used it earlier hehe

I’m having serious doubts about continuing the trip, at this point, which you all know about from previous ranting. I also discovered that it’s not work that makes me angry, it’s me that makes me angry. What a predicament!

Later on I buy another half-litre beer from a servo.. for (google bait) FIFTY CENT s 🙂 500ml of beer for 50c! That’s less than what a 375ml can of Coke costs in Oz!

Back to the hotel and watch freestyle moto-x and various soft-porn ads for phone-sex numbers. Over here they have full body nudity as girls strip off to music while the phone-sex number flashes away in the corner! What a great country! 😀

Bremen to (NOT) Hamburg Stats:

140.63k, 7h 38m, 18.4kph