With absolutely superb weather in Düsseldorf on Thursday and Friday, and with basically no mileage in my legs for 2012, it was clearly time to get out on the road again. While I was away in Canada or doing other things, Tom and Rudiger had been putting in some training in the rolling hills of NRW and Tom volunteered to put together a reasonable route for my first ride of the Spring, and my first time on racing bike since January 1. We would be travelling over some well-known roads but also there were a few surprises in store. I had asked for around 60-70 kms, so naturally Tom gave me just over 80 instead.
The only time I can keep up to Rudiger and Tom is when I make them stop for a photo
After our glorious few Spring days Saturday dawned grey and chilly of course. I rode out around 8:45 feeling a bit chilled with shorts and a wind vest and armwarmers but after a few minutes of brisk cycling I felt warm enough. The route was the usual one to Ratingen, where the weekend market was taking place.
Saturday morning in Ratingen
I found a side street to ride instead of the usual bone-jarring cobblestones of the pedestrian district which, besides cobbles, usually has lots of pedestrians on it and found myself the first to arrive at our usual meeting place, the Ratingen outpost of the Backwerk chain of bakeries. It was 9:30.
Backwerk in Ratingen: Still Life with Tarmac
Soon enough both Tom and Rudiger arrived (both dressed a lot more warmly than me) and without our usual coffee/croissants we set off. We were training! The first little hill out of Ratingen went quite well for me, to my surprise. We enjoyed the quiet roads and soon mastered the first little climb at Hösel and then headed north towards Essen-Kettwig and followed the Ruhr bike route. There were quite a few other cyclists out and if the weather was not ideal at least it was calm.
To make it more challenging, Tom and Rudiger added a little climbing loop to their ride while I just kept on into Langenberg. At 48 kms it was time for a coffee! Unfortunately the bakery where we had gone before did not have any outdoor seating set up yet and had nothing indoors, so we wandered around a bit disconsolately until we asked a local about a cafe and were directed to a tiny bakery with an tiny coffee shop, Barista, across the hall. As the slowest, I bought coffee for the group and it was really excellent.
Tom enjoys a fine cappuccino at Barista in Langenberg
Rudiger gets fortified for the last half of the ride
Soon it was back on the bikes, feeling fully caffeinated, which was good because Tom's devilish route included an impressive new hill 10 kms down the road. After passing through Neviges we had a long, long steady climb to the highest point on the ride. I was careful to ride inside my limits as I really did not want any cramping on my first big ride of the season and everything went well.
Soon we passed through Mettmann, one of NRW's less attractive towns, but then were on the excellent road that takes one through the Neandertal. Soon enough we were in my neighbourhood and we split an enormous bottle of Soest Zwiebel Brauerei Weihnachtsbock beer to celebrate a ride well done. 84 kms and 800 m of climbing, and after the others went on I had a relaxed afternoon watching live coverage of the Milan-San Remo race, having finished my own La Primavera.
One of the great cycling pleasures of living in Düsseldorf is the opportunity to participate in the monthly Klassikerausfahrtgruppe (catchy name!) ride, which takes place on the first Sunday of the month. It unites an interesting gang of riders who are joined by their interest in lightweight steel racing bicycles, although more modern bikes are present from time to time. Some great rides have taken place, including one in Holland, but most are local 2-3 hours rides around Düsseldorf. Although it is conceivable that no group on racing bikes has ever been so slow or so disorganized, we always manage to find our way back to the start at Ricci-Sport, perhaps lured on by the post-ride cake and coffee (which mirrors the pre-ride cake and coffee). There are generally no crashes, just a few flats, and always great camaraderie.
Yesterday's ride was the final official one for the season and I had special permission from houseguests to go out. Timing has been an issue for me so this was only my third group ride (the others have been written up here and here). However, many familiar faces were there with not only some old bikes but even some different old bikes. As this was the last ride and we were going to be photographed, we had been instructed to bring out the best in order to impress the locals as we rode through town. It was finally time for me to take down the SBDU Raleigh off the wall stand, pump up the tires and ride it for the first time in Germany, and only the fifth time since its restoration in early 2010. Since it was very humid, I decided to leave my wool Raleigh jersey at home and went with the old-style maple leaf one.
By the time I arrived at Ricci-Sport at 10:30 a great big group had already assembled and was working on the cake and/or admiring and comparing bicycles. It was clearly Rickert day as the made-in-Dortmund marque was represented by no fewer than four bikes, with two matching yellow ones from the early 1960s, a beautiful fully-chromed bike and an excellent blue one, the latter brought by Hartmut Snoek, who had come all the way from Münster. I met Hartmut last Sunday at an RTF ride in Essen, when he admired my Marinoni and I admired his Rickert. He is a serious collector of the brand, with around a dozen, including frames.
There were a lot of interesting bicycles. A Dutch cyclist had come with his Benotto and matching wool jersey (and white tires!). Conrad had a very fine Dutch RIH and a lady was riding a child-sized Colnago. Klaus had one of the yellow Rickerts instead of his usual Bottechia and there were Gazelles, and Koga Miyatas and a lovely blue/white Eddy Merckx, along with some makes unfamiliar to me.
As we prepared to ride out we were joined (with exceptionally loud brake squealing) by Richard of Ricci-Sports, who is a usual participant on these rides but broke his leg badly in July during a race in the Netherlands. He is down to one crutch instead of two now and managed to ride to the shop from home yesterday, which must have been a challenge. He brought out the second yellow Rickert and rode a block with us before turning back.
The weather has been unsettled and while it had been beautiful and hot on Saturday, the forecast was not so great. But we all started in great spirits, and in the usual semi-random disorder. We rode through the area near my apartment and then through the Grafenberger Wald. It was here at 6.5 kms I discovered that bikes that have not been ridden for a year should be checked out more carefully as my Campagnolo shifter went into "auto" mode: that is, once I shifted down at the base of a hill, the bike decided on its own to shift all the way back up five gears to the hardest gear. I had to get off, shift onto a smaller cog and firmly tighten the shift lever, something I had learned to do on my first test ride last year. I was the last one up the hill but had no further shifting issues for the rest of the day.
There were a few other hills to climb but the roads, many of which I have ridden before, were excellent and quiet on Sunday morning. We stop at the top of hills to regroup and things were going nicely when we looked to the north and saw some very very dark clouds, and heard some thunder. Someone cheerfully pointed out that the wind was blowing the clouds away from us. This may have been true at that point but once we were into Essen-Kettwig and about to begin the nice climb called "the Esel" (the Donkey), the skies opened up and the rain poured down.
At this point we were about to turn left past a Greek restaurant on Essener Strasse. It had an outdoor terrace with umbrellas and we zoomed into it and stood there while the rain came down in buckets. It was good timing as well for Karsten, who had the Usual Flat Tire of the trip. Most of us had left our bikes on a stand out front but two or three were standing with their bikes under the umbrellas, much to the dissatisfaction of the owner. I would have thought that with 20 or so cyclists totally captive by the rain, it would have been a good occasion to rev up the coffee machine or bring out the apfelschorle and make some profit but he was clearly anxious to get rid of us. We obliged as soon as the rain let up and began the climb up the hill.
I first rode the Esel last Sunday during the Essen RTF ride and really liked it. It is not extremely steep and has three nice switchbacks. The shifting on the Raleigh was working perfectly now and I could accelerate quite nicely up to the top. I was with a small group and then came the sucker punch as the rain suddenly began again in earnest. We pulled over to stand under the trees but it was pretty pointless as after a few moments we were soaking wet.
Once the rain let up again we were back on the road, looking like soaked rats. Klaus complained that his wool jersey soaked up water like a sponge and some of the other riders noted that their old-fashioned shoes did not have drain holes. Someone suggested that as a result of this ride my Raleigh would be worth half as much as it had been at the start but our spirits rose as the sun came out and we began to dry off in the warm wind. It was also obvious that on the short hills some of the oldie bicycles were not equipped with modern gearing for climbing as some of the oldie riders had to work heroically to get up them. At least I was able to use my toe clips and straps fairly effectively by the end of the ride. They are essential for the retro-look but clipless pedals are far, far better!
We passed through the woods around Oberdorf and soon rejoined our outward-bound route, taking us through Ratingen and back to Düsseldorf, Grünerstrasse and Ricci-Sports. There was lots of coffee and really, really excellent cake to balance any of the calorie-burning effects of our 44.34 km ride, with just under 400 m of climbing. Our 2:02 time of actual riding was pretty much matched by the amount of time it took me to clean all the grit off of the Raleigh today. And before people left, there was an opportunity to have your photo taken with your bike, using a large blue dumpster as a backdrop, which might perhaps be seen by many in the modern cycling community as appropriate given what we ride.
A group of the riders will go back to Holland on October 18 to ride with some of the Dutch steel lightweight enthusiasts but unfortunately I will be unable to join them. Many of the Düsseldorf group will be in Tuscany for l'Eroica so I look forward to exchanging coffee for Chianti with them then!
It was yet another rainy weekend in Düsseldorf so rather than sit at home and mope about yet another lost cycling day I took the train to Essen, 30 minutes away, to visit the leisure trade show at the Messe (as the exhibition centres are called here). I just followed the crowd on the subway leaving the main station and got there quite easily. As usual, it was raining.
Just as I entered the building, I saw a cyclist in an old-style Continental wool jersey, sitting astride a high-wheeler. He rolled off into the parking area for a few circuits and when he came back I took some photos. He was impressed with my high-wheeler sweatshirt and we chatted for a bit about the bike, which was not an antique but was a reproduction. He told me to look out for the bike shop in Hall 6 where some other old bikes were on display. I saw these subsequently: a pair of Opels, one, unrestored, from 1906 and the other, with balloon tires, dating to 1934 and looking brand new.
The show was called the “Messe für Fahrrad, Freizeit & Zubehör,” or the “Show for Bicycles, Leisure and Accessories.” It was a somewhat peculiar mix as it was actually three shows in one. A large part of the show was dedicated to travel and camping, one part to cycling and a slightly smaller bit to fishing. I entered first into one section of the camping area but quickly moved on to the “travel” area, which featured a lot of stands representing different parts of Germany, often divided into entertaining subsections. “Oh, you must want to go to East Münsterland–we just represent West Central Münsterland!”
I was so excited by all the bicycle travel possibilities that I stopped a booth presenting the products of the Landhaus-Brauerei Borchert in Lünne, in Emsland, which is Lower Saxony and is bordered to the west by the Netherlands. The Brauerei offered its own Braun Bier, but I could not pass up the opportunity to try a little shot of Bier-Liköre, which is made with beer and honey, although it tasted more of honey, I think. I decided to keep walking but would return for some of their beer later. If you go to the brewery/beer garden you can participate in a "Bierathlon," which includes shooting a crossbow, kicking a soccer ball into a hole in a wall and doing something like horseshoe throwing. Two drinks are also included for your 10 Euro participation fee.
There were a lot of interesting stands, including those promoting spas (which are extremely popular in Germany and very nice after a bike ride). The emphasis appeared to be more on Northern Germany, although the South was represented by Franconia (the northern part of Bavaria) and the Allgäu, east of Lake Constance. I collected brochures that were specifically for cycling but also got general brochures about attractions in each area. I chatted with the Roman legionnaire at the Xanten stand, and a lady was very keen that I go to visit the gardens of Schloss Dyck, which is only a short distance from where I went riding on the indoor track a week ago. It was a good opportunity to get brochures about the Ruhr and Nordrhein-Westfalen, which has an excellent cycling map. There were a lot of stands devoted to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on the Baltic and even a large area devoted to the exhibition’s 2011 “partner country,” Sri Lanka.
I did not go to all 650 stands but limited myself to the ones that seemed to value bike touring. Some of the gimmicks were great: there was a bicycle driven game that required you to knock the top hats off of the rotating puppets, and this attracted a big crowd. At the stand devoted to nudism in Germany, everyone was fully dressed, however. The brochures suggested that nudism (Freikorperkultur) is stuck a bit in the past as the camps pictured, with their little caravans and volleyball courts, looked a bit forlorn and down-market, particularly compared to the flashy “wellness” spas, where you could get equally naked in the sauna if you wanted. Having suffered from what seems to be a near-continuous six months of rain and darkness here in Germany, I can understand why people would suddenly go crazy at the first sign of sun and throw away their inhibitions.
After collecting several hundred pounds of brochures, I staggered into Hall 6, which along with Halls 8 and 9, made up the cycling area. Nordrhein-Westfalen had a very good stand and I picked up some useful cycling information about the province there. But the majority of stands were selling bicycles or parts and were very popular. Brands, like Specialized or Trek, were represented by local retailers, while probably the largest stand of all belonged to Rose Versand, Germany’s largest mail-order bicycle retailer and publisher of a great door-stop of an annual catalogue. The current one is 960 pages and there is not much that you cannot get from Rose.
Their bicycles have quite a good reputation in Germany, close to the standards of arch-rival Canyon, which is in Koblenz. Rose is in the Nordrhein-Westfalen town of Bocholt and they have what must be one of the world’s flagship bike shops there, Bike Town, with 6,000 m² of floor space (around 65,000 square feet). Rose had an area for set aside for touring/commuting bikes, another for mountain bikes and yet another for electric bikes. The electric bike boom is clearly continuing as lots of people were trying out the bikes and there is even a magazine devoted to them. Several of the travel booths featured tours with electric bikes available.
The other test area was devoted to recumbents and people seemed to be having a great time zooming around in what looked like rolling armchairs but this enthusiasm has never translated into real world popularity. I was very taken with a red Leitra Velomobile, a fairing-covered all-weather recumbent that even had an iPod sound system in it. The latest model, the Avancee, was developed by an Austrian firm that took over the Danish design a few years ago. On Friday I was walking to an appointment at the Landtag when I was passed by a white Leitra, which was not only silent but surprisingly fast, as it zipped by on the bike path. The current model goes for 7,250 Euros, which is probably not such a bad deal considering how limited the demand must be and you are getting a lot more vehicle than you would with a racing bike at a comparable price. Racing bikes were notable, unlike at Eurobike in September, for their absence at this show. Rose had a few, as did Specialized and Trek, but the vast majority of bikes on display were meant for shopping or local travel.
By now my feet were aching and I stopped for a while to watch some trials riders do their thing. They ride bikes that have not saddles or seatposts, so they are standing while they do their stunts. And impressive they were as they jumped around on one wheel, hopping over a volunteer on the ground, who must have found it pretty terrifying.
I made my way back to the beer stand and had a nice Braun Bier and chatted with the young woman pouring beers. She was puzzled by my accent and thought my German was very good and did not sound like that of a typical English speaker. On the other hand she was diplomatic not to say it does not sound like a typical German speaker either...
Dragging my pile of brochures, I made my way back to the subway and then to the train station. The trains run quite often and I was back in Düsseldorf in mid-afternoon. It was a good day in spite of the sore feet and now I have enough travel brochures to plan cycling trips for my next three and a half years in Germany (provided that it stops raining).
