Tagesarchiv: 26. Dezember 2013

Day 3 of the Festive 500, this time as trio infernale.

Today, as usual, unfriendly skies but at least the weather forecast promised that it will stay try until lunch at least.

Well, at least finally, I was able to find the place in Bremen where all the clouds come from. There seems to be a very big „cloud making factory“ located next to the river Weser operated by SWB. It was fenced off heavily from its surroundings and guarded by grim looking security men. I guess that inside the factory many workers are toiling day and night to produce these fine looking, grey clouds, soaked with condensed water that the inhabitants of Bremen have becoming so fond of. Good works guys, please keep it up.

I was off to a comparable early start to meet Olli and Jörg and the famous Weserbank. The Weserband is one of the few banks in Germany that came through unharned by the world financial crisis of 2008/09. It is a very old bank and during this time of the year also very cold. I refrained from entering the bank and aimlessly rode around until the others arrived as I was afraid that I will freeze into a solid statue of ice and will then not be recognized by the others. Temperatures were hovering between 2 and 4 degrees. But here they were and we proceeded South towards Bruchhausen-Vilsen. It was nice not to be alone on the road for a change and we shared many stories about family adventures with the family. If I remember correctly the main tone of the conversation was, that all of them are an unthankful bunch that does not appreciate our beautiful presents. I mean, it is not that we presented them with wrenches, screwdrivers or Campagnolo cassette removal tools; although Olli came closest with a bike lock. Generally I had the feeling that all of us were happy to be united on the road again, chatting with people who really understand each others topics of conversation. I confessed that due to the clever marketing of Strava I am inclined to buy a GPS device and was told that my best choices would be some rubbish device from Conrad electronic store for 30€ or a Garmin 800 for about 10 times the amount. I am still considering. And while we were talking we didn’t realized how time flew by and in no time we were in Paris as evidenced by this photo.

 and then, as we were in good mood we continued, just like Tom Hanks continued to run in „Forrest Gump“ and in no time we were in Berlin, as we can see in the next photo.

In the forefront we can see some remains of the Berlin Wall that haven’t been removed yet. So now it was time to say goodbye and we continued on different ways home to our loved ones. I felt good on the bike for the first time during the Festive500, my legs were a little bit more lowerful than the first two days. And so I thought that I can do some extra miles. So when I reached my home I just continued to the HaW and then to the Blockland in direction Dammsiel. Yes, this road is very boring but at least I know where it takes me and what do expect. There were quite some cyclist making out there and I saw at least three guys on racing bikes with huge beards that would qualify them handily for a place in the Fixed Beards Bremen team. Then I rode back on the other side of the river to Lilienthal and there, much to my surprise I met Philipp. He was just on the way back from a party close to Lueneburg on his Fixie: 48/12 gearing, skyhigh carbon rims, quite impressive I must say. We continued for about 3 km and then we agreed that we will meet again tomorrow to put in some additional kms. Philipp is also attending Festive500 and, much to my delight, told me that he is not interested in the T-shirt, so I might have find a way to get around all the fuss and lay me hands on this thing.

Today I rode about 105 km, bring the total to 266, so only 234 more to go at least. But I must say, I quite got used to that rhythm of riding by now, so I might continue also for the next days with shorter stretches, weather permitting. And apart from the agreed ride tomorrow, we will have a pub meeting on Saturday and perhaps an new year inaugural ride on January 1st. So there are really some things looking forward to.

My bike, dirty as usual.

More clouds in the making.