Following the boarder in Germany is harder than you could imagine

I’ve picked up my bicycle at the bicycle shop. The gear shifting is much better now. I have a plan to reach Eschwege today.

Ready for a new day. I’m motivated to go far, but I have to mention 1 thing. I haven’t only been looking for repair and parts for my gear, I’ve been looking for break pads as well. None of the shops I’ve visited have the Formula RX break pads that I need. I might be forced to do a complete stop until I’ve get this fixed.

I cycle directly into a steep hill today. What a start. I bet the guys building a house at the start of this hill is putting up a bet on me…

1. Will he be able to cycle the hill?
2. Will he be able to do it while sitting?
3. Will he stand?

This is just me thinking…It helps me to push myself harder to make this look easy. Of course I will do this without standing! PUUUH, finally on the top. It was harder than it looked, at least harder than it looks on a picture. I wish that a picture could describe some of the hills you meet on a day like this. It would give you a better idea about what I’m doing.

The road further on takes me through the forrest and the road is up and down, up and down all the way. Normally this would be ok, but when the road standard is as it is, it takes time. I will never complaint about this, because this is what makes this trip so interesting, but it definately makes it harder.

I feel that I’m not getting any kilometers today. I stop at a cafe to have a coffee and a coca cola. At the same time I publish my trip from yesterday over the Hartz mountain. The owner of this cafe speaks with me and asks me about the trip. He seems quite interested and asks me to sign his guestbook and to write some words about the trip.

The road takes me to a «grenze museum». I decide not to enter. For me it’s not interesting to take picture of other peoples pictures. I want to experience the remainings and the history of the boarder myself. 100 meters further, the road takes me straight to the left. There is no road, at least no normal road. There is a steep hill with grass and the concrete plates.

It’s really facinating to see all these remainings from the boarder. I met some local people in the hill and stop to talk with them for a while. They tell me a bit about the story and the area, interesting!

Cycling further on and the «road» takes me to several small communities, but never to a main road. It’s the boarder all the time. It’s not easy when I’m almost 100% without breaks left on my bike.

I decide to cycle a detour to the next «city». I’m ending up in Heilbad Heiligenstadt and quickly find a bicycle shop. He looks at my formula breaks and quickly replies that he don’t have them.

After a while with discussing in English, German and some finger language, I understand that he will try to get it from the next shop tomorrow morning. I find a pension next door and are waiting.

I’m heading out for a dinner and think about this issue. I’m not confident that the other shop will have these parts. One thought that we have is actually to buy it in Norway and ship it down with DHL.

I find a nice small italian restaurant called Al Castello. I order a pizza, a glass of wine and beer. I start uploading the pictures from today, but it is so slow. The O2 seems to be slow all other places than the in cities.

The pizza and wine is amazing. I would recommend this place to everyone, anytime!

After a while a couple sits down at the table next to me. I’m on the phone with my family back home, and order a new glass of wine and beer. The guy on the next table just laugh of me. I reply something and tell my mother that I will call back later. I end up speaking with this couple, which seems to be really friendly.

For the rest of the evening I speak with them and they tell me that they will have a birthday celebration tomorrow and that I am invited if I want to. Of course I want to! I can’t say no to something like this!

I tell them about the reason for staying here, which basically is that my bicycle have no breaks. They tell me that one of the guys coming tomorrow is running a bicycle shop in another city. They phoned him up and he said that he had the parts I needed and would bring it tomorrow! Could it get any better?

We say goodbye and agrees to meet tomorrow afternoon. I’m really happy about this. Imagine to meet these friendly people and in combination they might help me with my equipment trouble.

Goodnight! 🙂 See you tomorrow and lets hope everything is solved then.

Picture album from todays ride:

GPS Data from todays ride: