Category: General

When you’re lying in a nice comfortable bed, it can be difficult facing getting up knowing you’ve got about 80 k’s of headwind ahead of you. And you’re not sure where you’re gonna be staying that night or what type of campground it’ll be. But there’s no point in delaying the inevitable. So, strap everything back on the bike, check all the nuts and bolts – twice, then get moving.

The trip to Bremen turned out to be fine and quite sheltered. It was fairly peaceful, except when near an Autobahn where it seemed everyone was in a mad rush to see who could go the fastest.

As for Breman itself, God, it was absolutely teeming with people everywhere. Groups of hen and stag parties were well into celebration mode, even it wasn’t yet noon. I thought I might take a pit stop at the central station but it was worse than a mass bad scrum trying to get in so I gave up and headed away from the city centre.

I had looked at three campsites outside of Bremen as I headed West, not being sure which one to stop at. The first one I came to turned out to be a members only campsite. but the campground owner said you can stay here, showed me a spot to pitch my tent and gave me keys to the bathroom and allowed me to stay for free. He was celebrating his daughter’s first day at school with a party at the campground. So different from around Helsingor where NZ$80 got a tiny spot of grass and showers were extra.

The Belgua

This was going to be a wet and windy one – maybe. But the highlight of the day was unequivocally seeing the Beluga taking off from the Airbus Facility. I think the Hamburg facility is used to make the Airbus wings – least that’s what Daniel said. You simply don’t realize the size of the thing.

The other highlight was bakeries, cafes and Konditorei. After Sweden where it was just about impossible to find a coffee, let alone a Cafe, it was a joy that I indulged along the

Of course, in keeping with the ying yang of life, there was the downs as well. Did I mention the rain? Wasn’t as bad as I expected with just one hour of testing all my rain gear. Mind you, the wind kept maintaining its opposition to me, but at least it dried me out.

The big downer was the terrible state of some of the bike paths with their shake, rattle and roll. And so, it finally took its toll on my bike by shearing one of my rear rack bolts and loosening the others. I’ve been able to “fix” the broken one – sort of – so it’s secured but it means that I’ve lost the use of my top gear, not that I really need it.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings as I pass thru Bremen.

I have been in Travemunde once before when I had taken the ferry from Helsinki to Travemunde. That time  I was cycling back up through to Copenhagen.  This time I was heading south towards Amsterdam. Neither time have I really stopped in Travemunde. It is just a ferry port terminal with a huge amount of traffic and a place to get away from fairly quickly. So I rode down to Lubeck for a morning coffee.

Lubeck is a pleasant little city with the standard cathedral and places like that and some fairly magnificent entrances to the old city itself. This was to be the highlight of my day because from here on it became hell on wheels.  While there were many paved paths and ways to follow safely away from traffic, I have never been so jolted, rattled and shaken on any surface for so long. I am surprised my bike didn’t fall apart under the constant jarring. Much of it caused by roots growing underneath asphalt and creating little ridges while the brick paths were so uneven as the bricks shifted. It was definitely not an enjoyable situation and my language turned blue quite a number of times. As if this wasn’t sufficient, I left my iPhone, sitting on a bench after one stop and didn’t realize until  about 11 1/2 km later. All I can say is thank goodness for Apples “Find My” app and $160 cab ride later to retrieve my phone. That summed up my day.

Possibly not the best title but never mind. The rest of the journey to Helsingborg was relatively uneventful just somewhat long fairly flat, not too bad anyway.

But, there’s always something that comes up to distract one when on a long distance cycle ride in this case a chance opportunity to go on board the Azamara Onward as a speaker for the Baltic Cruise. This was a cruise that I had done in the past, so I had the lectures all set. Now, you can imagine how tempting that would be to sit in luxury cruise around the Baltic and give a few lectures rather than sweating it out down the highways and highways of Sweden however, the logistics was slightly too much. What was I going to do with my bike? Could I find a secondhand store to get some reasonable clothes to present in and presenting from an iPad is not the easiest. A bit more of a knife edge decision than I wished, anyway I decided in the end it was in the too hard basket and continued on my way.

The next hard decision. Do I continue on across into Denmark and down through Denmark or alternatively do I cycle down to Malmo and then take the ferry to Travemunde. well, what decided it for me was the cost of campgrounds in Denmark and their availability. All of the campgrounds around Helsingor were full and what campgrounds that were available cost at least $80 for a little square piece of grass on which to put my tent. So I decided to spent what I thought would be a nice easy 50 to 60 K ride to go down to Malmo and then get the night ferry from there. It is actually quite a lovely ride. Well worth  doing although it did end up being more like an 85K ride as I kept taking diversions along the way. Memo itself was in the middle getting ready for a massive weekend and so the center was fairly closed up as they were putting up all sorts of fairground rides and games and so on, but it is quite a nice city, which surprised me I hadn’t expected it to be so.

Then, I went to the port and started the ferry ritual of sitting in the tarmac, waiting for registration to open, and then finally board the ship and sail. As there was a few of us, Mötley lot on bicycles, a whole line of long-distance trucks from Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Germany, and of course Campervans. So it was goodbye to Sweden and on to Germany.

Today my old faithful LUMIX camera finally gave up and died. It has served well, documenting many places, on cruise ships, ports of call, rowing regattas, as well as most of my cycling adventures. I’m not sure when I bought it, but it was when a previous camera failed on a Cycling trip – possibly in Norway somewhere. So it is fitting that it ceased its existence in Scandinavia.  The wear and tear of being stuffed into bike panniers, suitcases and back pockets – and being dropped every so often – has finally done it in. Probably the cobble stones yesterday was the coup de grace.

It started its life before smartphone cameras were not even close to being of sufficient quality, it had a great zoom Leica lens and slipped in a handlebar bag with ease. It even could WiFi images to my first iPad, which puts it at about a 2011 vintage. 

Its final image is also the only image it’s taken on this trip. Every other image has been taken by my iPhone. It’s fitting that the image was a telephone image of Elsinore Castle across in Denmark, taken from Helsingborg. Something the iPhone couldn’t possibly come close to doing.

Will I replace it? Possibly but not very likely as each iteration of the iPhone improves its camera capabilities.  So below are just a couple of images it captured for me in the past.

Well yesterday was an all day bed rest day watching the Olympics on TV with a Swedish commentary that I couldn’t understand but didn’t need to. The rain was kind as it scheduled itself for the same day – buckets of it. Today was a somewhat overcast start and I didn’t know if I’d go 20 kms or 90 kms as the body was still drained. But being obstinately minded I held out for the 95 km. So I sitting in my camp chair planning what next. It was to have been to take the ferry from Helsingborg to Helsingør in Denmark but the cost of accommodation is ridiculous in Denmark and around the Helsingør area it is fully booked. Plus, well I’ve cycled pretty much all of Denmark over the years so…. I’m thinking of skipping Denmark for the most part, riding down to Malmo and taking the ferry to Travemunde in Germany instead. I decide when I get to Helsingborg tomorrow.

This is the town center of Ljungby. I came thru here in 2013 on my way to Visby and my comments then were “Southern Sweden does not appear to do Sundays. In Ljungby it took a while to find a cafe open for coffee….” It appears that Mondays aren’t any different either during Summer.

Relics of the past

As in some previous days, I rode sections of the old E4 (now replaced by the motorway) and there’s the remnants of the past era scattered along the way. Not many cars come thru either – just some local traffic it seems.

This post brought to you by triple Espressos, Aspirin and Voltaren. I think (actually now I know) that I seriously underestimated the impact of a very heavy cold and not such sleep would have on my ability to ride. I was struggling after 10km and had a further 82 to go to a motel I’d booked. In fact I don’t think I’d felt this empty since doing the Etape de Tour in the Pyrenees 18 years ago – and today was without any hills.

¼ Mile from Where?

Ironically my average ride speed was the highest yet. But that doesn’t tell the truth. Lapsed time does…… It didn’t help that cafes advertised as open, were not.  So stops at supermarkets for cans of Starbucks coffee and danish became the go to method and lay down on the grass beside the road a bit too often. Anyway it’s done,

Tomorrow’s forecast is rain during most of the day. I might just stay holed up and battle the cold and cough.

This sign is roughly ½ way between Stockholm and Helsingborg and is, of course, for the E4 motorway which according to Google it will take 5 hours and 43 minutes to do the 556 kilometres. By bike it took 4 ½ days and 352 kilometres to reach this sign plus I’ve another 300 to go so let’s call it a 9 day journey hauling 50 kilos of gear, food and electronics. Speaking of which…..

Bicycle touring has changed significantly in the last 15 years. While the bicycles are for the most part the same except for the addition of disc brakes and some other minor increments. That is of course ignoring e-bikes for the moment. The biggest change has been in electronics. I carry very little paper, let alone a kilos worth of maps and the Tourist Information Centres have almost gone extinct in terms of where to stay etc. On this trip I have my Garmin 1030 for navigation, my iPhone, my iPad, a digital Camera. All of which need to be kept charged up. Which means the hub Dynamo, Solar Panels and Power Bank plus assorted cables, wall charger etc. The up side is that I can plan my routes, days and stops so much better and know what to see and do along the way. The down side is that some of the spontaneity is lost but the bigger downside is what happens when some thing doesn’t work?

A museum Piece to the past days of motoring

Normally when I reach a campsite I use the solar panel to recharge the various items. Today it decided not to do that. Suddenly all the electronics we now depend on may not be working tomorrow and I may have to resort to the old fashion way of touring, finding maps, asking people for directions.  Speaking of days gone by. This was a lovely little “museum” piece of motoring history near where I’m camping tonight.

Apart from that it’s been an easy day (well relatively) as the wind had taken a rest and the route was good.

This picture sort of summed up today. In planning today’s ride I called is a short one thinking I’d take it fairly easy and roll along the road. My legs said otherwise. They didn’t like what I’d done to them yesterday and said so quite forcefully, not again. This was just one of the many stops along the way when I main lined coffee and danish into my legs at a Petrol Station. However there’s always some interest spots along the way

The top and bottom are original 11 century but the middle – ‘fraid not

This was the 4th Rune I came across. The top and bottom parts are original 11th century. The middle piece is missing, probably part of a barn somewhere. So all we know of the inscription is “the stone rose after Agute, good…”  One is left wondering about Agute. What was he good at? Farming? Fighting? Winning Gold at the Viking Games? And of course why did he raise the stone in the first place. I bet he’d be pretty pissed off to know that someone backed their cart in the stone, broke it and nicked the middle bit so that all his work chiselling the granite so he could be remembered as being good at something came to naught. Mind you the middle bit is fairly small compared to the other bits, so he couldn’t have been that good. I think it was the neighbours who did it.

Here I was competing with Farm equipment for the Ferry Ride

So, it was going to be a toss up as to whether it would be short day or a long day due to, what YR.NO, the weather people called a moderate breeze. Their definition of breeze is slightly different from mine. Gust up to 40 mph are in their definition but not mine, particularly when it’s a direct head wind. And it started with “minor” ups and downs, that is if you call going up and down Roberta Ave 20 times in a row, minor  – but, hey we’re only here once so the first ferry provided a reasonable interlude – even though it wasn ‘t up to Silversea standards.

The Gota Canal Bike boat – giving 8 kms of relief

Then it was the long slog into the wind to the next ferry which was much for fun. Thru shear luck I can across the Gota Canal Bike Boat that only operates in the summer hi season. It carry’s up to 8 bikes with riders the length of Lake Asplången.  While the photo makes everything look calm, it wasn’t. The Lake was white capping and quite choppy. But it was luxury to sit down and admire the lake shores, Even it is a trifle wet. Regrettably it ended too soon and since it was only 11 in the morning I decided to push so that the day ended up being some 89km at a snails pace. Camp that evening never felt better and didn’t wake up until 7 in thr morning.