August 25, 2022
Day 16: To Bremen
Today I learnt about a new trend that is becoming very popular in Germany, and possibly the world, who knows, called gravel biking. Actually we already met some people doing it but we didn’t really know what it was until our host Dietrich showed us his gravel bike. It is basically a road bike but with wider tyres so that it can be ridden on all surfaces - gravel obviously, as the name suggests, although I think the real reason it’s so popular in Germany is that it allows one to also survive cycling fast on the terrible bike paths that they have here. Dietrich took up gravel biking four years ago once his kids moved out and he had more time. “I love it, I just cycle and cycle, just me and the bike and the road,” he said, “I don’t need a tent, I just lie down and sleep somewhere two or three hours and then carry on.”
That’s the real beauty of gravel bikes - they are fast so you can cycle a long way while carrying minimal stuff with a bike packing setup. I asked Dietrich what the furthest he rode in one day was. “400 kilometres,” he said proudly. “I started here at midnight, and arrived in Berlin at Brandenburg Gate at midnight after 400 kilometres.”
I resisted the urge to tell him about the time I rode from midnight to midnight on my fully loaded touring bike and registered 452 kilometres in 24 hours. I didn’t want to make him feel bad about only being able to do 400 kilometres. “And then I rode home again,” he added, “but over two days, so I did 800 kilometres in three days.” Yeah okay, I didn’t do that.
And Dietrich also had two more guests who had stayed overnight, although we didn’t meet them until the morning because they didn’t arrive until late at night. They were Felix and Victor, two young guys who had cycled here from Cologne on their own gravel bikes. They had therefore ridden about 370 kilometres, but over two days. Come on guys, it’s like you’re not even trying.
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They were very nice young guys who we chatted to over breakfast. They were on a random three day rapid bike trip up to Cuxhaven (“to jump into the sea”) before taking trains home again, but Felix in particular seemed quite interested in our travels cycling the world. He has done some longer tours, one across Europe to Serbia and with him being 25 now, the age I was when I started cycling the world, I could feel there was some comparison to how I was then. Of course things have changed for me now, a point that was brought home as Dea and I discussed our plans for the day, an 11 kilometre ride into Bremen that felt like too much to do in one go. “So we’ll do six kilometres, then take a two hour break,” we said to each other as we sat there next to the two young whippets who had cycled 185 kilometres the day before and looked as fresh as daisies.
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Dea was a little bit sad to be leaving the garden. I think she really loved it, all the different fruits and vegetables (although even she probably could have done without the apples falling from the tree onto our tent during the night) and the interesting outdoor spaces. She came away with lots of excited ideas for our own garden, which is tiny by the way.
The first half of our cycle into Bremen was excellent, on a lovely segregated bike path. It was even smooth! We then stopped after six kilometres as planned in a park beside a small lake that wasn’t as nice as it had looked on the map, but was an okay place to spend a couple of hours.
As we arrived at the spot where we planned to sit an old woman pushing a zimmer frame slowly past stopped to talk to us. “This is a good place to camp,” she said, presumably assuming we’d had enough for the day at 10.30 am. “But I’ve never seen anyone do it in 72 years!” She then asked us quite many questions about our plans for sleeping, and we told her several times that we had a friend in the city we would be staying with, before she walked off telling us, “well, I hope you find somewhere to sleep.”
“That woman seemed very interested in our sleeping arrangements” I said after she was gone.
“Maybe she’s the Tent Police,” Dea replied, “although you wouldn’t expect it to be a 72 year old woman.”
“Perhaps it was an undercover agent. Could have been a 40 year old man in disguise.”
“It could have been! You can’t trust anything now, could have been a deepfake!”
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Prepare yourself for a picture of a bike in bad condition now:
You may be worried about the state of my bike, but fear not, the above picture is not my bike but in fact a bike I discovered in the bushes by the lake when I snuck in there to pee. It was extraordinarily rusted. It had obviously been there a long time, or more likely in the lake itself. The spokes on the wheels were eroded completely away. And yet the most remarkable thing was the tyres. They were Schwalbe Marathon tyres but of a design I have never seen, looking like they were at least 30 years old, and yet they still looked completely fine. If they had been the right size I might even have been tempted to take them with me as spares. It seemed extraordinary that they could still be in such good condition given the rest of the bike, but there you go. Hats off to Schwalbe, you certainly used to make good tyres!
After our break we rode the last five kilometres into the centre of Bremen and it was a lot less comfortable. There were still bike paths but it all got more cramped and there were more people and cars and trams and less space. It didn’t feel like any place for a young baby.
And then we were there at Sven’s apartment. Dea first met Sven when she was cycling around Denmark in 2016. He was also cycling, but with a cameraman, researching for an article he was writing, because Sven has the quite brilliant job of writing guide books and articles and things about cycling and so he has to go cycling and travelling a lot and get paid for it. We also stayed with Sven at his apartment in Bremen in the winter of that year when we were cycling to England, but this was the first time we’d met since. He was as welcoming as he had been before, helping us to get all our things inside and making us feel right at home. He was then very keen to show me his new bike that he was very excited about. “I don’t know if you have heard about it,” he said, “but it’s a new thing and I love it, it’s called a gravel bike!”
Today's ride: 12 km (7 miles)
Total: 597 km (371 miles)
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