August 26, 2017
German Beer is Chemical Free, Germany's Alright By Me: Day 19 - Colmar to Freiburg
The pedal hunt continued this morning ... and it was a pretty similar to the Berenstains Bear's The Big Honey Hunt.
The intermittent but very annoying knocking is driving me nuts. It may not be the pedals, but there is some play in them, and they don't work as flats anyway (too slippery) so I want to get new ones anyway, and I know exactly the ones I want.
If I were at home, I'd go to one of several shops, pick them off the shelf (or order off Chain reaction and wait a few days) and be done with it. But I'm not at home, I'm in France and although there are a lot of people touring here, almost none of them use SPD clipless pedals. I thought I'd look at Rohloff authorized bike shops, as they tend to be touring oriented, and there was one on the outskirts of Colmar, along the way to Hunawhir, one of the towns we wanted to tour through. At the very least, Frieburg has a bike shop called die Radgeber that is a great high end touring bike retailer (we were at the one in Mainz back in 2013 on our Rhine trip). They would have what I was looking for certain.
We got off to a decent start and once again it was a lovely morning. We had it timed that we would arrive at the Colmar shop at 10 am, just when it was opening. We got there at 10 as planned, but this bike shop wasn't going to be opening today. Or tomorrow. It was out of business. I was out of patience.
Another executive decision, we make a dash for Freiburg and die Radgreber, their website said they would be open until 4 pm. Plenty of time. We decided to take a proper rest day on Sunday as well, so booked a hotel in central Freiburg quite close to the bike shop. On Monday we'd get up and make our pilgrimage to the Toute Terrain shop, and then head back out to the EV6. All good.
The ride to Freiburg form Colmar was once again extremely good. Dedicated bike paths the whole way and a little bit of a headwind. THe wind was actually quite nice as it took the edge off the mid 30's temperature. Once on the German side of the Rhine, the bike path network was just incredible. For about 25 km into Freiburg there was a whole network of bike routes, completely independent of the regular auto road network. And the countryside was beautiful, rolling hills covers in vines (Riesling now!)
We really need our GPS (Pocket Earth maps worked great - FAR better than Google) as the plethora of bike paths made navigating in the city a little challenging, but our route led us directly to the bike shop. Only to find that it was closed until Sept 4 .. all the staff were out riding and touring!!
Count to ten. Breath deep. Remember that this is Europe in August, not 24/7 North America, and appreciate the difference. Maybe the fine folks at Toute Terrain will sell me a new set of pedals on Monday.
Our hotel was around the corner (another American Express moment) and we were quickly checked in, bikes securely stowed in a locked bike cage in the underground garage, cleaned up and ready for some of Germany's finest.
We found this at a nice outdoor bar/café beside the small river running through town. You've got to love a place where the draft beer comes in three sizes, 30 cl, 50 cl or a litre! We opted for the middle.
We then took a stroll around the pedestrianized old town, finding lots of very unique shops (incredible wool hand puppets for instance) and then were drawn to the central square by the tolling of the Cathedral bells. It was beautiful to hear and they went on for several minutes. We realized that this was also a calling for Saturday evening mass, so we didn't get a chance to explore much of the inside of the church. The surrounding square was beautiful though, ringed with cafes and restaurants ... that were quickly filling up. We were getting a little peckish so we got a table at the Oberkirch Weinstub and proceeded to have a very lovely meal featuring chanterelle mushrooms. They are in season now and the German's seem to go crazy for them (we had these during our 2013 Rhine trip as well). We had an interesting conversation with a local woman at the table next to us who gave us all sorts of history of the square and the area in general. K just informed me that the Oberkirch Weinstub is recommended by M. Bibendum .. pure serendipity on our part ... but we agree with him.
So despite the Honey Hunt for pedals, this was another great day. Full rest day tomorrow, no bikes. Although we haven't been putting in big days, it's been two weeks since we've had a day off the bikes. That time has come.
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Song of the Day:
Wye Aye Man by Mark Knopfler
A great song about Geordie builders picking up and heading to Germany for work ..German beer is chemical free, Germany's all right by me... and so it is.
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Today's ride: 63 km (39 miles)
Total: 1,433 km (890 miles)
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