Forza Åsa

I woke up early and felt awake but utterly tired. I managed to go back to a slumber and was later heavily asleep when the alarm went off. I need to reflect on this when I have rested. Maybe I need to change my plans a bit for England since the riding days get so long and I never seem to recover my strength after each ride. For some reason, I seem more tired this year compared to last summer and I don’t know if it has something to do with my two weeks of illness making me lose strength or something else. But I find myself telling people that I want short enjoyable day rides but at the end of the day I’m so tired I want nothing else than to sleep. Nevertheless, I enjoy my riding, but, it would be nice to have energy for something else in the evening.

Today, I rode in a very green and grey Germany. Unfortunately, I had to ride half the day on the autobahn but the other bits were nice. I found the autobahn less stressful today compared with yesterday but nevertheless I was very happy when I saw the signs for Swedenkai.

Now I’m on the ferry, nicely showered and changed waiting for the restaurant to open so I can eat a baked potato with skagenröra. Unfortunately, the internet connection on the boat isn’t working so I can’t work on my plans for Gothenburg. I still have not been able to organise my visits and possible stays. I hope I get a connection later on when were out at sea.

The ferry is different from last year and I can’t find a relaxing bar or lounge to hang out in, but, my cabin is really nice so I can always head back there.  They also changed the system to tie the bikes which made me upset because I couldn’t figure out how to do it. The girl who directed me to my place just answered me with, “yes, they have changed it”, and stomped away. Fortunately, there was an older and wiser man working in the parking area who tied the bike for me and told me not to worry, it wouldn’t move.

 

My thanks today goes to:

The nice man who helped me tie my bike when I couldn’t figure out how to do it. Now I can sleep tonight.

Today, I had a lazy morning and hung around at the biker hotel until 12. I was tired and it was nice to sit back and have coffee while others were loading up their bikes to ride out.

I had planned to pass Bonn and head for some small nice roads up towards Osnabrück, which would be about halfway to Kiel. There was no accommodation booked but that was what I aimed for.

It seems like I learnt nothing getting lost in Luxembourg, because now I did it again in Bonn. When I finally found myself where I wanted to be, hours had passed. It’s tricky with the small villages and roads, my map hasn’t enough details to be useful sometimes so there was a lot of stopping, looking on the map, reading signs, turning back etc. All this took time and energy, not until I reached road 55 could I relax and just ride. The scenery was fantastic, so green, and all shades of green too.

The day passed quickly, as always, and I was cold and tired. I was annoyed with myself that I had lost so much time circulating in the beginning of the day because now I wasn’t sure how much further I could go on. At 7 o´clock I found a hotel in Beelen, a village shortly before Münster. I didn’t make it as far as I wanted but I felt too tired to continue.

The hotel is alright, I put the heating up in my room because it seemed freezing when I arrived. I was reluctant to go in to the bar to eat and drink since it was so smoky. It surprises me that the smoking ban is not implemented in Germany, maybe it’s not a EU law as I thought. Anyway, I went for a walk instead and found a grill where I had a burger and a beer.

Now it’s a bit after 9 and I’m ready for bed. Tomorrow I need to push on a bit and it stresses me. I’ll have to use the autobahn more and I’m not happy about that. Today, I used it for short bits and it felt intimidating. I’ve been on the autobahn plenty of times before, maybe the feeling is different now since the knowledge is greater. I have ordered breakfast at 8.30 tomorrow and I plan to be packed and ready by then (which is early for me). So now it’s time to get good use of the bed and snuggle up and hopefully soon fall a sleep to the music of Lars Winnerbäck.

Today was a crazy day. I set out early thinking that it would be a long ride. Afterwards, I’m happy I didn’t quite know how long it would be. While plotting the route and writing down the directions I concluded with some satisfaction that I would ride in three countries today. That is always special, even though Luxembourg is such a tiny country.

I started off taking the wrong turn compared with what I had planned. I thought it would be alright to re-calculate and continued. Unfortunately, there was a road construction later on and I was re-directed and ended up almost where I had started, a 100 km detour on the straightest roads in France.

While leaving France after Longwy I followed the road signs for Luxembourg and was taken by surprise by the border to Belgium. Not knowing it, another detour was made and while finding Luxembourg later on I hardly found my way out of it. How can a petite country possibly last that long?! Making sacred promises never to go back to Luxembourg without a GPS or a map reader I at last found a way out and could continue into Germany. I had now been on the bike for 6 hours and it wasn’t over yet.

Now remained the twisty roads of the Eiffel mountains and they lasted all the way to the Biker hotel, Gasthaus am Tunnel, which is my stay for tonight. I arrived after 9 hours riding and was so tired that I almost fell off the stool having my long awaited German beer. That beer was followed by a few more and in good company on the terrace.

My thanks today goes to:

The nice Dutch guys who invited me to their table when I was sitting alone with my computer. Enjoy your days of riding and take care!!