Beautiful, beautiful, Lüneburg Heath... yes, very beautiful and that will also be remembered. Luckily, my camera gave up here and I didn't feel like digging out new batteries or constantly unwinding the mobile phone with the navigation system. That's why only this picture ... and because it's beautiful and should be remembered that way! Not photographed: the magical place Undeloh, which is more of a kind of Scharbeutz in the forest with a camper place. Also not photographed: the wildlife guard, who asked me to put my bike down properly and certainly not photographed: the sudden soft sand spots that end uphill every ride and downhill, at 30 km/h suddenly push the rear wheel away... rarely been so close to a triple Rittberger ... but yes, it's nice.

Lower Saxony is not just the land of traditional farms and horses...

... but also the land of kites, hawks and falcons (that's a kite). Oh, the sky over the fields... Oops.. wait a minute...

For a moment I had the idea of photographing funny signs. The problem: then I never get there, because it doesn't matter whether it's "behind the hell" or "Feuerwerderhausener Damm" the nonsense is so varied that every documentation has to fail. With a sign I couldn't help it. This is not a place, this is a political statement"

Finally arrived. was a bit sporty today. The hotel is friendly, clean and incredibly 80s, every picture, every decoration, everything breathes the spirit of Starsky and Hutch, VHS cassettes, coke rum, party cellar and Phil Collins... almost beautiful again! :-)

Everyone who knows me knows that nothing else can come now:

Nothing but flat meadows and a dense hedge as a windbreak... But now! Get on the pedals hmm ... what's that bubbling in the bushes?

Peeped through botany:

Two things will accompany me to my current destination HILDESHEIM. The Hildesheim branch canal, which is still in use, and the railway tracks that are no longer used

Old railway bridge over the branch canal

More forgotten tracks

Official swimming spot in the branch canal

Responsible DLRG employee on an important training trip.

Partyzone Industriekanal ...

But in the end it got romantic again.

Arriving at Hildesheim Hafen... uh, they don't really want me to drive up the coal mountain, do they?

My God Hildesheim, you are ugly even as an industrial area. A kind of 70s redevelopment area with residents...

This impression did not change until the end. There was also a 1970s concrete city with the Rossmanns of this world. I just thought "close your eyes and through" and turned into the street of the hotel... Oops!

On the right is the hotel and in front of it the breakfast place. cool right? In addition, there was an absolute luxury hotel for €79 and the tip was the announcement "Feel free to bring your bike in, we'll lock it away... Have any of you ever hit a reception desk with your bike? I had to take a picture!

In the end I reach the Weender Hof in the north of Göttingen around 9:30 p.m. I counted the last 2 km by 50 meters on the delineators. Luckily the host is a sweetheart, still makes food and takes care of everything. Phew...

After yesterday I felt like Fitzcarraldo (you know, the movie in which Klaus Kinski pulls a ship over a mountain) and afterwards enjoyed the trip on the Werra, I decide to stay true to my new love and continue on the to drive Werra. That's a 50km detour, but on the other hand I pushed my bike again yesterday and on the Werra I was mostly on the go. Of course, there are also places here, such as the entrance to Bad Sooden, where the cycle path is so steep that even pedestrians have difficulty climbing it???

The most important things first. Today was the first time I aborted a stage, or shall we say... shortened it. After the stopover in Eschwege, Google Bike told me it was 60km to Bad Salzungen. Since I knew the Werra by my side, it looked pretty good and I booked a room there. at the second stopover 30 km later, was it still 50 km??? After another 20 km it was still 40... But my otherwise wonderful new companion Werra didn't let any cyclists get close to her in the afternoon (did I do something wrong?) and her environment was unwelcoming and hilly. My actual favorite weather - cumulus clouds and wind - also had something against me (all funny, fast turning wind turbines pointed in my direction of travel) and since I'm still very difficult on the road, I gave up around 8 p.m. after 90 km and now I'm sitting in a pretty dark one Accommodation in the hero city "Gerstung" and ponder over algorithms and GPS. But one after anonther...

... to say it surprisingly new and without pathos. :-)

Waiting position in the hotel courtyard.

So the first destination is Euronics Eschwege. On the way there another thunderstorm came up and because almost everything actually works when angels travel, I just made it under a bridge. Since then I have known that the rainwater shower was actually invented by a Hessian road builder. :-)

Haaaaalooo Eschwege! Awaken! It's the year 2020 and when I call one of the most wonderful market ensembles in this country my own, then I don't turn the market square into a parking lot, that's something from the 80s, if anything. A good sign, however, that as a former PS freak (yes OK, there is always a relapse) it now immediately and intuitively gets under my skin. So there is hope.

So no one can get lost: H for Hesse T (with a lot of imagination) for Thuringia. From where I know this? Dieter has been mowing the lawn here for three hundred years, at least.

Since there are more castles here than abandoned railroad tracks, I adjust my photographic subject a bit. :-)

16% gradient on the way to the castle is everything, but not barrier-free, so at least not for me and my bike

From km 40 there is posing. (how do you spell that?) Washed-out limestone along the lines of: "Who is the Elbe anyway..."

well? what's that going through the trees?

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to capture the feeling that creeps up on you under such a construction.

A family could live comfortably in such a bridge pillar...

17:00 very late lunch at the bridge chapel Creuzburg.

Today I switched from Hesse to Thuringia and back a dozen times. Mostly without knowing where I am now. But sometimes you knew it... :-)

Still momentum after 1.5 km...

I had to put the "finally" in bold. 9 km before Hünfeld the railway line becomes a cycle path. and what a guy: 200m down to 9 km, sheltered from the wind, smooth.

OK, I admit that the things I would least have expected on the edge of a Hessian cycle path would be, besides aliens, the Dalai Lama or a Hamburg fish stall, a full-blown NAZGUL. This proves once again that art is allowed to do everything, above all to surprise.

Hünfeld Km 475 about 16 km before Fulda. Headwind, mountains and the happy sprint at the end make themselves felt. The first thing I see here is a fancy train station. Hourly for 5 € in 11 minutes in Fulda....

It's 18:30 I haven't eaten anything after breakfast so I decide to make the local Italian happy. My app tells me that after the Fürsteneck, the second highest elevation is yet to come. This means that if you rest properly and make slow progress up the mountain, I'll be at the hotel in Fulda by about 9:30 p.m. Despite loving pedagogical encouragement from Nicole (thank you) and Regina (really thank you), I decide to leave the hero in the cloakroom and make myself comfortable in the evening. at the same time I'll book a fat accommodation for two nights from here with a laundry service and stuff... 475 km I think I've earned it.

Arrived - 2 days break are waiting for me! yes

Yesterday I spoke to Bine on the phone and she's a bit unwell and can't do that much with Kolja. The two of them wished that I would not add more to the three planned tour days in Bavaria and that we and we would definitely meet on Sunday. I found the thought of slowly enjoying the days here when the two wait and think about driving the remaining 140 km in two days. The last 40Km. very hilly, so I want to get as close as possible to the spot so that I can take care of the hills freshly and with a few kilometers on the second day. But don't tell anything, it's supposed to be a surprise. :-)

Actually a good idea with the early breakfast if I want to make a lot of meters today! Well-fortified, it starts at the Zedlmair

The vegetation is oriented towards the beer.

OK, I'm really scared of the beavers if they eat holes in the path, because it's asphalt after all...

quite a lot. He's frugal, forward-thinking, an esthete, and he doesn't ride a bike.

What a tour, Bavaria shows from the tourist brochure page. In the east, a black thundercloud accompanies me all the time, meanwhile I get another sunburn. (Don't keep scrolling, this is an animated sequence of images) :-)

What a beauty, she reminds me of... (attention slaps) my ex, Werra. But she didn't want to say her name.

All the rivers are filled to the brim with the rains of the past few days. Particularly impressive: the Isar.

The whole tour is coming to an end. The deer tallow will soon be gone, as will the horse ointment. I'm starting to summarize. Of course, while driving, I also think about texts that I am going to write. Who of my companions I still have to thank, where I would like to make a clear announcement and which tips and small anecdotes I have not yet written. A text that I prepare internally is a thank you to my bike. I had it serviced and it got a new chain and sprocket. The rest, said the bike dealer, was ready for a long tour. A little thing that I couldn't get rid of was a small imbalance in the front coat. Pulled off, talc, put on again, air in, out again, bent around... in the end I decided it was a tolerable little thing. Although the imbalance has increased over the days, when I observed the tire, there was no change to be seen. Well, just as the kilometers went by while I was contemplating a hymn of praise for the bike, the imbalance became more and more severe. Watched the tire again. Nothing. rear wheel observed. Nothing. In the meantime, the whole wheel was wriggling. OK dismounted, looked at the front wheel, looked at the rear wheel... and then the last test: the rear wheel was pushed sideways. yep I can easily push the rear rim away 5 cm without the hub coming along. The spokes have loosened and how. I'm not even allowed to think about all the shot drives from any mountains. Luckily, I was able to resist the temptation to send the special tool to Fulda in high spirits. This will be a meditative hour, because anyone who knows about wheels knows that you can't just tighten the loose ones. As with tuning a drum, you always have to pull in opposite directions, i.e. 12 o'clock, 6 o'clock, 1 o'clock, 7 o'clock etc. and turn again and again to make sure that you don't pull an 8 into the wheel... Ommmmmmmm. I'm using my special touring kit for the first time, now I also know that the special spoke wrenches are 1/10mm too small and you can only apply them from above, where the spoke screws taper, which easily doubles the working time Ommmmmmmmmmmm

Ommmmmm

The result leaves me in an emotional quandary. Not only is the fidgeting gone, the imbalance that has been noticeable since Hamburg has also disappeared, the bike runs like it's on rails - despite a slight dent on the casing at the front. But that means that the spokes must have been loose in Hamburg. Great! So I wrestle with myself whether I should curse the dealer for the next few kilometers or savor the triumph of a successful campaign with a proud grin. After a few minutes I swing to the latter with a whispered "everything you have to do yourself". The thought of how much energy the fidgeting, which also hit the brakes, has cost the last few days is forbidden, otherwise I'll end up back at 1. :-)

The first sighting that unsettled me a bit was the following vehicle in a front yard.

When the following street sign appeared a few moments later, I wasn't sure anymore whether I might have got off at platform 8 3/4 in Ingolstadt...

But then the certainty after a crest after about 600 kilometers by bike and 200 kilometers by train, the first view of the real mountains. Of course there are also traces of potash, but so is everything else. :-) Hohenlinden is the perfect destination. Just before the hill stage. 83 km ridden despite repairs and despite a Germany-wide storm week dry with the bike through the whole country... Come on, tomorrow is another day.

Just like a wheel repair, a hotel-like "dip in the toilet" is part of every decent tour - anything else would be somehow unrealistic. The Hotel zur Linde is well rated, cute from the outside and has a good breakfast.... but... it's empty, dark, somehow dead. OK Corona - that's not their fault. But when I unlocked the room, such a moth cloud hit me that it took my breath away and I'm quite robust. Worse still: the bed is used and only roughly straightened. In the meantime there was no one left who I could have asked for another room. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

The weather is great, the prospect of having a coffee in Prien too! I manage the first and largest hill quite easily, on the subsequent descent I decide not to brake in view of the highly personally tightened spokes, a good road and my basic trust in my bike and roll with my personal best value of 54.5 to date Km/h down the mountain, but I clearly feel that the brave bike is simply not designed for such a combination of weight and speed. After a very nice but unspectacular up and down, my now trained eyes see the following picture (see below) Well? Does it click? A raised dam, on it a biking family. A railway embankment! maybe a temporary release?

Yes and no. Yes, a very short relief and no, it's not a railway embankment but the protective embankment of the Inn, which doesn't need to hide behind the Isar here, wide, majestic and above all without hills. :-)

Why the completely unscrewed screw didn't just fall off will remain a mystery, but the signals are clear. I decide to check everything again despite the few remaining kilometers and go through all the spokes again...

You can't make up names like that, and when you do, everyone thinks, "What nonsense"

The first sign with Prien! That gives new impetus! (for a full 5 minutes)

You don't deceive me! You are a horse.

10 km before Prien the first greeting. I would not have expected this....

... I was probably not meant at all. :-)

After I learned from the Whats App entry how interested and knowledgeable Stefan is when it comes to old agricultural machinery, a small Bavarian selection follows. I can provide the address of the owner of the combine if you are interested. :-)

International traffic junction Rimsting 4 km before Prien. Everything comes together here: air, rail, road and bicycle traffic. It is also a picture of peace, because I did NOT take photos on the next 3 km, which are really annoying with constant ups and downs just before the end.

The Lake Chiemsee! Schee... right? Just unroll one more time...

Still 710m - I'll call and let you know.

reception committee

Thats how it is suppost to be! A coffee on the balcony in front of the Kampenwand.

Finished. :-)

Or less stilted: a few scraps of thought swept together.

Of course there are also tough moments on a longer tour. in which the question of additional motivation arises. Two things helped me:

Anyone who has accidentally touched a power line knows how much energy flows there. This enormous energy has to be put into a battery for many hours just for it to provide some assistance on an e-bike. And the human? Throw in a deer goulash with a beer and it carries the whole construction, bike, driver and luggage 80km away. I can't help but wonder every day.

Another mystery I will probably never unravel. The behavior of the birds of prey I love and admire so much. What makes these animals of all species perform the craziest flights directly over my head or in spectacular locations just to get my attention? Why do they stop or slide slowly when I look after them? How do you recognize a Sony alpha 6300 camera? And why do they swoop away as soon as I pull out that very camera? It will probably always remain a secret.

Of course, as a biker I have cool tools, such as drinking bottles with "dummy". Super practical, you can drink with one hand while driving. Simply take the bottle, put your lips around the teat and pull it out with your teeth, and off you go. If apple spritzer was filled with carbonic acid 20 km ago, there is a strong pressure surge as an additional refreshment, which also flushes the nose. Great class.

As a biker in the Corona period, you have a lot on your mind. First the helmet clings to the lobes, then glasses come over it, now the whole thing is wrapped with the corona mask tape and on the car-free bike path the middle gets a pair of headphones. Go shopping now and first remove the helmet... or the mask strap first? Note: Observe the order, otherwise the glasses will always end up on the floor.

For a while I try to take notes via SIRI when I think of something while driving. Since Siri is known to have a sense of humor and the headset makes noises when the wind blows, the best quote comes from her.

I can hardly say it, but it's my favorite app Komoot. The wheel navigation. Heaven knows who programmed this thing with so much malice to always show the nastiest gradients as the best way to bring you back to the old route after a few kilometers sweaty, which in the meantime ran perfectly straight. Also, the app crashes 4-5 times a day and takes forever to recover. The app for 29.90 is a time-unlimited license. Recently there is a new version for 5.49 MONTHLY. A rogue who thinks evil...

Thanks to my dear bike, but above all thanks to you for the support and cheering. I wrote some of the texts very quickly and very tiredly, please excuse the many typos and some shrill sentences.