Climate. Are we scuppered? Part I

I suspect we, i.e. the human race, are scuppered unless we can initiate some drastic changes in our life style and chances are not looking good. If we look at possible changes in motorised traffic, i.e. the motor car that we will have to make to reduce carbon dioxide production seriously it is going to be the equivalent of pushing a pea up Mount Everest with one's nose while blindfolded.

Can we give up the car or at least cut down on its use? I have my doubts. We live in a small German town that is flat. There are two or three hills in the town: bridges over the autobahn. You'd think an ideal spot to cycle or even walk. There are adequate pavements/footpaths as long there is room to get past, but it is a local habit to park with two wheels on the pavement/sidewalk to keep the road clear, but of course blocking the walker or the pram pusher. A goodly proportion of our neighbours drive round to the supermarket and bakers around the corner which is less than five minutes walk away. When we walk across town I count the number of pedestrians and cyclists and the number of cars, most of which have one person riding in them. I deliberately do not count the cars on the road connecting the two sections of bypass which we cross. In spite of this I normally see 50% more cars than walkers or cyclists. It is going to be difficult weaning people off the car.

Kalmit

On 7 September it is Kalmit Cup time again. This is the Klapprad race up Kalmit Hill from Maikammer on the western edge of the Rhine Valley not far south of Neustadt an der Weinstrasse. About 5% of the participants will be using tweaked Klapprads with a standard frame but a better drivetrain and wheels.  They all will be wearing road bike gear. The rest will be dressed in costume with a lot of cross dressing and riding less souped up Klapprads but some will be tandems or two basic bikes or tandems welded together so they can be fitted with a float to resemble a London bus or an elephant. The race starts at 15:00, but it's a good idea to be there an hour or two earlier to watch the fun (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1gQyWeqLwg) and enjoy a glass of riesling.

Electric scooters: A good idea?

In “The Salmon of Doubt” Douglas Adams wrote "I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

I suspect I am just about to illustrate the great man's statement, as I am pushing my 9th decade and so I should be suspicious anything invented since 1975.  (This not exactly true as we accepted the home computer, the Internet, eMail and desktop publishing, but do not get us started on mobile phones.)

Tier, an electric scooter company (https://www.tier.app/), is now offering its scooters in the centre of Heidelberg, Ludwigshafen and Mannheim. The three city governments hope this will encourage more people to leave their cars at home. It’s a fairly simple idea. You download the app and when you are one of the many European cities where Tier is active you find the location of the next scooter; once on board you start your trip using the app and away you go. Costs: 1€ to book and 15 cents a minute for your journey. Payment is via credit card or PayPal. 

Tier electric scooters underway in Oslo ©Tier

I am not taken with electric scooters. Don't get me wrong I can see the attraction. One can nip across town like a downhill mountain biker flowing downhill, swinging round obstacles with no effort and arriving perhaps windblown but sweat free even in the 35°Celcius or more heat we've had in Mannheim this summer. It is a cool concept in every sense of the word. 

However cost,  safety, carbon dioxide production and other street users are factors that need to be taken into account. To start with cost: buses and trams in Mannheim are frequent during the day and a trip from the main railway station to the heart of the shopping streets costs 1.40€. Next Bike also offers hire bicycles that cost 1€ per half hour. You could, of course, walk that costs nothing at all. These have a rack to carry shopping or a baggage unlike the electric scooters where one needs a rucksack to carry luggage. Where do you leave the scooter at the end of trip, so that passersby do not fall over it? The Next Bikes can only be left at one of the many stands in the metropolitan area.
The safety aspects give me the willies. Taking Mannheim station as an example if one wants to go into the city centre, one needs to know where the cycle paths are and it is not that obvious. Traffic in the Mannheim city centre is busy and I would not be happy mixing with cars, motor bikes, buses and delivery lorries on what I suspect I would find is an unstable vehicle, especially when the recommended way to indicate you are going to change lane is to stick your left or right leg out. To a certain extent cycling in heavy traffic is also difficult, but I would feel safer on a bike than balancing on a metre long narrow board especially as I need to wave my legs about. How are the scooters crossing tram lines? There are a lot of tramlines in Mannheim.

There is the suggestion that the scooters use less energy and generate less CO2 than petrol or diesel engined cars both in their manufacture and daily use.This is true for manufacture, but electric scooters are not as environmentally friendly as they seem. The scooters are picked up daily, taken a central workshop, charged, maintained and returned to those places where it is thought they will see the most custom. I suspect the van or pickup moving the scooters is a petrol- or diesel-powered vehicle.

As a pedestrian I am not over happy about the prospect of a silent fast 70 or so Kg packet (rider plus vehicle) sneaking up on me on the footpath. Now I know that riding on footpaths is verboten - forbidden, but so is using a mobile phone while driving. As a occasional (very occasional) motorist I am also not too happy about the thought of a speed king or queen zooming up the footpath in front of our house as I am backing the car out across the footpath onto the road.

Travelling in Germany - Allergies, Water

A friend is coming to Germany next year and has requested information on various topics. The information we have put together may well be of interest for others

Allergies

The following ingredients must be specified by law on restaurant menus when they are present in the meal offered:

1. Colouring (s) 

2. Preservative (s) 

3. Antioxidant (s) 

4. Flavour enhancer (s) 

5. Sulfur dioxide 

6.  Blackening agent 

7. Phosphate 

8. Milk protein  

9. Caffeine 

10. Quinine 

11. Waxed (if the surface of fresh fruits has been so treated) 

12. Taurine 

13. Containing a source of phenylalanine (eg aspartame must be indicated as sweetener) 
14. Sweetening agent

A restaurant must have must this or a similar list available for inspection. 

Packaged food bought in a grocers will have a list of ingredients printed on the packing.

Dairy

It is assumed that milk is from cows, sheep or goats. In most German cafes and restaurants you will not find synthetic milks - almond, oat, soya, etc those milks produced by animals. Vegetarian restaurants often serve some synthetic milk. Maybe Starbucks do as well, but we are very suspicious of Starbucks tax model in Germany. There are enough good traditional cafes in Germany. We also have little experience of non-dairy milks because my wife has a nut allergy and reacts badly to unfermented soya. If cows’ milk gives you problems then either buy lactase tablets here from a pharmacist or learn to drink your coffee black. On the other hand beef here is not pumped full of hormones and chickens are not washed in bleach before consumption.

As for gluten: You can buy low gluten bread and Brötchen e.g. from dinkel or spelt flour. With a request the day before most B&Bs and small hotels can provide gluten free bread. It is virtually mainstream these days. 

You need to talk to serving staff about allergies. My wife has a range of allergies to various raw fruits and vegetables. One of which is carrots. Unless we stress every time we order that she cannot eat raw carrots, we find her food comes sprinkled with the damned things.

However you won’t get a free glass of water with your meal, you will have to pay for expensive mineral water.

Unfortunately the economics of the German restaurant trade mean that restaurants use mineral water as source of income. If he or she gave you a glass of water this would mean additional costs, for example glass washing and serving with a good chance that some of us would just drink tap water and not order anything else to drink. Your meal cost would probably rise, in case you were given a free glass of tap water. The owner is unlikely to change his or her charging politics unless he or she is forced to do so by law.

If you are going to carry drinking water with you, it is worthwhile buying a stainless steel or plastic water bottle for walkers and filling it in the hotel before you leave for the day. A plastic half litre bottle of mineral water will cost you 50 cents or more in a supermarket or even more in filling stations or kiosks plus the additional 25 cent returnable deposit. Over a three week holiday you can pay for a reasonable drinking water bottle with your savings. Many charitably minded folks drop these plastic half litre  bottles off in street bins where they are picked up by people living on Hartz IV the basic German social support, which gives you enough money to survive but not enough to enjoy life. You can take these bottles to supermarkets, etc and pop them in an automated device that prints you out a chit to redeem at the cash out desk. Many Germans buy mineral water believing that it is superior to tap water, but the latter is perfectly safe and contains less plasticiser than prepacked bottled water. In fact if you hit the supermarket at a time when Harz IV recipients have been paid you will see members of this group buying 6 x 1L packs of cheap mineral water, spending most of their day’s allowance on plastic packed water. 

 

Clothing for triking Part II

By chance I came across another triking clothing manufacturer who does offer triking gear with long sleeves: Reverse Gear (https://www.reversegearinc.com/). The company has an interesting website and comes with a recommendation from a blogger I trust. However the company has recently decided to not produce any new lines of clothing and is selling off their stock. It it is worthwhile taking a look and getting an order in pronto if you would like to buy this type of specialist gear.

Ruftaxis (Call Taxis)

If you are travelling in Germany by public transport you may come across Ruftaxis. These are taxis that travel on a fixed route and follow a timetable. The idea is to replace a little used bus. A trip costs 1€ or so in addition to a zone ticket,You need to ring a number given on the timetable to book a journey and if you don't do this the vehicle will not stop at your bus stop or even run at all. Our walking group intended to go walking North of Kaiserslautern today and ended up walking South of the city, because our leader did not warn the bus company we were coming. However in the sad case your bicycle bites the dust and you are out in the sticks, beyond the black stump or in the boonies you will need to ring for a normal taxi and they charge more than 1€ for a journey. Bikes on buses is probably a no no, but bikes on trams and trains is possible.

Packet deliveries in cities: the last mile

Diesel powered courier service vans are a familiar sight on the streets of European cities and towns. Unfortunately these vehicles cause air pollution and add more congestion to already crowded streets. Many German cities are compact. City and town centre streets are narrow and follow older patterns from the pre-motor car ages. They are not laid out to take high volumes of motor traffic. The photograph below shows a typical inner city street in Mannheim. If the tram tracks were still in use navigation by car or lorry would even more difficult.

By User:nenntmichruhigip on Wikimedia Commons - Own work, FAL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54876530

Delivery companies have real problems in the last mile caused ironically by their own and other motor vehicles. There is nowhere to park. If the driver leaves the van on the street while he nips off to deliver a packet to a customer. If as often happens in our observation the driver leaves the engine running so that he can move off more quickly on his return, the air quality suffers. There are ways round this. Set up central packet storage and use bikes or e-bikes or e-trikes  to deliver packets to the customers. It has started already. Courier companies have been running pilot projects using these more flexible smaller delivery vehicles.

Grocery deliveries in Vienna

Weekly shopping transport solved

Excellent load carrying capacity seen at SPEZI 2019

A neat mobile bicycle workshop

A secure cargo bike

A German Post Office electrically assisted quad with container.

Clothing for triking

Thoreau suggested that one should beware of enterprises requiring new clothes. "If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes." He was warning against taking up sports or activities that involve purchase of new clothes. It has always struck me as foolish to buy all the gear before I am sure I enjoy the sport or occupation. You can cycle locally for example in street clothes. You don’t need to look like you are just about to climb the Cols de Vars, Izoard and Galibier in the Tour de France when you nip down the supermarket to buy a pint of milk. However sooner or later one wants to bite the bullet and buy specialised clothing.
We have just ordered a pair of recumbent trikes. We tried them last year and are looking forward to getting on the road this autumn. One of the less serious questions I am turning over in my mind is what clothing and equipment do we need to obtain when we start drifting round cycleways on three wheels?
Shoes are amongst most important items. You need to attach your feet to the pedals on a recumbent trike, because if your feet slip off the pedals and you get your legs caught between the frame and the ground while the trike is still moving, it can cause serious injuries. To quote an American friend: ‘"Leg Suck!" is what happens when you lose concentration for just an instant and fail to keep both feet firmly pressed against the pedals. It's only a few inches and a tiny fraction of a second before your heel touches the path and is immediately sucked back and under the cross-member of the trike frame. There are only two categories of recumbent trike riders: 1) those who ride clipped into their pedals and those who know their orthopaedic surgeon on a first name basis!’ (Thanks Stan!) You could also use toe clips with straps. Click pedal shoes cost 50 to 200 Euros in Germany. Toe clips are cheaper, but maybe less convenient in use. You can of course wear sandals, trainers (sneakers) or walking shoes, as you wish.
Most conventional cycling trousers and shirts have pockets at the back, which if these pockets are in use makes the clothing less than ideal for recumbent cycling. There don’t appear to be many European suppliers offering specialised triking clothing. Make sure you’ve got at least one zipped pocket as stuff can fall out onto the road. The only German company I have found is Icletta the ICE trike distributors (https://www.icletta.com/). The company sells some Bendit gear. ICE trikes offer a number of shirts and tops featuring the ICE logo: https://www.icetrikes.co/. Of course if you are riding a Hase delta trike or an AZUB, a KMX or a HPVelo machine you may not feel comfortable wearing gear from another manufacturer. The way around this problem is to buy neutral shirts from the afore mentioned Bendit. This American company manufactures a range of good looking cyclists’ shirts, shorts and trousers which is overjoyed ship its products worldwide (www.benditcycling.com). You will need to pay postage and customs duty. One complaint I have is that all of the company’s shirts are short sleeved and as a former skin cancer sufferer I would prefer longer sleeves. 
I have a strong suspicion that the running/jogging departments of sport stores could be a good place to start looking for triking gear, especially during the sales. One could pack valuables in what the Brits call a bum bag and our American cousins a fanny pack, if the running tights and shirts are without pockets. On our trip last year during a cold period in October we both wore running tights to keep our legs warm with 3/4 trousers over the top to give us pockets. This worked quite well. 
As for waterproofs it would be a good idea to avoid cycling jackets with a zipped rear pocket. Fortunately I have cycled in conventional walking jackets for some years now. Waterproof over trousers can be bought from outdoor shops. These are a good wheeze as otherwise your shorts or trousers get wet and the wetness diffuses up in to your neither regions.
I suspect a hi-viz waistcoat (vest) is not that useful on the trike. The seat will hide it from  traffic behind, but it might make you more visible to oncoming traffic.
OK the punch up question: Helmets. I notice that a lot of European trike drivers wear baseball caps or sun hats rather than a helmet (see “Tims trike trips” on YouTube as an example). I tended in the past not to wear a helmet when we were nipping down the supermarket, but did so when we were touring. What we are going to do when we start triking earnestly, I don’t know. One has less far to fall from a recumbent trike.
As we have enough conventional panniers to hang on the rack we won’t bother buying any new cool trike panniers. Many trikes have handlebar bags fitted on the side of the seat which let you have rapid access to camera and cheese sandwiches. However you need a support frame to carry it. Terracycle (https://t-cycle.com) and their German agents Icletta offer these as well as a wide range of gear.
Locks: I have a strong suspicion that we will carry our weight in locks when we are underway and try to only stop in Bed und Bike accommodation in Germany, where one is guaranteed lockable overnight bike storage (https://www.bettundbike.de/). 


Touring Lake Constance

Somewhere in the last few months we were at a tourism or cycling exhibition and I stuffed a postcard from the Vier Länder Region Bodensee (Four nation region Lake Constance) into a one of those useful free cloth shopping bags you find at continental trade fairs. I am just in progress of emptying the bag out and filing a lot of the information material in the round file. The postcard has a link to www.touren.bodensee.eu where you can find tours, a route planner with GPS download and accommodation suggestions for cycling, walking and canoeing trips in the Austrian, German, Liechtenstein and Swiss parts of the region. The website is an excellent place to start planning a trip to this cyclist-friendly scenic region. It has the great advantage that the tours are international and do not end at the border which is a typical snag for information issued by national tourist offices.

Brompton on Brocken

While we were at SPEZI this year we picked up a leaflet in German about a Brompton event in the Harz Mountains in Germany in October. The idea is to climb  to the summit of Brocken (1142m) the highest hill in northern Germany, where, as legend has it, witches meet on Walpurgis Night. The ascent will take place somewhat later in the year on Friday 4 October 2019. The plan is to arrive in Schierke (600m) the day before, i.e. on 3 October, a public holiday in Germany. Dine together in Schierke. Spend a night in the Youth Hostel (or hotel, for those who do not have a IYHA card).  Breakfast together (wherever) and meet at 11 o'clock at the barrier on the Brockenstraße (the road up Brocken) at the Naturschutzhaus. Gently climb up the 500 ± metres or 1625 ± ft to the Brocken summit with breaks and walking/pushing passages for those who do not have that much puff. At the top lots of souvenir photos and then a fast descent. (Just make sure your brakes are in good nick.) Then coffee and cake in Schierke and everyone goes home when he or she feels like it or stays a bit. The group is basically German, but there are visitors from other European countries and the organiser would be glad to welcome visitors from the island, as the Germans call the UK.
There is a lot to see and do in the Harz Mountains: half-timbered villages, raging torrents, forested hills, a castle, several national or nature parks, witches and narrow gauge steam trains. There are a number of cycle routes. The beer is drinkable as well.

You will need:

Brompton (mandatory)
Witches broom (at least Nimbus 2000 or higher, mandatory, but the imagination knows no bounds)
Ravens on handlebar (optional)
Bro-o-Bro T-Shirt (can be ordered in advance, will be redesigned every year) Attention: collectors' item!)
Registration with a fee of 15€ (10€ share for the T-shirt and 5€ to finance the Bromptonauten website with a further donation if you want)
Good weather has been ordered. You have to bring your own good mood.

For more details contact Juliane Neuß on info(at)junik-hpv.de. 

DB German Railways (bahn.de) and the Harz Narrow Gauge Railway (https://www.hsb-wr.de/en/start/) will get you to and around the Harz Mountains. "Around" if you don't fancy pedalling after climbing Brocken.

2018's T shirt: 

SPEZI Special Bike Show 2019

SPEZI, the annual Special Bike Show held in the last weekend in April is the world's largest show for recumbents, recumbent tricycles, quadracycles, folding cycles, tandems, family cycles, velomobiles, transporters, electrical bikes, special needs bikes, adult kick scooters, child and load trailers, customised designs and accessories (www.specialbikesshow.com). Fortunately for us it is held in Germersheim, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany about an hour and a half away from home by tram and train. We visited the show for many of the 24 years it has been held including this year.
We always make a point of visiting the Junik-hpv stand (www.junik-hpv.de). This year two items caught our eye: a modified Brompton designed to be ridden by midgets: the Bromptolino 
and a Brompton equipped with a Velospeeder (http://www.velogical-engineering.com/), a friction e-drive that can be used for short periods when support is needed.

The Bromptolino

A few yards away in Hall 2 (or should we write metres) we visited the Sporthopeo stand (www.sporthopeo.fr) offering what could well be a lifesaver for cyclists who due to illness or accident can no longer keep their feet on the pedals. It’s basically a pair of magnets that can be strapped on bicycle or even tricycle pedals to secure the feet to the pedal. A twist of the feet will free the legs in case of need. The system offers more ease of use than conventional click pedals which take some getting used to, in my opinion even on a trike where you are not trying to balance and pedal at the same time.

We popped on to the Voss Stand (German Brompton distributors) and tried to talk a possible customer in to buying a Brompton. Our argument was that the bikes may be expensive but well made. We have had ours for twenty years. We have cycled over the Alps on them and they are in good shape. (I wish I was in such good shape.) One of these days I suspect I will apply to Brompton to pay us a premium😎.
We are seriously interested in buying two trikes. One of my concerns about buying a trike is getting the thing on a train. I know I am going to buy it to cycle and not to take it for trips on the railways, but we would like to travel slightly farther away from home and want to travel fairly quickly without using a car. I popped on to the Hase stand and asked about  the company’s Lepus trike which has been offered in a folding version since 2016. The employee I talked to suggested that folded trikes could be put on DB German Railways regional trains but not on long distance trains. He also said there could be problems with Jobsworths - employees who would love to help you “…but it it’s more than my job’s worth”. The Hase employee had a cargo bike and found it was possible to travel by train with this bike, but from time to time he’d had problems. This was a honest answer.
Our next conversation was with an employee on the HPVelotechnik stand. Delivery times for the Gekko models is about 8 weeks at the moment. This is good news for HPVelotechnik, but it means we will have to wait when we get round to buying a trike.
We were amused to see a further advantage of a recumbent trike on the TRAIX stand (German distributors of KMX trikes): If the self service restaurant is full, take your dinner back to the trike and use the trike as an armchair:

I found the velo spring sprung handlebar grips which are made of nut tree wood an interesting concept (www.velospring.com). Judith was less impressed. Old rubber grips after two or three years use are not things of beauty. These polished walnut grips which are internally sprung will stay good-looking for longer.
There is definitely a lot of interest in e-cargo-bikes and -trikes in view of inner city congestion, lack of car parking spaces and restrictions on diesel and petrol engined vehicles causing air pollution .

Radkutsche Musketier (www.radkutsche.de) - one of many cargo bikes on show.

It could be that growing provision of high speed cycle routes has yielded dividends for the sales of velomobikes - cycle cars - enclosed body work for trike or quad bikes. The ecVelo Challenger (https://www.eurocircuits.com/ec-velo/challenger/) with its rather neat body work on an AZUB TriCon trike caught our eye:

A good looking velomobile

One matter that was of interest was the fact that our local regional paper the Mannheimer Morgen finally noticed after well over 20 or so years that a major cycle event had happened in the area. Unfortunately another velomobile worth 16 000€ was stolen from outside a pub in Germersheim early on Monday morning after the event.

The stolen green velomobile

This theft was reported in the Mannheimer Morgen. I suspect the problem is that the Mannheimer Maimarket, a regional ideal home consumer show starts on the same day as SPEZI, and there is little desire on the part of the Mannheim paper to suggest visitors should attend an event other than the Maimarkt.