We stayed 2 nights in Torgau for a few important reasons, the first being that it was too hot to ride. The most pressing reason however, was finding a bike mechanic or an electrician to get Seavo functional as an e-bike again. Our good friends Georg, Cora and Stefan (a fellow ham radio afficiando) looked at the photos of our problem and tried to help us, but they wisely encouraged us to stay put until Monday and get expert hands-on help. The real concern is that if we try to reconnect the wires to the connector and make a wrong guess about which of the four points to connect the two wires to, we could fry our battery. A kaput battery would be a costly mistake. So, staying on a Sunday when nothing is open and “hotter than stink” was our only option.
Torgau has 2 bike shops, Bikes and More (independently run) and a bike shop in the Intersport box store. Once again, our decision is simple as we like dealing with bike stores where you can deal with the owner and service is good.
The collage shows the severed cable and the connector (which has 4 ports...which two to use?) We have learned that this connector is the preferred type for loudspeakers and microphones due to its sturdy construction and good connectivity. It turns out that the wrench of disconnecting the connector from the cable also damaged the cable for about 12 inches.
Dietmar Werner, the owner of the bike store and a former bike racer has run his store, Bikes and More, for 20 years. His unflappable, kind manner immediately put us at ease and we could see that we were in good hands. He worked for some time at cleaning up our tattered cables and reconnected everything. Looked good....however, no power to the motor. Dietmar continued working at it when along came a friend with his bike for repairs, and as luck will have it, this fellow, Tomas Schneider, is an electrician by trade. Down on his knees he went. It was a joy to see an electrician at work with a bike mechanic by his side, hard at work, but still no success. Barry tested the battery and it was ok, so Tomas began looking at all of the wiring. He discovered that some of the wiring was damaged as well. So, he went home to get supplies and told us to return at 2 pm and that our bike should be ready.
Dietmar testing the polarity of the wiring and the connectors.
It takes two to tandem, and so it seems, also to repair a tandem. Dieter and Tomas hard at work. How to repay such kindness.....? We will always remember Torgau with fondness and it will be because of them.
Dietmar refused to take any payment from us....”just a postcard” and he let us pay Tomas for his time. It was still too small to compensate either of them for their time, but we had to accept his kind offer gracefully. Thank you Dieter and Tomas!
Another interesting aspect of how lucky we were on this Monday morning in Torgau, is that Dieter said Stefan drops by the shop maybe once every two months, and he happened to come at the exact time we needed him. As it turns out, he had to replace quite a bit of cable and do some rewiring, so without him, we would not have been able to have gotten Seavo repaired. Serendipity at its finest.
Mary Ellen took time out from worrying about the bike to visit with 8 month old Ruby. Ruby doesn’t seem to know that she is a big girl and just wants to love everybody and perhaps yearns to be a lap dog. The only reason I am keeping my distance is that she would joyfully eat my clothing. Nonetheless she was gentle and had a very soft muzzle.
Dieter has many friends who travel by bike and have visited him at his store. He proudly showed us his collection of postcards from around the world. Soon he will have one from Canada! He also has a signed Giro d’Italia jersey from .......and a signed jersey from a bike racer he sponsors.
The Torgau Tourist Office is located in this beautiful building in the Markt Square. After German Reunification, the town centre was completely restored. Once you are out of the centre, there are many decaying buildings and extensive graffiti which speaks to the tough decades Torgau has endured in the 20th century.
Ampelmann, the beloved Berlin traffic light figure, is popular now in much of eastern Germany. Here you have four travelling cyclists squaring off at the traffic light, two heading north and two heading south.
Wind energy, hard at work. In Canada, the iconic scene across vast prairie fields are grain elevators on the horizon. Whereas, here in Germany, we see wind turbines on the horizon. A sign of the times...
Yeah, a strip a sidewalk is all we need to escape the cobbles in this village. We will take it. We are reminded in these villages that we are indeed in Eastern Germany.
We didn’t have a chance to leave Torgau until about 3:30 and we debated about staying or heading on. However, we found what sounds like a gem of a Pension in Kreinitz for €45 including breakfast, so we headed out. What a lovely surprise this 4 room Guesthouse is. We have a spacious comfortable, immaculate room with an en-suite and breakfast, and a delightfully welcoming couple who own it. The pub restaurant feels like a touch of history where time has stood still. We are glad we came and even more glad that Seavo is completely functional again. We will eat the lunch fixings we had in our cooler for dinner in our room and call it a night.
What a day.... filled with luck and good people making it a most memorable day in Germany.
Today's ride: 37 km (23 miles) Total: 3,205 km (1,990 miles)
