April 30, 2022
Day 18: Buecken to Hopfenberg
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We are now noticing that thatched roofs are no longer in evidence, at all. Also, most houses are made from red brick, and the same brick is used for the barns. As usual, the individual houses and the towns overall are totally neat. Not only is there no debris around, no stuff that is planned to be used sometime later, but even legitimate outdoor storage - like of garden hoses- is not on. Late in the day I was scandalised to find a neatly coiled garden hose hanging from a wall rack outside. Dodie said get a grip, there is nothing wrong with that. But my standards have been raised, and I think that hose should be in the garage. Of course at home we have at least ten hoses and they will be lying about willy nilly!
It's not just the houses and villages that are neat and tidy, but the fields also. Weeds of any kind certainly are not allowed, and the plowing or tilling patterns are precise. Most impressive of these is one intended, we guess for potatoes.
A couple of times today, and yesterday, I got a brief "clunk" from my chain. When it first happened, out on the dike, I started to think if that thing breaks it will be a difficult repair, or a long walk. We had checked our chains for wear, and they were more than .5 percent worn but less than .75 percent. So, time to change but not quite an emergency. We began to think about when and where we could get the job done.
We generally expect bike shops to say "Sure, but can you come back in two days". We did know that there was an interesting altstadt in Nienburg, and decided to look for a shop there. In fact a signboard somewhere out of town listed the "Radhaus am Rathaus" and that felt like something we could find.
Nienburg was really our favourite kind of thing for its walking street and Saturday (today!) market. (Did I say "favourite thing"? - yes, let's put that down for today.)
At the end of the street was the Radhaus, which turned out to also be a dealer for Victoria, which is our bike brand. But the best were the mechanics. They may have been busy, but they did not give the impression of being rushed. And they did not make their work pressures our problem. Rather our issues were listened to, and our mechanic said it would take one hour. That included not only the chains and also changing the rear sprockets on both bikes, but also the little extras I threw in, like adjusting the handlebar bag height and changing the rear brake pads. One hour - really?
This freed us to walk the walking street. First up was a cheese truck. The owner was actually from Netherlands, and we had a nice discussion of different cheeses. He sold us a small wedge of a pepper cheese. We really did not need cheese, but it was worth it for the fun of talking to the man.
Of course the market was filled with all sorts of other stuff. Spargel is naturally big this time of year, and it was moving in large quantities.
We could not get into the main pastry shop (konditerei) because there was a continual lineup out the door. One stall had a bit of stuff, like this Black Forest torte, but we ended up with a really yummy rhubarb cake.
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The church at the end of the street had two things of interest - unusual in a Lutheran area. The first was a small bit of coloured stained glass:
The second point of interest was a wall with a selection of Hubble Telescope type pictures. This is unique because although the business of churches is after all cosmology, they very seldom get into actual Cosmology or Astronomy.
Outside the church we found some very nice buildings, making for a very pleasant walk:
In under an hour we were back at the bike shop, and there were our bikes all done and standing to one side. Our mechanic had not even had to remove the panniers, had changed the chains and sprockets, repositoned the handlebar mount cable and raised the mount, added fluid to one brake, changed pads, and adjusted the gears. And there he stood, cool and friendly as can be:
A quick look around the shop, and we were on our way. What a great shop and what great service! This could be added to what gives our lives meaning-great bike shops with great service.
At the very end of town was quite fittingly a statue depicting spargel sales. Thanks Nienburg!
SPECIAL ADDITION, THE WOLVES??
Starting somewhere on the Elbe we began to see posters denouncing wolves, and pointing out that sheep and cattle were much more valuable to everyone than a bunch of vicious canines. Wolves vs. Elbe sheep? Was this some feverish conspiracy theory of a group of poster buying cuckoos? It turns out that this is a real thing. While wolves had been extinct in Germany for 100 years, they have now migrated back, from Poland. Here is sn article about it, in Deutsche Welle.
We still tend to think that this is a artificial panic. It reminds us of simialr stuff out of Yellowstone Park, when Canadian wolves were reintroduced. Anyway, it makes for interesting poster reading out on the dike.
Today's ride: 69 km (43 miles)
Total: 1,002 km (622 miles)
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