Not my day (but in the end it became much more better)

Tuesday, 4th of October. This wasn't my day. I felt nervous from the moment I woke up, I have had crazy, unpleasant dreams, I felt somehow confused. I only wanted to go on my bike as soon as possible, but somehow this didn't work. I couldn't find my map about this day's stage, so Ben printed some maps from the internet but we had a misunderstanding, so these maps were mostly useless for me. When starting to pack my bike I discovered my carrier now totally cark it – not only more than one assembly seam were free, also the main frame was broken at the position where the pannier used to hang up. We tried to make an improvisational repairing. But nevertheless now it was no longer static. Next I discovered I had lost some air in my back wheel. So what to do? Just use the air pump and see how long this would work or stay and search if there's a hole in the tube? I decided to push one's luck and it lasted for four kilometres until my wheel suddenly was flat. During reparation I found an old patch loosened. I decided to do it the easy way and just change the tube.

Going on with cycling I followed an asphalt track which leaded into a non asphaltic track through a forest. Hard ground but all of it bumps and potholes. Anything from comfortable cycling. I was really annoyed. Then the road became crazy – no straight forward, but lots of turns and windings in every direction. I had asked some people I met where this road would lead to and they named the village I was looking for, but they really should have told me that it wouldn't be a straight way. To me it felt like cycling in circles. Once I followed a branch path, because I could see the end of the forest, but at its end there was only a field, locked with a wire fence, non passable. So next thing I tried was following a dirt track parallel to the field with my bike – dirt track means sparsely grown forests one can tell tractors had driven along in earlier times. Of course I wasn't able to cycle. I stumped to the ground, overgrown with bramble springs, and tried not to get caught in these mantraps. Nevertheless my legs had lots of stitches and scratches after that. After getting over the second blown down tree and still no chance to leave the forest I gave up and went back, went on following the winding road wherever it would lead me to. When it came to an end after some more kilometres and I could also see the village from where I would knew my route, it became cold, windy and cloudy. I wouldn't had been surprised if some rain had come next, it would had fit to the day. Surprisingly the rain hold off.

Größere Kartenansicht

• A) start
• B) flat tyre
• C) met people who said, the road would lead to Ville-en-Woëvre
• D) followed branch path, then tried to follow a dirt track parallel to the field for maybe 500 metres, then returned
• E) reached Ville-en-Woëvre to follow D 908 road – no more experiments!

It was 12 o'clock when I thought I would go on my bike, 1 o'clock when I finally had done the check up, decided to go on and had done the package (funny thing was that thereby I found my missing map), 2 o'clock when I had repaired my wheel, 3 o'clock when I was back on my route (and so far I had cycled maybe 15 kilometres). I had planed to arrive at today's hosts' home at 6 o'clock, and today's stage was also planed as a short and easy one with only 80 kilometres. I worried about this failing time schedule, I was looking forward to meet Pierre and Jordane since yesterday, they were looking forward to meet me, and now I would arrive probably very late so we wouldn't have much time together – stupid thing.

Also the problems with my bike became more serious. When I was back on the normal road I noticed a regularly bumming caused by my back wheel, with every rotation it gave me hitches – definitely no comfortable way to cycle and also much more cumbersome than it would have been with a ideal bike, but I would go on like this – with the decision on my mind, that this would be my last stage. After this I only would do the distance to the next train station in Germany. 4,000 kilometres in total would be definitely enough.

Still it wasn't easy to make a phone call. Close to 6 P.M. I found an ability in a bakery where I bought a piece of cheese cake (my first cheese cake since I left Germany!), as Pierre and Jordane expected me by this time – they had also pronounced some meal… But I could only reach the mailbox. It became night cycling and around 9 P.M. I finally arrived. It had been 95 kilometres.

Pierre was glad to see me, he had worried about me – my call hadn't arrived, later we assumed I must have had dialled a wrong number – he actually have had a look on my website, had found my phone number there and had called Klaus, who becalmed him, that I surely just would have some problems with the bike, but would soon or later arrive. I felt really moved about so much care. From the very first moment – already in they way they had answered my request – these people seemed to be so open and warm.

Most important thing to me this evening: For the second time in period I met people, who had decided not to define themselves about work. Pierre had quitted one and a half year ago when feeling constantly uncomfortable with the social relationships in his company. Nevertheless he's doing lots of things. He's an inspiring photographer – nothing one can live from, but a good thing to spend time with. It doesn't seem to be so impossible – even if society declared it to be unthinkable to have other plans and concepts for life then just go to work until getting retired. And it was good to hear that others also knew respectively had felt the social pressure, that one have to work – when visiting some relatives, Pierres mother took him by the side and whispered: “Don't tell you're not working – they wouldn't understand!” All these people, Pierre and Jordane as less as Ben, don't want to life on others and they all have to care about how to get some money for living, but there seams to be much more freedom to live different, as one would think.

It gave me such a good feeling to talk with Pierre and Jordane, I felt so good and welcome, so I suggested to stay for one more night, and both were glad about it. So in the end there was no loss caused by arriving so late.

On the road again!

Thursday, 15th of September. I felt like doing cycling, I was awake, and it looked good outside. The whole forenoon it felt like the new morning, some gentle light, like from the first morning sun. And also when I was on my bike. it felt so peaceful, and I was constantly looking around to see all the beauty which surrounded me. So totally different from my last impression when I first cycled this roads with all the storm and rain and force of nature.

In Clifden I lost my way without noticing. Clifden seems to be very nice, but it doesn't care about ones orientation – barely a sign. So when I found one, I was glad to follow, but didn't thought about the road I was looking for didn't start in this town, so there were two ways for it (I wanted to cycle the N 59 up to Westport, but took accidentally the direction up to Galway). Nevertheless the landscape was nice and interesting, and when 20 kilometres later I realized how I went wrong, it wasn't a loop way, just an alternative way which didn't lead along the coast but along Darryclare Lough and Ballynahinch Lough, and when cycling the R 334 it was just great, such a nice little road. Now I was in the really hilly area of Connemara, but the road wasn't effected that much by this, some ups and downs, nice winding, but to both sides the mountains raise, Maumturk Mountains to the right and Twelve Bens to the left. And lots of sheep next to and on the road!

So it was just lovely new cycling, not that windy, mostly sunny. Originally I had planed to cycle the R 335 from Aasleagh up to Westport, but after a short break I noticed some tiredness, so I decided to take the shorter route, that also would be nice, a local woman told me, and it was. (It's so enjoyable, you just have to sit with your packed bike somewhere and people will come to you and ask about your doing…) The weather changed a little, so it was still bright clear sky in front, but cloudy and stormy behind me, and the dark clouds tried to catch me, but it wasn't that worse.

Once I passed a building, where a sign on the wall in front attract my attention: stop and pray. Just in the middle of nowhere. Then I realized the building was a church, build in modern style. The sign works, but just for half: When I was taking my photo another car stopped, too, but both we forgot about the praying…

 

In Westport after 80 kilometres of cycling I had a bigger break to eat something salty, and when standing up again, I had abruptly bad biting in my calves like getting a cramp – it came out of nothing. I did some stretching and took an extra magnesium and then it was okay again, no problems when going on with cycling. But very curious.

I arrived in Castlebar after 115 kilometres and didn't had any problems to find the home of this night's couchsurfing host John, to whom I had contact since I arrived in Ireland. Unfortunately my towel didn't arrive, I have no idea what has happened, I have contacted Allan but are waiting for reply at the moment – hopefully my stuff didn't get lost. Curiously I don't want to buy a new towel.

John was just nice, although he was tired of working the last three nights and haven't really slept since the last night. But I felt comfortable from the first moment. John has a unbelievable shower, which is located immediate behind a door – so the shower room isn't bigger than the shower tube!

It was a very relaxed evening we spend together and also curious, as there were some other people who were very – let's say: fascinated about conspiracy theory respective UFOs, aliens and the government who knows about this but does not tell us. They showed me some very weird "documentaries" on You Tube, that were made so extremely emotional manipulative – filming of unidentified objects and lights, crazy frightened people on the phone, scary music in the background, most reports taken from the news, so very popular level and much more entertaining, especially when the announcers talked about the features…


Johns brother shocked me when mentioned, I must have very rich parents to be able to do such a trip – it's not only that actually I'm doing this trip in very cheap way, but to think I could be one of these spoiled kids who never have to do something for the things they get! He couldn't be more wrong about me. One should think others know that such a bicycle tour isn't always fun.

Some amazing perceptions of nature

Friday, 2nd of September. It was 1:30 P.M. when I left the boat. Easy cycling like every day, good to be on the road again. While being on my way, a car passed, and outside the backmost window Marek smiled at and waved to me. Funny coincidence to see him again. Today's stage was planed with 75 kilometres and ended up with 105 kilometres, because I missed a sign in Ballydehob and didn't realize this until I asked someone in Schull (there's a kink on my map, so this Schull area was on the back side which I couldn't see because I had thought to be in the other side's area). But I didn't want to turn back, especially because I liked the place I was now and wanted to go on – who matter's about kilometres? In the end I was so glad I made a detour because it was such a great landscape, such a lovely road, just so nice and exhilarant. After 70 kilometres I had a short break in Bantry, and then the other great part of this day's journey began.

It had been cloudy the hole day with some sunshine from time to time, some wind – just nature. Then some drizzling rain started, but so misty – such thing doesn't feel like rain, it's just refreshing. If this is the famous Irish rain, then I love it. I decided not to dress more rain protection than my raincoat, which was generally a good idea, you definitely don't need rain pants – but I had to learn this day that anyway you need some protection for the shoes (and maybe another warm jacket)… Cycling the coast between Ballylickey and Glengarriff was just great outlook, all these colours and structure within the hazy environment – just great. Then the very hilly part of this day's stage started, as I cycled the Caha Mountains. I was on my own, nearly no passing cars, I wasn't able to see anything in some distance because of all this haze. And shortly after I also couldn't see that much because it went dark.

It went pretty cold, but with the misty rain outside, which had become heavier meanwhile, and the sweating inside I didn't want to stop and grub deep in one of my bags, I just tried to stay warm by going on with fast cycling. When the road finally got downhill, I cycled through an amazing tunnel, just a hole in the hill with all these surrounding mountain stones. And my bike light illuminated the scene. Fast downhill through the rainy night, I felt colder and colder, but finally I reached Dean's house, that wasn't easy to find in the darkness. There I had a bath, but it took some time until I felt some warmth inside of me again. But what an amazing day.

PS:
I had my first little accident today, if you can say so. I failed the asphalt road, so my wheel touched the ground next to the road, so I lost balance when trying to put something out of my little handle bar bag. But I had only 10 or 15 km/h, so nothing happened apart from my bike turned over and the handle bar was twisted (and I now have a bruise).

The amazing cyclist did a new record in long distance cycling!

Tuesday, 30th of August. I did a new record in long distance cycling: 167.5 kilometres – this maybe could be not only a long distance record for this tour but also in my cycling history, but I'm not sure about that. The first 50 kilometres I cycled the N 25 road up to Cork, not that much interesting because of the street's character, but I did extremely fast cycling! I had an average of 23.6 km/h (that's most likely also my personal record in general related to long(er) distance average). And even at the end of the day I still had an average of 19 km/h. I don't want to boast, but this is nearly unbelievable to me, too. Altogether it took me 8 hours and 45 minutes pure cycling.

I had a nice break in Cork, sitting in a pub, drinking some cappuccino and eating yesterday's roll while discovering a new favourite band – Fleet Foxes – by listening to their Album Helplessness Blues. And I had also a nice talk with two man sitting next to me who were interested in my cycling (one of them is a journalist, so maybe I become popular now…)

When leaving Cork I lost my way, bound to the N 25, which cost me 10 extra kilometres at all. And the periodic hooting of the car drivers on this motorway like three lane road doesn't made it better. (We disagreed about how much space I was allowed to take.) When I finally found the R 600 the first five kilometres were heavy uphill, so it took me 65 kilometres until the landscape was enjoyable. This also meant it went to be hilly and I had advertise winds – which curiously affected only me. The plants, bushes and trees held it was windless.

Nearly the whole day it was cloudy (and thereby cool), and it looks surely funny when nevertheless I am wearing sun glasses because of wind protection – "It's dark twilight… and we're wearing sunglasses". This day it constantly happened that I thought to be slow and automatically changed down, to use the smallest of the three front sprocket, but was still ten km/h to fast for doing so.

After 112 kilometres I had and definitely needed a long break and some salty, warm things to eat. This exhausted feeling came all of a sudden over me. I found Grainne's Bar in Timoleague, which was quite the right choice (even though there hasn't been an alternative since the last ten kilometres…). This pub had been the Award Winner of Best Irish Traditional Pub as the Dining Pub of the Year 2001, 2004 and 2005. And Grainne is a really nice woman.

Back on my bike the sun came out. From Clonakity I called Marek, my host for this night (and also the next days). A nice butcher lady lent me her mobile phone (she offered it by herself, when I asked for a public phone – it's really not easy to find public telephones, but there are so much lovely people in this world…). Then it became dark outside.

Among Clonakity and Skippereen I cycled through some very dark areas. No lamps, no civilization, just my little bike light. Dark road, much darker trees and bushes surrounding me on both sides, the idea of a blurred light blue far away over the horizon. I felt I was cycling uphill, and later that I was in some height, but had no orientation at all (so I was unable to see signs, too). Kind of borderline experience. Very intensive, especially when you stop and listen to the silence and look at the stars. – So much stars! So bright! It kind of frightened me to stand in this absolute darkness.

There were also cars who passed respectively came towards me from time to time – and about 50 percent of them didn't turn off their driving beam … But it was nice how the lights of the cars behind me made the street's cat sights (placed in the road) reflecting, so you could see how the road turns. Among Skippereen and Baltimore it was once again just dark, but had another character. Smaller road, more winding, close to the sea (which I couldn't really see but feel), also some cold from the bottom and ground fog, that one could only see when a car was passing. And once again this unbelievable starry sky. So bright I could see the milky way, and all the stars appeared in three dimension – and I could also see the lines between the stars which make the constellations.

When I reached the border of Baltimore (without noticing) someone called my name, and out of the dark Marek appeared, who has waited for me after coming back from a meeting. It was 10:30 P.M. Walking through the night on a small path up to the little scruffy boat where Marek is living at a few months ago together with Anne, who is staying at this place for years. Food, warmth, harbour.

Up to London in just one day

Monday, 15h of August. Still no aching muscles, but I am pretty battered, as yesterday I cycled the whole distance Margate–London (Camden) all at once. Here is closest what Google maps is able to show about my route:


View Larger Map

Originally I planed this distance in two stages, but I lost my host in Gravesend, therefore I cycled through. From Margate to Herne Bay I cycled the lovely coast (hard to find a route as many paths used to end suddenly), then I tried the A2 for 10 kilometres, what started as a nice road (like German Landstrasse) and later changed its character into a motor road) , so I tried to find a route close to the sea, signposted (big problem, because signing was bad), and not being the A2 (most signs try to lead you back to A2). I started in Margate at 12 o'clock, reached London at 0 o'clock, but needed nearly 2 hours to find my route up to Camden and at least got help from my host Dagnis, who leaded me from Camden High Street up to his place.

All at all 150 kilometres – and the whole day constantly up and down – nobody had told me, that this area is so hilly! Because it was Sunday and I still wasn't able to change money or to find a bank and my fruit inventories were used up, I took al lot of sultanas from Allan's kitchen and found fortunately some apple trees during the cycling. I started cycling in a bad mood, thin-skinned and somehow depressed, hit shape rock bottom at 5 P.M., was no longer sure about why am I doing this – wherefore? Thought about going back home immediately because of losing sense and structure. Cycled extremely slow (my bike computer says, I still had an average of 15 km/h. Maybe it wasn't that bad as it felt) and cycled for 12 hours and 15 minutes this day.

Then I arrived at Dagnis' and Dagmara's home. And what a welcome. Dagnis had waited for me, even both had to go to work early the next day, actually Dagmara got up the bed, and both warmed up a delicious soup and prepared a slice of bread. So lovely! So unbelievable kind and helpful and generous! Surely, I was completely exhausted but still able to help myself, but the built me up with food and warmth. Thank you so much.

From Hüttenstadt up to Germscheid – and once again a train part…

Wednesday, 3th of August. I left Susanne at 11 A.M. shortly before it started to rain, wherefore I had another stop to search for my rain clothes. Naturally the rain stopped at the moment I had done my rain clothes. But since it was still some cold I kept it on. My first goal for this day was Wetzlar because of its wonderful historic city centre. It's a straight road which leads to this small town. There was a bike path next to the street. My heart didn't misgave me, when the path left the road – bike paths do such things sometimes, perhaps when the street planers don't want you to cycle upon a hill. This path was really winding and went on to veer away from the road. But I went on, because the landscape was so nice and I trusted in the fact that the path had to lead to somewhere.

After maybe one kilometre with slight down-grade the bike path mutated into a path of asphalt tile, then into a cart track, then into a muddy cart track, then into a muddy seldom used upward cart track … I started to push my bike, but I was still curious. Finally the so-called path ended as a overgrown thing, but at this time I could fortunately hear the cars riding on the road. The last maybe 50 metres I unloaded my bike and carried first my stuff and than my bike across the forest. Altogether it took me two hours, but I was so proud of myself that I wasn't frustrated or something like that, but just able to handle the situation. I was completely all in a sweat. My spats had been very useful; otherwise my shoes and feet would have been totally wet, too. But my clothes had been really dirty from the mud.

The historic centre of Wetzlar is actually as nice and well worth seeing as Susanne had told me. It has a Dom with only one finished tower, then there hadn't been enough money to build the other one…

Best of all: now I followed a bike path along the Lahn river. I bought two bicycle tubes in a bicycle store, and as I started to answer the question whereto I'm cycling: "through Belgium and …" the mechanic cut me off saying: “Ah … – that kind of trip.” As I had some problems with my gearshift I asked if he could take a look and in the end he fixed it for free “to sponsor the trip”. Very much thanks to Armin from bykx Radstudio in Solms-Oberbiel! Cycling along the Lahn was just great. But sadly after 50 cycled kilometres I had to switch to train, when arriving in Weilburg at 6 A.M. – there was no later connection from another station available and otherwise I would have arrived in Germscheid eventually at midnight. Maybe it wasn't the worst decision, because shortly after it started to rain once again. This day I decided to send some of my stuff back home, so I took advantage of the time during the train ride to sort out. In Limburg I had to change trains – it seemed to be the wrong time for travelling with the bike … Once again I had to carry my bike.

Olli, my today's host, picked me up at Altenkirchen train station and we drove with his car to his home in Germscheid, Rhineland-Palatinate. (Once again: Thanks to him and also the other couchsurfing hosts who helped me so much with my tour.) Olli is a friendly and relaxed guy. After school he made a motor bicycle tour, which was planed as an one year trip up to Australia and ended up as a two year tour up to New Zealand. Then he started to breed Galloway cows. He commemorated Dave, a dear friend of mine, who is so open and tender but so hard to reach inside.

When we attained the 150 year old farm house in a small village at the edge of Westerwald there was a bonfire and some friends and neighbours who celebrated hay harvest with eating and drinking together. I felt so welcome and had a very nice evening with some chit-chat. And Olli has such a lovely outgoing young daughter! I have also to thank Olli for agreeing to send my stuff back home. Cheers!