Germany – No Lonely Guinea Pigs

June 26, 2018June 28, 2018

Mini Tour with Thomas and Oli – Day 2

Our second day was fairly straightforward, beautiful forest paths, vineyards, cycling paths between small villages, a couple wrong turns.

Thomas descending with Oli in background

Oli on the descent from the tower

Best part of sleeping up by a tower is the descent first thing. Thomas and Oli seem to be enjoying it.

A fine example of some of the lovely forest paths we rode out.

We stopped in the small town Bühl for lunch. We had only wanted a bakery and coffee but for several small towns in a row everything was closed so Chinese food it was.

Sadly, Oli had to depart us after lunch to get back to Karlsruhe early but Thomas and I rode on with some detours here and there. Including to Schloss Favorite.

But who’s Favorite?

So… I’m a pretty big fan of rodents. I’ve kept pet rats most of my life, I’ve had hamsters and (while not rodents) rabbits and guinea pigs*. So when Thomas asked if I knew what Nutria were my whiskers started to twitch.

(* The title of this BLARG predates my guinea pigs by 8 years)

I MADE FRIENDS WITH THE NUTRIA!

It didn’t take long for my little rodent friends to find me. And oh boy these two weren’t shy at all. They were happily munching on grass as I approached but then decided I looked far more interesting. This was my first time seeing a Nutria up close. With the exception of the round, rat-like tail they appear to be very similar to beaver, including GIANT incisors. Bye my big ol’ water rat friends!

Most of the route from here was increasingly in dense forest with mixed single track. Thomas pointed out one of the local plants (Kleines Springkraut) and told me to squeeze the stamen and…. POP! It’s amazing to witness how some plants have adapted to travel. If my fingers had a nice fur coat (gross) this part of the plant would have happily hitched a ride.

popping stamen of Kleines Springkraut — POP!

With this we were back on the path to Karlsruhe. We passed a nice looking CX/DH-ish mountain bike trail that really had me wanting to make a future trip with my cross country (or future trail) bike.

Aaaand that’s it. Next planned is a solo overnight to a favorite local spot.

'FUCK COPS' on back of road sign. I agree with this message. — I agree with this message.

June 25, 2018June 25, 2018

Mini Tour with Thomas and Oli – Day 1

After a night of anxiety driven shit-show-y-ness I managed to meet up with Thomas, Oli and some other friends outside the small town Irhingen. Not only did I get to catch up with some old friend this vantage point offered my first glimpse of the Backpacking Trans Germany course. These profiles cover about the first 130km.

On the right, 73.6 km 4.76% elevation gain vs. distance. Nice!
And on the left, 53.0 km with 22.47% elevation gain vs. distance. Oof. 3rd steepest segment… on day one. I couldn’t bring myself to taking anymore pictures as my head turned left. Just more mountains.

After some chit-chat, snacks and brekky beers we departed at the crack of noon. The cycling infrastructure in this area is impressive. Even the smallest of towns seemed to be marked with on path signage, making it really easy to keep rolling along without paying so much attention to the route.

Thomas and Oli!

A lot of the days riding looked fairly similar to this with nice forest paths dotted through out as we headed towards Offenburg. We had some elevation gains through the day but nothing major until headed east after getting supplies in Offenburg. Right away we found ourself in vineyard country again but this time heading up some fairly steep climbs. Our destination was one of several lookout towers in the mountains east of Offenburg. Originally we’d planned to stay near an old brick tower but a mistake in the route planning led us to a more modern steel structure. While less visually appealing this did mean we could climb it for sure, offering some spectacular views.

The old brick tower can barely be made out to the south.

And being that it’s World Cup season, we happily cracked some German themed cans as we watched the match. There was a MASSIVE party down the hill who’s cheering prompted us to pay attention to the match and thanks the substantial delay on the phone we didn’t miss any excitement.

Oli admiring his handy work. (see the signs?!)

And that pretty much wraps up day one. We hung out around the fire until late drinking wine, eating bread and cheese and telling tales of our recent adventures. Really good catching up with old friends.

June 22, 2018June 25, 2018

A quick visit in Frankfurt

I’d somehow got it in my head I that my flight landed on Friday and I had to jump on the train straight away. Thankfully I was wrong and I could visit with some friends. That also meant I had to get in touch, which is increasing more difficult and I move away from centralized “social media”. But things worked out, I got a place to stay Thursday night and had plenty of time to visit folks on Friday before my bus.

One of my favorite parts of coming to Germany is that you cannot drink too much coffee. So I, as usual, celebrated this fact. This time with a very beautiful espresso machine made by my friend David with help from the house-mates. They’d cobbled together parts from various machine into this stunning brass enclosure. Has all the features of a fancy machine like auto water filling and a nice powerful pump.

I’d forgotten a couple small parts so Fridays top agenda item was finding, most importantly the proper bolts and plates for my cleats. We visited Parrots and Crows a new shop since the last time I visited. I cannot thank them enough for helping me out.

The shop splits a space with a nice cafe. We’d rolled in just in time for lunch. If I got it right, normally it’s just veggie (yay!). We had a kind of pasta salad lasagna that was very nice.

That afternoon Mo and I rode out to his new place outside Frankfurt. On the way we stopped for a nice view and the obligitory apfelwein.

The apartments I visited are an interesting communal hosting project called Edwards-Kaserne. Old American GI barracks where converted into various sized apartments with several large communal gardens, work spaces, play areas and social spaces.

After this I headed back to the main station to catch my bus. I was left with a timley message on a poster in the basement. Next up, Freiburg to…. I have no clue where I’m going.

Another WORLD is POSSiBLE `NECCESSARY! — Another WORLD is POSSiBLE + NECCESSARY!