Hello again world: recollections of repeated epic fails

Today I will be broadcasting from the tempestuous city of Prague in the Czech Republic, and it has been a crazy last few days. I almost don’t know where to begin so I’ll jump back to the start and work my way forward.

The craziness all started on our ride into Zahna which is just east of Wittenberg in Germany. There seemed to be some sort of force out to get as that day as we had several flat tires, a broken back rack, a broken front rack, a totaled biked, and a slightly concussed rider. I wasn’t riding with the group that had the accident, but from what I was told there was an ill-placed pole right in the middle of a bike path that was struck at 25km/hr by David. He promptly flew over his handlebars and Sabrina who was following behind him then crashed into his trailer and got a bit of a knock to the head as she fell.

David’s bike was totaled and had to be carried out of forest, and Sabrina received a minor concussion. Luckily they flagged down some passing Germans and got a hold of the documentary crew to come pick them up. It was a pretty hectic day for most of the group (especially for Miriam and Riel who had to drive for 5 hours to rescue everyone) but our hosts managed to lift our sprits right back up with the wonderful dinner that they had prepared for us. Zahna hadn’t originally been a town we were planning to visit, but they were the closet accommodation we could find to Wittenberg. I am so pleased we did stay there though because everyone there was incredibly nice to us. They had prepared a wonderful food spread for dinner, bought us wine especially from Istanbul, and gave as a wonderful tour of their local church which was over 1000 years old. Upon hearing about our event filled day the mayor even insisted a bike shop open up on the weekend and give us a special discount on repairs. Unfortunately David couldn’t find a bike that suited him there so he had to head off to Berlin to purchase one, but I don’t think he was overly heartbroken as it was covered by insurance.

I should also say that both Sabrina and David are doing fine now.

The next few days went much more smoothly although we still had a bunch of flat tires, broken spokes and racks. We also accidentally wound up sleeping next to a Rave in Riesa. Dresden was also a great city with another amazing host who gave an excellent tour of the city. Dresden has the distinction of having every last stone bombed by the Allies in the Second World War in retaliation for the

German’s bombing London. It was a strange walking around the downtown core and seeing all of these restored old buildings that were actually quite new. Their fronts had been rebuilt but behind a foot or two of stone was concrete. In many ways it felt a bit like a theme park but I think most people really enjoyed the city.

Looking back on Germany I was surprised by how much I loved it. I’m not sure what I was expecting but it was a wonderful country with great people. I enjoyed it far more than the Netherlands which I though I would love.

Sadly however we had to leave Germany and head into the Czech Republic and Uste nad Labem. We did have a lovely parting gift though as the bike trail wrapped along the river and I think for most people it was one of their most scenic days on the tour so far. I had a slightly different day from most of the group however, as myself and 3 others decided to go over the mountains instead of around them as it was 30km shorter. Up until this point on the trip I feel like I hadn’t really worked my body all that hard but the mountains leaving

Germany were a solid climb. I’m guessing we did at least an hour and a half of climbing. The views from the top were spectacular as were the downhill stretches so I think it was worth it. It also got us into the town by 11am and we didn’t have any accommodation prearranged so that certainly helped. It actually wasn’t that hard to find a place to stay though, in fact we found two. One was a farm just outside of the city and another was at a pool that was a little closer to Prague. Shawn and Charles found it by heading into town hall and speaking with the mayor. He then got on the phone and found us a place in no time.

Then there was Prague. Today is a day of rest (thankfully) but yesterday was probably the toughest yet on the trip for me. It didn’t help that I was still sore from climbing mountains from the day before but the trip to Prague was slated to be our biggest mileage total yet, 130km, and we didn’t have accommodation for either of the two days we were going to stay. What made the day so difficult was the bike trails. We crossed rivers, had sand, mud, cobble stone and pretty much anything else that you wouldn’t ever want to ride a fully loaded touring bike through. I actually enjoyed a good deal of it as it reminded me of being on my mountain bike but doing it all day was exhausting. There was also one stretch of path that was about 6 inches wide (our panniers make our bikes much larger than that) and on the right side was a 3m-drop right into the river. Some people walked their bikes through it but my pod managed to ride it out. We were then greeted with another 5km of cobblestone and pretty worn out by the time we hit the city at 4pm. In many ways we were the lucky ones though. We happened to run into the car on our way which told us we had a place to sleep so we just had to chill out at the meeting point until the next pod showed up.

Unfortunately it was another 3 hours before a group came in and the last group didn’t make it to where we were staying until around midnight. Still, we had a place to stay and a day off to sleep in so things seemed to be looking up. That was until a 3-hour thunderstorm rolled through at 8am and drenched absolutely everything. Most people have pretty good tents, but 3 hours of heavy downpour was just too much to handle and most started to leak. At least it is sunny now though so things are starting to dry out again.

So that’s everything that has been going on for the last few days. We have another big ride day tomorrow (125km) and then a couple short ones so that should help rest some weary bodies. Overall though spirits are still very high and most people have been able to laugh at our various mishaps.

The Reality Check

I am currently sitting in my tent in Staßfurt, Germany, after riding another 100km day and I have to say this last day was my favorite day of the tour. I had fun start to finish riding today and my body felt great despite putting it through all the the rigors of the ‘pod rocketship’ yesterday.

An interesting thing occurred today, we crossed into Eastern Germany. Now to me this means very little, as I was very little when the Berlin wall came down so I didn’t even think there would be a difference, we are after all in the country. The difference however very much exists. The buildings are different, more humble, and most have had some renovations done to them in the last 20 years. The age demographic is different as well, apparently a lot of the youth have left for the west and it has left a strange void in the population.

Today when we arrived in the town we were asked to speak at a town meeting of sorts on our cause and the organization. About 12 of us and 12 Germans attempted to communicate through broken English and German as we both tried to teach each other about our world views. Once again I was struck by just how kind and caring everyone was and how they too were very concerned about the state of the world. Continually running into motivated people really does keep us going through some of the tough stretches.

I was also struck by the fact that the unemployment rate here is about 20% and that many don’t have enough money for electricity or extra water. It makes me appreciate our hosts and their generosity even more and I feel like that feeling will only continue to grow throughout the trip. This experience really has left me a bit shocked though because there is a very real possibility that some of the money we have raised for microcredit could be used by people right here. I understand that there are poor people back home that could use it as well but for some reason because it is Germany in my mind I just wasn’t expecting it. I never expected to be experiencing the anthropological ‘other’ syndrome here. It makes me feel very spoiled getting to ride through their country on a new bike with 20 other new friends for two months.

In many ways this experience makes me think that the honeymoon period of our trip is over. Our bodies finally seem to be getting used to the grind we are putting them through and now it is time to start getting around to some of our lofty goals that we started this trip with. We needed time to goof around and learn about each other as a team but now it is time to get back down to the task at had. I am certainly not saying we aren’t still going to have fun, but I feel like our fun will have greater social implications now. Luckily I feel like others are picking up on the same vibe as well as we had a vibrant 4 hour discussion on the death of protests and green-washing. Many of us were so absorbed in the conversation that we actually had to be told twice that dinner was ready!

So our first 8 days were fun, but now it’s time for some serious fun.