A Sign of the Times

Apropos of nothing in particular a pair of stories that I found when I was sorting through some papers that belonged to my father. I found a postcard that I had written to my parents around 1970. I wrote, “Oslo is very impressive but very expensive. My hotel costs £4 a night and evening meals cost £2.” More than probably a good reason to make sure your tourist guide is up to date when you do your budget planning.
My father had kept a clipping from the “Bolton Evening News” about my travels in the USA in 1963.On the reverse was a court report. A driver drank six and a half pints of beer and drove his car. He collided with a wall, demolished it, was picked up by the police and ended up in court. He admitted to drinking six and a half pints, but was not fined. The court accepted his reasoning that six and a half pints were much less than his usual evening ration of fourteen pints, so he wasn’t drunk. This was in pre-breathalyzer times.                            

Financial assistance to buy an e-bike in two German provinces.

The German Federal Government does not have any plans at the moment to offer financial encouragement to purchasers of electro-vehicles, but two provinces are offering assistance to buyers of e-bikes. 

In Saarland purchasers of up to five pedelecs, cargo-pedelecs or electroscooters annually can receive up to 50% of the costs to a maximum of 1000€ for pedelecs and 1500€ for cargo-pedelecs. In addition construction of new parking areas, charging pillars and new projects such as e-bike hire for tourists will be supported.

In Baden-Württemberg the focus is on supporting the use of cargo-pedelecs as alternatives to small delivery vans. Companies, councils and not-for-profit bodies can receive up to 2000€ per vehicle. It is hoped to achieve that 5% of the deliveries in major cities will be made by bicycle and cargo bikes.

Both press releases are in German, but a translator program will yield the main facts of the programmes.

Ciclovia Alpe-Adria-Radweg

Eagle-eyed readers of this blog will have noticed that it has not been published recently. I was in hospital receiving treatment for a blood disease. In my experience every time I meet the medical profession they discover something new and nasty in addition. In this case it was noticed my heart was only working at about 30% efficiency. I had noticed a tendency to breathlessness when climbing hills on the bike or on foot but put it down to colds, allergies and old age. If you feel the same way it is worth popping into your local cardiologist and having a check up. Once my heart had been repaired the oncologists could start giving me a cocktail of chemotherapy drugs. One of the side effects of my blood condition has meant that I  have a fracture of the spine because my lymph nodes are swollen and one these is too close to my spine. In this situation I need a little something to keep me cheerful. Unfortunately I am now too old to flirt with the nurses, so I have been looking at a cycling holiday next year. Whether I need a new electro-bike to help the heart or a new electro-trike to not only help the heart and offer support for my back is not clear, but I have found a suitable route: The Alpe-Adria Cycleway: www.alpe-adria-radweg.com. This runs from Salzburg down to Grado on the Med between Triest and Venice, and one can take a train through the Alps. The first question to be answered is will the Drs recommend that I cycle, at all? I have looked in various forums without becoming much the wiser.

The first problem to be solved is how do we get to Salzburg? We can take a direct train from Mannheim. The e-bike would be no problem. DB German Rail accepts e-bikes.  Most long distance trains do not take trikes or tandems, however. Three manufacturers: AZUB, HPVelotechnik and ICE offer folding trikes which mean not only are they cheaper to transport, but you can get them onto a train, possibly with difficulty. Folded bikes go free of charge when folded. I am going to assume that the same applies to folded trikes.

The second possible problem is getting back from the coast after the trip, but it turns out that this just costs money. We can use a minibus with trailer option from Grado back to Udine, Villach or even Salzburg (www.alpeadria.bike). 

It is a gentle occupation looking at various websites about the areas along the route, hotel accommodation and the railway connections. It is probably the modern day equivalent of reading Cooks International Timetable and a good Atlas, which always struck me as some of the most interesting literature in the world.

New fines for using a mobile/cell phone while riding a bicycle in Germany

It is illegal to use a mobile phone or read, write or send a text message while driving in Germany, not that this stops drivers doing this. The same law applies to cyclists, although the fines for cyclists are lower than for motorists. The on the spot fines have recently been increased and are quite hefty: 55€ if caught using a phone, a tablet or a laptop while cycling. I presume by laptop the authors of the law are referring to Microsoft Surface or a Chromebook of sometime, otherwise it would be awkward to attach to the bike. The mind still boggles about taking one's eyes off the road to send messages or pnone.

Locomore is running trains between Stuttgart and Berlin again

The private train operator Locomore has started up again and is operating in cooperation with Flixbus. You can book your tickets on the Flixbus website: www.flixbus.com. Prices are less than the Deutsche Bahn but the journey is slightly slower than with DB.

Electro Cargo Bikes for Hire in Cologne

I came to Germany about 40 years ago. At that time most German young men drank beer. If a visitor came round it was usual to offer them a bottle of beer, so every two or three weeks one would buy a crate of beer. In those far off days one normally used a car in order to drive to an out of town supermarket to pick up the beer. Trolleys, bike trailers and cargo bikes were unknown. I did not have a car so would walk round to a local shop and stagger back with 20 bottle crate causing my fingers to gradually numb. These days we drink about a crate of beer annually and now there is a possibilty of hiring an electro-cargo bike, in Cologne at least: www.donk-ee.de.

Beer soft drink mixtures for cyclists Part II

We spent a week in Oberstdorf way down south in Bavaria recently and I tried a Russenhalbe. This is a mixture of Weizenbier and lemonade. Avoid it like the plague. It is dreadful.

Reducing air pollution in city centres. Finding room for cycle ways in cities.

Mannheim like many German, nay, European cities is looking to the bicycle as a way to reduce air pollution levels. The idea is to reduce the number of not only diesel powered vehicles on the road in the city centre. New cycle ways are planned, both in city streets and as bike-bahns, bicycle super highways. There are a number of new cycle ways in Mannheim and those that are in city streets take up room that could be utilised by motor traffic, shock horror! Opposition to these measures normally fall in to two classes, either suggesting a different, more inconvenient route along quieter city streets running parallel to a direct route or the end of civilization as we know it argument, that the measures will make shopping in the city centre so inconvenient, that customers will go elsewhere. The latter argument falls down when one notices that many people, us two for example, use public transport to visit the city to buy clothing and outdoor gear. If we decided to buy furniture or white goods - fridge or washing machine we'd have it delivered.
The one thing that most of the petrol heads miss is that although they might be slightly delayed driving their status symbol into Mannheim to find a parking spot or coughing up the tram fare to park the beast, there will be 10 or 15% fewer cars on the road. This will mean the delay will be less. In view of the air quality in cities all the world, there are going be restrictions on the use of cars and we all might as well get used to them.

Vacation Medical Insurance for Trips to Great Britain

This note was triggered by meeting two US Americans on our walking trip through Northumberland. They had been cycling, but one of them had an accident and had injured her knee. She refused to go to the local National Health Service hospital to have the knee examined and skyped her Dr. in the USA to have a long distance investigation. The couple had several weeks more vacation to "enjoy". We enquired and were told treatment would then follow in the USA, but the lady was in  pain.  Whether the two had something against socialised medicine or whether they had no vacation medical insurance so were worried about the cost of treatment we didn't enquire.

We have known cases where visitors from outside of Europe have come to Germany without medical insurance and it can be quite expensive. Treatment in Britain is cheaper, but… Cyclists visiting Britain from outside the EU, however should take out a vacation medical insurance. If anything happens it is cheaper than being without an insurance. British public hospitals charge non residents which wasn't formerly the case, but these days the hospitals want to see an European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) or a credit card. Just don't ask about dentists, who are largely private in the UK. An ankle or knee injury could well make a serious hole in £500. Short term medical insurance cover costs less than this.

Visitors to Britain from countries either in or associated with the European Union can receive an EHIC which gives the holder medical treatment in the various countries of the EU under the same terms as an inhabitant of the country they are in. At the moment this applies to UK citizens as long as the country is in the EU. What will happen after BREXIT is not clear.

Free cargo bike loans in Mannheim, Germany

Following the example of other German cities Mannheim now has a number of cargo bikes that one can borrow. Details in German on „www.lastenvelomannheim.de“. It's a chance to use one occasionally or try one out before buying one.

Changing trains in Hamburg, Germany

If you are travelling south from Hamburg by train rather than using the main railway station, Hamburg Hauptbahnhof consider using the Dammtor station just to the north. The Hauptbahnhof is very busy, whereas Dammtor is much quieter. Just check that your train does stop there before heading south using www.bahn.de. Especially if you are going to put a bicycle on the train Dammtor is much easier to use.

Bicycle of the week?

We subscribe to a digital version of the "Observer", a British Sunday newspaper. The newspaper features a Bicycle of the Week. More often than not these are expensive thin tyred road bikes without such luxuries as mudguards or baggage racks meaning they are useless as commuter bikes although they are often described as such. The "Observer" is not alone in this. Most newspapers review motor cars that are outside the financial comfort zones of their readers. I think I should stop reading these bicycle reviews. It will be better for my blood pressure.  For some reason unknown last weeks bicycle of the week is a motor bike, OK without a petrol engine, but fitted with an elecric motor: a Neematic FR/1. This ticks all the newspaper boxes: it's expensive, Price: £7,075. It probably needs a motor bike licence to ride it, at least in Germany with its top speed of 50mph (80kph). It's basic purpose in life is to be popped on the back of a car and ridden offroad skidding round forest tracks as though one is in the Utah backwoods. It's heavy though, 50kg. There are no points where one can fasten a bag, so you need to carry your gear on your back. 

What worries me is that at the moment about all these electric mountain bikes is that we spend a modest amount of time hill walking in the Odenwald and in the Pfalzerwald, where the Germans who consider that one is roughing it, if there is no chance to munch a sandwich, drink a Weizenbier, a cider or a glass of wine once one has ascended the summits, have built inns and mountain huts on the tops. In the past one saw the odd mountainbiker up the top, as  it was hard work climbing three or four hundred metres from the plains, but with electric oomph there are more and more bikers in the restaurants. Even if they lay off the Dornfelder Rosé and most off them do, they can still let the pig out on the way down as though they were taking part in the Trans Provence race. This is what mountain bikers do and it bothers me. Normally the rules are that the mountian bikers should follow the wider more gradual forest roads, but for some of them it's more fun to transfer to the paths that we walkers use. OK if I am walking uphill, I can keep my winkers open to spot any would be downhiller barrelling down the narrow paths, so I can shout "BIKE!" and jump into the bushes, hoping that she who must be obeyed has heard me and followed suite. Walking downhill is more difficult. One needs to look round like a WWII fighter pilot in a dog fight. Matters aren't helped by the advertising for the Neematic which shows a mountain biker skidding around corners burning off adrenaline. It does not encourage responsible cycling in woods packed full of families and pensioners rambling uphill and down dale.

Mudguards/Fenders

Recently I have come across three examples of bikes that in my opinion are not fit for purpose as touring and commuter bikes: two hire bikes used by a pair of US Americans in Scotland; a bike offered as a prize in competition to celebrate 200 years of the bicycle and "The bicycle of the week" in a British Sunday newspaper. I checked the bicycles of the week feature and realised that over 90% of the bicycles shown were without mudguards although they were intended to be used for commuting and/or touring. I am sorry to tell you this but in Britain it rains a lot, not as much as is popularly thought, but one can normally reckon with wet roads from time to time even in summer. Your tyres will then spray mucky water at you and your bike. If you are a fair weather commuter or tourist, or even just use your bike as a fitness machine then a bike without mudguards does give you a sportier image, but if you are going to use your bike as a means of transport then think seriously about mudguards.

Booking a touring holiday in Franconia, for example or in the far east of Germany

Where do you start planning a cycling  holiday in Germany? You can, of course, fly to say Friedrichshafen and then follow the Rhine to the Dutch border finding your finding your overnight accommodation as you drift downstream. This is not a problem if you are in a small group and you start to look for your acommodation at around 4pm.
If you would like to get off the beaten track or you are worried about your lack of German, then check out the offers such as:
Those shown on www.mainradweg.de on the River Main between Bamberg and Aschaffenburg. This self-guided pre-booked trip costs 519€ pp for 8 nights with breakfast. Contrary to what "The Guardian" writes restaurant meals in Germany are less than in the UK.
The Fürst-Pückler Weg - 500km through Eastern Germany. This self-guided pre-booked trip costs 659€ pp for 10 nights with breakfast. http://www.radreisepartner-spreewald-lausitz.de/ 
The Spreewaldradweg - 420km through Eastern Germany. This self-guided pre-booked trip costs 399€ for 6 nights with breakfast.You end up on the edge of Berlin and could then spend a day or two there and follow the route round the wall, the former border with the DDR. The website is www.spreewald.de and it is in English.

MTB Trans-Odenwald Tour

Follow in the footsteps of Wagner's heroes like "Siegfried - The Killer of Dragons" on a mountain bike rather than a horse. How do carry your sword? We are not mountain bikers, preferring to use map reading and thinking to avoid hills. This trip is on offer by one of the bike shops in Lorsch, south of Frankfurt am Main. It should be possible to fly out on an early morning flight to Frankfurt International and followed by a train to Lorsch to reach there in time to join the group. You will experience the Odenwald, one of the German middle sized mountainous or hilly areas. From Lorsch in the Rhine Valley, you cross the Odenwald almost to the Bavarian border and back across the Neckar to Lorsch. The bike shop organises the hotels, baggage transport, the sag waggon and offers technical support. The ice cream shops in Lorsch are something else. After your ice you can catch an evening flight back to Britain to go into work on Monday morning.
The requirements:The trip is only really suitable for fit, technically competent mountain bikers, but you can cheat by using a MTB e-bike. The trip is four consecutive days with a total of about 230 km and 4,000 m. Bike hire is also a possibility.If you are interested drop the organisers an email under info(at)odenwaldbike(dot)de.

Radweg Deutsche Einheit - German Reunification Cycle Trail

The Radweg Deutsche Einheit - German Reunification Cycle Trail was initiated in 2015 by the German Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, Alexander Dobrindt. It runs from the previous capital, Bonn, the "Bundeshauptdorf" - "Federal Village" as it was known, to the present capital Berlin. It is designed to show how reunification was achieved and what has happened in the 25 years since. Unlike most German cycle routes which are planned by a province, sometime acting together with another province, this was the work of the federal government. It is about 1100km long and offering some climbing as it does not follow a river like many of the major German cycle routes. Perhaps because of this plans are in place to install e-bike charging points at the stopping points near the 100 or so highlights en route. These stopping points "Radstätte" offer information, free WLAN, charging points not only for for  e-bikes and mobiles, digital information vis touch pads, bike racks and, in some cases, baggage lockers. Much more information can be found under https://www.radweg-deutsche-einheit.de/, in German only unfortunately.

Cycling Holidays in Alsace

A number of outdoor centres, holiday villages and youth hostels in Alsace cooperate to offer holidays across Alsace. You can if you wish help rebuild a mediaeval castle using authentic methods, go canoeing, learn or brush up your French and German, or hike. However the cycling trips would be of more interest to the readers of this blog: cycle touring in the North of Alsace or mountain biking along the Vosges Mountains. Much more information can be found under http://www.aja-tourisme.fr/en. If you looking for a holiday with children or young adults this could well be a solution.

Cycling in Alsace

The French are gradually installing touristic cycle routes across France. For many years if you saw a tourist cyclist in France he or she would be a foreigner. The French either used a rusty ladies bicycle from the 1920s to cycle beret-wearing to the boulangerie pick up a baguette or two, or they wore a helmet, sausage skin shorts and Lycra® tops on a road bike in an attempt to get fit enough to recreate the glory days of Le Tour, when the French won, i.e. sometime ago.  French cycle route planning was to issue maps put out by central government showing where it was intended to have cycle routes with no timetable for completion. Alsace was always somewhat of an exception to this as the Germans came over the border to cycle and enjoy a French way of life - very strong coffee, eclairs and vin rouge in an area where many people understand German, Alsace has also benefited from this discovery that cycle tourists are a good source of tourist euros and new routes have had signposting, etc. installed. For many years the only route that was signposted was the Rhine Route on the left bank of the Rhine between the French border in Lauterburg/Lauterbourg and the Swiss border in Basel/Basle/Bâle. Nowadays the Marne Rhine Canal towpath from Strasbourg towards Sarrebourg, the Saar Coal Mines Canal from Gondrexange north towards Saarbrücken, the Alsatian Wine Road Cycle Trail and the Rhone Rhine Canal from Mulhouse to Belfort are well signposted. There is more information on www.cyclinginalsace.com in English. The Alsatian Tourist authorities produce an excellent printed map of Alsace which includes lists of firms offering bicycling holidays and bike hire. Drop a postcard to Comité Régional du Tourisme d'Alsace, 20 A rue Berthe Molly, 68005 Colmar, France or an email to crt(at)tourisme-alsace.com.

Beer soft drink mixtures for cyclists Part I

Many continental beers at 5% alcohol content are stronger than British draught beers at 2% alcohol. As in Britain it is usual for cyclists especially to dilute their beer with lemonade. However what do you ask for? Asking for a shandy in a Munich beer hall will get you some funny looks and no shandy.

Here is a list of the names that various dilute beer mixtures are called:

The easy one  for our American cousins in Britain is Shandy, a mixture of about 50% beer and 50% lemonade. It would appear that our US friends drink Shandygaff which is the same thing. One of the most refreshing drinks of this type is a Ginger Beer Shandy, which could well become an export hit in post-BREXIT Britain. This too is a 50:50 mixture, but note it is a Ginger Beer not Ginger Ale. Since most beer lemonade shandies come pre-bottled these days Ginger Beer Shandy is not easy to find.

In southern Germany you ask for a Radler - a cyclist and in the north you ask for an Alsterwasser if you want a beer lemonade mixture - the Alster is the lake in the centre of Hamburg. However in some parts of Bavaria, but do not ask me where, a Radler is known as a Russ. On the River Elbe the familiar beer lemonade mixture is called  Ententeich or Entenpuhl - duckpond. On the River Weser in the northwest of Germany the beer lemonade mixture is called Fliegerbier - Pilot's Beer. In and around Münster in Westphalia the locals drink a beer orangeade mixture called Wurstwasser - sausage water. Why, I don't know. I drank it once on a very hot day in the winegrowing area of the lower Mosel Valley. It was all the pub had. I suppose it was really twice - for the first and last time.  If you are in Berlin in summer ask for a Berliner Weisse (German: Berliner Weiße) mit Schuß which is a cloudy, sour, white beer of around 3% alcohol which is coloured with a shot of Himbeer raspberry or Waldmeister green artificial woodruff cordial. In north-eastern part of the former German Democratic Republic a beer raspberry flavoured soft drink mixture is known as a Potsdamer.

In Austria you ask for an Almradler a mixture of beer and Almdudler. The original Almdudler is a sweetened carbonated soft drink made of herbal extracts. Almdudler is the "national drink of Austria". In the western Austrian province of Vorarlberg you need to specify whether you want your beer diluted with lemonade Süsses Radler or with mineral water Saures Radler.


Dutch cyclists drink Sneeuwwitje - Snow White, a beer lemonade mixture but don't ask me how you pronounce it.

The Belgians around Antwerp call for a Tango - a beer with cola when they wish to dilute their excellent beers.

In Switzerland and in Luxembourg one asks for a Panaché (from the French panacher meaning to mix). If you wish to dilute your beer with cola then add the word "coca"- Panaché coca. In the Saarland, the German province, where French is the first foreign language taught in schools, one asks for a Panasch to obtain a lemonade beer mixture.

One can, of course, use non-alcoholic or low alcohol beers instead of a full strength beer. If you are not taken with the flavour of alcohol-free beers, this is an excellent way of disguising their too hoppy flavour.

These days a lot of German breweries like those in the UK pre-mix Radler. You'll get a bottle of Radler rather than a mixture of lemonade and draught beer.

If when you are touring in hot weather you hit a wall of tiredness we find a quick lift is offered by a cola-orangeade mixture known in most of Germany as a Spezi, but in Mannheim and district as a Kalter Kaffee - cold coffee.

NSU Bicycle Museum Neckarsulm Germany

Somehow we've missed the Deutsches Zweirad und NSU-Museum near Heilbronn in the past. I supect we were put off by the NSU connection. NSU built bicycles, motor cycles and cars including those with Wankel motors. The museum features however 400 exhibits in 2000 square metres. The bicycles exhibited range from the 19th Century to the present day, from the hobby horse to the e-bike.
The address: Deutsches Zweirad und NSU-Museum, Urbanstraße 11, 74172 Neckarsulm. The museum is signposted from the entre of the town. It is a short walk from Neckarsulm railway station through the park to the former Deutschordensschloß. The website in German offers an impression of the museum: http://www.zweirad-museum.de/.
Entrance costs 6 € for adults, 5 € for seniors and 3 € for students. Children under 6 get in free. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 until 17:00. It is also open on public holidays if they fall on a Monday.