Deutschlandabenteuergeschichten Thu 24/07/03   After a hectic morning, as they usually are before long trips, finally made it to Ralf's place and already felt the stress of packing, preparing and cleaning up dropping off. After a little while we started on our quest taking the mandatory start-of-trip-picture in front of Georg Strobel Str. 79. Despite some large cumulus clouds we did cycle in the sunshine most of the way out to Lauf, stopping off briefly along the way to get rid of some items I had planned to leave at my parents house in Roethenbach. Truly a different experience when starting to cycle from the own home, and quite enjoyable at that! Our luck started to turn once we had passed Lauf, as on the way to Hersbruck we got into our first thunderstorm which had us hiding under the ledge of the roof belonging to a small sandstone cottage. After this short stop we continued to Hersbruck and up the Pegnitztal towards Neuhaus, which we had elected as our lunch stop. The commune system there is a real attraction even for locals, so we quickly found the house with the star sticking out and had a hearty lunch. The star indicates which pub of the commune system is currently taking the turn at serving food and beer. This duty or privilege would last as long as it took to get through one batch of beer, which in former days was brewed as a joint effort of the participating families. Currently 3 or 4 communal pubs remain and the beer is now brewed by the local brewery (Kaiser Braeu), using the traditional recipe. We moved on towards Auerbach after lunch where we were overtaken by some horrible weather which had been hanging around. The downpour sent us straight into the closest bus shelter where we lingered for about an hour before abandoning the attempt to cycle to Marktredwitz that day. Instead we opted for the bus and train as alternative transport. (Even the few minutes cycling from the bus shelter into town in the teeming rain totally sucked) Reached Marktredwitz in the evening and had some spaghetti at a rural Italian place after which we checked out a pub and headed back to Steffi's flat.	no map 470m 62km / Avg: 19.3km/h
Ralf & Richard Setting out
Cycling Czech Fri 24/07/2002   Started off in Marktredwitz with overhead clouds that looked like they might burst into rain anytime. Luckily they didn't, and by the time we reached the Czech border the sun had fought it's way through the clouds. The trip to the border was slightly more arduous than we had planned, as we followed a signposted cycling path which lead us pretty much in zigzag towards our destination. Admittedly the landscape and the roads were very pretty but as we had set out to get a good deal closer to Dresden we needed to find a faster, more direct and more frequented road. It didn't take us very long to get to the border after we had changed to the major roads, where I had a fun moment whilst cycling past the queue of 50something cars to be waved through immediately. Without a detailed map we made our way to Karlsbad where we stopped briefly to have a look round the very pretty old town and on the way out stumbled across an excellent bike shop where Ralf got his bike fixed as he was having problems with his gearshift. Bought a detailed map of the area in order to get off the main road which was getting lots of annoying truck traffic. Successfully found some tiny roads leading up to Jachimov where we decided to call it a day and find a hotel. The guest house which we stopped at turned out to be a not so ideal choice as there was only cold water and the food didn't seem that convincing. (The reason we initially picked it was my flat tyre right outside which seemed to make for a pretty strong case for not continuing any further.) We ended up walking further up the main road, had dinner and some drinks at a pub up the hill before heading back before midnight (only to be woken up by the group of czech youngsters departing at the crack of dawn and shouting outside of our door).	no map 1368m 115km / Avg: 18.5km/h
Houses in Karlsbad Ralf in Karlsbad Centre
Long ride to Dresden Sat 26/07/03   The day greeted us with a steep 350m climb, peaking at 1050m where we crossed back into Germany at Oberwiesenthal and cycled downhill towards Annaberg-Buchholz. The fun downhill ride was followed by some small but often nasty climbs and further downhill passages as we crept across the foothills of the Fichtelgebirge towards Dresden. Had lunch in Freiberg where on the town square was a cheap and pretty decent restaurant, previous to which we had cycled up a seemingly endless incline all on a 5-7% slope lined with houses all along the way. The afternoon brought more of the short climbs and subsequent drops until we stopped some 20km short of Dresden at a small restaurant which at the time had not been re-opened after the floods of 2002. The remnants of which were still very much noticeable on the premises and in the surrounding area. After a short continuation we stopped about 12km outside of Dresden as we stumbled across a hostel advertising double rooms at the summer rate of EUR 36 incl. breakfast. An offer we couldn't resist. Despite the long hours of cycling we got back onto our bikes after a refreshing shower and made our way into Dresden for a look round the Semper Oper, Zwinger, Frauenkirche, Kreuzkirche and the Pubs in the Neustadt where we had some excellent yet pricey Tapas. By the time we had finished our meal the legs were feeling rather heavy and neither of us felt like cycling the 15km or so back towards Tharandt, the suburb in which our hostel was, so we elected to catch the ridiculously early last bus at 22:35.(The bus traffic was substituting for the S-Bahn which was still being reconstructed after the flood damaged some 10 bridges and washed out most of the tracks.)	No Map 1705m 126km / Avg: 19.9km/h
Ralf in Tharandt
Berlin by Train Sun 27/7/03   After some coordination problems we did in the end catch the 7:22 bus into the centre of Dresden from where we quickly to cycled to the Neustaedter Bahnhof. Constrained to slow trains by the very cheap "have a nice weekend ticket" (Schoenes Wochenende Ticket) we slowly made our way to the Berlin Ostbahnhof for an incredible 34 EUR including bikes. The initial lack of orientation quickly passed and off we went cycling towards the Prenzlauer Berg, where we would meet up with Bruni a friend of ours. I managed to have a quick look round her flat, which Ralf had already seen, before we set off to the "Freischwimmer" for brunch buffet and some relaxing "Radlers" in the sun next to some canal. In the evening Ralf and I had a look round the Helmholtz Platz and found a very good and cheap Thai restaurant just off the square. Our quest for trendy and cheap bars succeeded more on the latter than on the former count, as we ended up getting stuck outside the "Wohnzimmer", celebrating it's 5th year of existance with EUR 3.30 Caipirinhas. Around Berlin by Bike Mon 28/7/03   Saw Bruni off in the morning as she had to go back to work in Frankfurt that day and then proceeded to rewrite my application to Shell (which has since been rejected) whilst Ralf was touring around Chalottenburg and Mitte. Finally finished all the documents in the afternoon and sent them off before heading out to meet up with Ralf at the Hackesche Hoefe. I arrived there slightly early and had a quick look around some of the stores, which sported some rather trendy clothes, unfortunately with quite jazzy price-tags. The figures they were asking came as a rather shocking realisation to me after having bought an assortment of garments in Brazil at virtually 1/4 of the price. We decided (rather I convinced Ralf to join me) to go out to Steglitz and pay the Globetrotter outdoor store there a visit, to stock up on some of the equipment that had broken during the last year. Got some nice stuff there including a new self-inflating mat from Ortlieb, before heading back into town and to the UCF (Urban Comfort Food, Zionskirch Str. 5, Mitte) for their Monday special menu. The Moroccan dish cooked by an American guest chef wasn't really convincing, but the 2 EUR Caipirinhas next door in the "Hotelbar" did in part make up for the shortcomings. On the way back towards Prenzlauer Berg, we stopped off at another pub, the name of which eludes me, where the not-so-great-value-for-money was a bit of a let down.	No Map 0m ~30km / Avg: - km/h
Müritz & Co. Tue 29/07/03   A good sign seemed to be that I overslept on my new Ortlieb mat. However this late start did not help us with our day's cycling which would turn out to be the hardest and longest day for me during this trip so far. We finally managed to get out of Berlin just after lunchtime and headed up North, Northwest towards the largest lake in the "Mecklenburgische Seenplatte" about 130km from Berlin. For some unknown reason this lake is referred to "Die Mueritz", which in German does not make too much sense as the lake is masculin (Der). Well this should not trouble us and there were plenty of other rather strange things about this area, for instance normal people shouting at you for no apparent reason from their passing cars... We cycled quite fast for the first half of the trip which made the second half even harder, especially since the distance to our chosen destination just didn't seem to decrease. By the time we finally pulled into a Campsite on the border of the lake I was quite tired and we stopped for a snack. After our meal we set up the tent for the first time and I proceeded to fix myself my favorite spaghetti-pesto-cheese dinner, as I only had had a salad earlier. The meal would be accompanied with some barely drinkable French wine which was subsequently finished off on the "beach" whilst watching the last rays of the setting sun.	No Map 653m 132km / Avg: 22.2km/h
Reaching the Baltic Sea Wed 30/07/03   With a long way to go till Ruegen we set off quite early and made reasonable progress, which primarily was being hindered by the flat tires I was getting, a total of four throughout that day. We were unable to identify the cause for these frequent faults as the flats were caused on the inside of the tire and had nothing to do with "classic" punctures. Almost ran out of patches for my innertubes, before reaching a bicycle store where I replaced my "Felgenband" one of the suspects for causing the repeated faults. After a short stop for lunch and an adventurous ride through the forrest (followed by another flat tire) we finally reached Greifswald and some 45 minutes afterwards Stahlbrode where we had planned to camp and take the ferry to Ruegen the next morning. I should mention that people around here seem to resemble the folks a bit further South in that they enjoy shouting incomprehensible messages at cyclist whilst passing them. The campsite in the little fishing village was much quieter, smaller and a bit less organised with no stores or restaurants near by, leaving us with the "chipie" at the harbour as our only option for dinner. Lets put it this way: the food contained calories and did not upset the stomach. Headed back early for a quiet and good nights sleep.	No Map 986m 140km / Avg: 20.8km/h
Stork Couple
Wasted Day on Ruegen Thu 31/07/03   Despite another early start and ferry ride to Ruegen our "headstart" was again forfeited by several more flat tires, one right as I was coming off the ferry. Still lacking a good explanation, I started to tape Ducktape around the wheel to prevent it from putting more punctures into the tube. This strategy didn't help, as another puncture shortly after seemed to indicate. This lead to an even more exhaustive examination of the tire during which we discovered that the steel ring of the mantle was appearing at some parts of the mantle (a Schwalbe Marathon XR) which now seemed to be the prime suspect. After this discovery I practically raced to Putbus where our ADFC cycling map indicated a bicycle store where I hoped to replace my mantle. Sure enough the map was accurate and I bought a Vredestein Spider, a slick with profile only on the sides. By the time we left the bike store it was already coming up to 2 o'clock and we quickly cycled the 15km or so to Binz, a very nice yet completely overcrowded beach resort on the east coast of Ruegen. The overcrowding problem extended throughout the entire infrastructure with only two beds left at the youth hostel which was planning to charge a whopping 24 EUR for dorm beds. This pricing was not entirely catching our fancy so we decided to continue up the coast towards a campsite which was supposedly full - great. Stopped on the beach for 2 hours which in that area happened to be an extensive nude section. Since our swimming gear was buried somewhere in the panniers this suited both of us and resulted in Ralf and I lying naked on one blanket eating Pistacios and drinking red wine out of a Tetrapack - an undoubtedly interesting and unique sight... As the sun was nearing the horizon we continued along the coast past some KDF (Kraft durch Freude) buildings erected right on the beach in the years before the second world war, now carrying the nickname "the Monster from Ruegen". (To be honest the buildings are quite monstrous with some being used as artist studios and others fenced off due to risk of collapse) After a great evening meal and with dusk approaching we started our frantic search for a camping spot close to the ferry, from where we were planning to make an early start for 8am departure to Sweden. During this undertaking we met a couple from Hamburg who let us stay on their camping car spot where we got attacked almost instantly by small mosquito type flies who seemed to have mastered the art of flying (and biting) in high winds. This attack prompted us to spray any exposed parts with insect repellent. Shortly after we conceded defeat and retreated into our tent. Click here for the accounts from Sweden on our quest to reach Stockholm.	No Map 430m 58.1km / Avg: 16.6km/h