It’s always nice to wake up to a hotel breakfast, our problem is however that we come down 10 minutes before the breakfast is over, so there’s only leftovers. Our plan is to reach Lauenstein, a small place in the middle of the mountains.

I know what’s coming today, I’m expecting the rain today as well. At the moment the weather is ok and I’m dressed up in my Challenge4you wind jacket. Morten and Kathrine is out looking for a bicycle shop. I need new SPD-SL Clits for my shoes. I’m not connected to my pedals anymore, this makes it difficult, at least in the climbs.

The weather is trying to scare me, it’s showing it’s power in the horizont. You can hear the thunder and see the lightning. It’s still not raining. For the first time on my trip there is an advantage to cycle slalom, north, west, east and south at the same time. It seems like I’m lucky so far.

I’m cycling through small places as always. The people are looking at me and probably wonder why a norwegian have found the way into their tiny community. Some people are smiling when I come with my music. I change the music everytime I cycle into a small place, don’t want to have the hardest and most powerful music, I change to something nice and beautiful.

Finally I reach Rödental. I’ve agreed with Morten and Kathrine to have lunch at a cafe there. I still haven’t had any rain and have cycled close to 40Km.

While we’re eating you can see that the waiter is running to the door. I look out and can see the heavy rain that have reached me….Stupid, stupid…Why did I stop, I’ve been cycling slalom between the rain showers all day, now I’m probably gonna cycle slalom in them.

I dress up in my rain jacket, glasses, gloves and shoe covers. I’m ready..I really am! This is what I tell myself. People are looking at me when I’m standing there in the heavy rain. They can see that I’m careless, I don’t care about the rain for a second, I just give them a smile back when I start to cycle in the direction towards todays mountains.

The bicycle trails takes me off the road again. It’s pretty good quality so far, seems like it’s the old roads from time to time. The only problem when you cycle through the small towns is that they want you to stay on the pavement. I can’t do this, it is on and off small edges all the time, I get no flow…Can you imagine to cycle 4 months like this? Not possible!

FLAT TIRE! I cycle on one of the edges and can feel the hit, it’s hard, but my speed is quite low, so I don’t think it’s any damage except that my tire is flat. I’ve been waiting for this. The tire needs to be replaced.

I walk over to a bicycle shop.I change the tire and tube. I ask the shop owner if I could borrow a foot pump. So much better than the small low quality pump that I’ve got in my bag.

I’m on the road again. I cycle further on and are back on my route. The kilometers are running fast. It’s a long but not steep climb. This makes it easy to hold a good average speed.

Morten is wondering how I’m actually reaching the places faster than them from time to time. I’m just smiling and replies that it’s because I can take the shortcuts through the woods!

We reach Tettau, a small place in the mountains. It’s getting late and we need to take some precautions. We have no plan about where we are staying tonight and the restaurants will close soon as well. We buy some food at a grocery store, just in case we can’t find anything.

I continue over the mountain. I arrive at some of the old concrete roads again. The wholes are so big that it’s impossible for me to cycle on them, so I need to cycle in the middle. This is also difficult, it’s really slippery grass after all the rain. I’m thinking, why is
this coming now, this late? Even the downhill is difficult, I can’t break, I just need to keep the balance and let it go…Quite a bit technical cycling.

Finally I arrive at Lauenstein. A small place, but after a google search earlier today it said that there is a hotel and several pensions. That doesn’t help when everything is closed.

It’s getting dark. I only have a rear light on my bicycle, but my jacket is yellow and full of reflexes. We can’t go any further. After asking some friendly local people, they guide us 300 meters to a new guest house.

We arrive at this guest house, it’s fully booked. They doesn’t seem helpful at all. I asked them if it’s possible to put up the tent on their grass outside for a night…..NEIN!!!! Come on!!! I’m standing there completely wet and are really starting to freeze, can’t you be a bit friendly and helpful? I must say that if somebody came to my door like this in the evening, I would probably offer them my couch, a shower or at least allow them to put the tent up in the yard.

We think about what options we have. We decide that we need to go somewhere else. Should we hide the bicycle in the forrest? Risky business. Morten ask the guys that showed us the direction earlier about putting the bicycle in their garage. They allow us to do this.

There is a festival in the next small town. It’s fully booked and the only rooms available is for 220Euro…Not gonna happen. I find a small hotel a little bit further. We continue and they had an available room for three persons…FINALLY!! It’s over midnight and the temperature outside is cold.

I know that if I were alone, this wouldn’t have happened, because I can’t take these types of risk. I need to have a confirmed place to stay. I need to take a decision latest around my lunch time. Anyway… We found a place and let’s just hope that the bicycle is still there tomorrow!

Picture album from todays trip:

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GPS Data from todays trip: