It has been a hot week of cycling! I’ve been able to make it all the way south to Hamburg from Oslo over the past week, despite the fact that the mercury has been hovering around the low-thirties the entire time. My friend Sam asked me as I was preparing to leave Oslo whether or not there were times when I woke up and just really didn’t want to cycle anywhere - well I hadn’t until just then. Of course there are some days when it is more difficult to wake up and get back in the saddle, but this time it was more lament-y because I didn’t want to leave Oslo so soon! I had a really good time with Sam and Dale, and their new friends. My lack of enthusiasm while cycling that first day did not prevent me from getting myself to a lake to camp at just over the border into Sweden. I’m doing my best to plan out my days to finish at lakes so I can go for a little swim to rinse myself and my cycling clothes off before getting up and riding the next day. This lake was largely surrounded by marshy grass, but I thought it would still be okay to swim in. Upon trying to enter the water my left foot sunk through the far-from-solid ground in front of me, and I found myself buried to my mid thigh in smelly muck. I managed to twist my right knee a little while falling in and trying to get myself out of the mini marsh. Now smelly and dirty, I trudged back to my bike so I could try to walk partway around the lake through the bush so I could rinse off properly. But, as soon as I made it to where I left my bike I realized that I didn’t have my phone with me. Panicked, I ran back to the two different spots I tried to enter the water to try and find my phone. Fortunately I was able to locate it before going to rinse the smelly mud off of me. On my way back from rinsing off in the lake at a more safe entry point I looked down to realize that I had dropped both socks that I had intended on rinsing while walking through the forest. I was only able to find one of the two before making it back to where I parked my bike. Defeated, I ate my dinner before trying to retrace my steps to find my one lost sock in the forest. I was able to recover the lost sock as well, but the whole series of events made for a stressful end to a long, hot day. The latter three days of cycling down to Copenhagen were a little less exciting - I found a lake for night two as well - this time the entrance to the water wasn’t muddy, but I didn’t arrive to the site until 9pm after nearly 10 hours of moving time to put me a little ways over 200km for the day. This was my third 200+ kilometer day of the trip - maybe not the smartest idea with how hot and sunny it was. I spent my final night of the journey in an old cut block. It had been replanted maybe two or three years prior, so there was a nice amount of foliage to hide my tent in. The best part of this site was the blackberry bush that I found across the road! It is a small miracle that I have gotten as far as fast as I have in Scandinavia. I could have quite happily halved my pace so I could sit around and pick berries all day! I wasn’t able to resist the temptation on any of the four cycling days. I tried to limit myself to a certain length of time for being stopped to pick berries or cherries - if I had a fair distance yet to cover I tried to limit myself to the length of one song, maybe two if I was feeling generous. In Copenhagen I was able to stay at a campground 5km from the city center. It meant I had to cycle in and out everyday, but it also meant I only had to pay ⅓ the cost of a hostel bed for my three night stay! I really enjoyed just being able to experience the cycling infrastructure in the city! Some places had dedicated bicycle lanes that took up just as much road space as the room allowed for cars! Drivers were more aware of cyclists on the road when making turns than I had ever experienced before. It was also the first time I really experienced a bicycle lane traffic jam! Cycling out of Copenhagen was just as lovely as cycling in the city. There were nice wide bike lanes for the majority of the way down to the little seaside town where there was a ferry to get across to northern Germany. I was able to take the ferry across at the end of the 150km effort under the blazing hot sun. There wasn’t much shade to be had at all for the whole day. The only real relief came when I decided to stop for ice cream at roadside grocery stores. I’ve also taken to dousing my hat and head with water - though, after an hour in the sun the water is warm and tepid as I spray it down my back. I met a french couple on their first cycle tour while disembarking from the ferry in Germany. They had started in Oslo (kinda). The mountains and heat had defeated them and they took a train to Goteborg to skip the difficult parts in favour of the much more moderate stretches of southern Sweden. My one day of cycling through Germany was not too great. I was greeted by more bicycle paths, only these were more reminiscent of Hungary than they were of Denmark. This section of Northern Germany was dominated by “cycle paths” that could be more aptly described as sidewalks. Although they were separated from other road users, they were incredibly bumpy and not pleasant for cycling on. It was almost as if they had paved these sidewalks a decade ago, and hadn’t bothered with re-paving them since. Roots had grown up through the pavement, or, in urban areas they thought it was a great idea to use bricks/paving stones to line the sidewalks - because those always stay flush with one another over time. Frustrated with not being able to maintain a normal cadence, I joined the rest of the road users. On two separate occasions I was honked at from behind, then chastised by the vehicle driver in German and directed to go on the cycle path. This made me so frustrated. Even with a well trained eye on the slightest contour that gives away a bump or dip in the cycle path, I was repeatedly bucked up from my seat, or shocked by the front end dropping out from underneath me while riding along. The two encounters with upset motorists were thankfully cancelled out by two really nice altercations with a man at a grocery store around lunch time, and a second man whom I rode up beside in the mid afternoon. I’ve had an absolutely lovely time with my hosts Alison and Willi in Hamburg over the past two days. Willi was a classmate in the business related electives I took at CMU, in addition to being a teammate on the soccer team for two seasons before he graduated and returned to Alison’s home province, Alberta, to live and work. After two years in Calgary they moved out here for a Masters program that Willi got into! My planning for the latter stages of this trip have been lacking considerably, so having the chance to just hang out with the two of them and chat/play games has been really, really nice! I did see a little bit of Hamburg with Willi on my first day here, and the three of us went out for a couple hours today as well. The time spent in the kitchen at breakfast, or in the living room in the afternoon/evening has truly been the highlight though! Mmm. the other highlight has been the chance to share coffee with them! I’ve got six partially filled bags of coffee beans that I have been making for the three of us. It’s really fun to hone back in on my barista skills to serve other people again! Hamburg hasn’t been entirely as lovely as described above. We left my bike out in front of the apartment while we went into the city this afternoon. When we returned around 4pm as a thunderstorm started pouring water down from the sky, I noticed as we stowed the bikes in the basement storage room that my two front panniers had gone missing. Someone had stolen the two front bags from my bicycle. I came around pretty quickly, passing it off as a non-issue. Inconvenient, of course, but nothing that I can’t adapt to tomorrow morning as I try to cycle to Amsterdam. I am going ot have to get a little creative with how to carry the things that normally lived in those bags (Coffee equipment, kitchen sink, flask, kitchen utensils, tent pegs, birkenstocks, pot, pan, kettle, chain maintenance fluids, and gas/stove), but losing those two bags is much better than losing my frame bag with all my tools, bike light, and pump, or even my handlebar bag - the one that acts as a cupholder for my second cup of coffee, or blackberries. I think I’ve thought up a solution for tomorrow that should work to get me and my things out to Amsterdam - if it isn’t perfect I’m sure there will be an opportunity to get replacement bags, or just throw away some things that I haven’t used, but have refused to throw away until this point. That’s tomorrow’s problem though. That said, I’m basically down to the final month or so of this trip, so I can just tough it out with slightly less than optimal conditions before I fly home - save myself 100 euros by not replacing the bags until my next cycling trip. It’s already almost 2, so I should probably get some sleep before beginning the three day journey to
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