The day started out great with an awesome breakfast at Hotel Fidder. They had three varieties of coffee to choose from, all very good, so I start the day well caffeinated. The food was good too.
I hit the road at 8:43am and enjoyed more of those tree-lined lanes and Netherlands bicycle infrastructure. I rode next to beautiful canals with many low draw bridges and many really nice houses. This is a lower-density area of Europe that looks like the best neighborhoods in Atherton or West Linn. A few percent of the houses have those crazy thatched roofs that I can't get enough of.
At 10:20am I crossed the border into Germany and immediately saw much faster and more aggressive driving with higher speed limits. I checked out a bicycle store which was HUGE and full of really high end eBikes. Then more fancy houses before entering the small village of Colnrade where I rode past an independent automotive service shop. There were two small kids playing in the driveway on a toddler balance bike. I whipped a U-turn and asked the mom if they could cut down my windshield. This was tricky to communicate with broken English — think about it, how could they believe they were understanding me correctly? Can you cut my windshield? WAT? Anyway, she got her husband and we discussed. He was worried that the windshield might crack and didn't want to be responsible. But he let me use his tools to cut it myself. Awesome! So much better than all the other places I'd tried to get help with this. His penumatic recip saw made quick work of the cut. He even supplied me with some masking tape and a sharpie marker to mark out the cut. He didn't want any money, but I managed to pay the mom. He rushed out to thank me, so I think ultimately he was happy. I know I left very happy.
Over the next couple of hours, I managed to find sandpaper and electrical tape. Now my eye protection project is complete and the scooter is much easier to ride into the sun, into tunnels, and in the rain.
Very shortly after leaving the shop, I found an incredible little park for a picnic stop. Fantastic, rustic park furniture and an awesome gazebo. I wonder if this park is a dedication to someone's memory. It is way too nice to have happened by accident.
Traffic into Hamburg was a nightmare, so I split lanes for maybe 10km. Then I checked into Superbude which was pretty nice hotel. I parked out front on the sidewalk behind a planter, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but I was parked in in the morning, so getting out was a bit tricky.
After calling Kathi, I went out shopping for a restaurant or grocery store and found a salad for dinner. Exhausted from riding 6 days in a row, I slept well. Little did I know that I was only 1/4 of the way through my streak of 23 riding days.
Zwolle → Hamburg
Zwolle → Hamburg (384 km, 6h26m google time, 6h35m moving time, 8h40m elapsed time, Google +56%)
| Time | Minutes | km | kph avg | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8:40am | 3.6 | loading the scooter at Hotel Fidler | ||
| 8:43am | 98.8 | 100 km | 61 kph | |
| 10:22am | 1.8 | pics at the Netherlands/Germany border | ||
| 10:24am | 32.1 | 36 km | 68 kph | |
| 10:56am | 12.8 | fuel stop BASO Express | ||
| 11:09am | 0.9 | 0 km | 18 kph | |
| 11:10am | 5.1 | Bike Park Koopmann eBike store | ||
| 11:15am | 74.4 | 83 km | 67 kph | |
| 12:29pm | 16.0 | cut windscreen @ PANNENHILFE Domenico Küster car repair shop | ||
| 12:45pm | 3.5 | 1 km | 24 kph | |
| 12:49pm | 28.5 | lunch break at a nice, small park | ||
| 1:17pm | 82.1 | 88 km | 64 kph | |
| 2:40pm | 13.6 | buy sandpaper/touch up windshield at Kiebitzmarkt Meyer's Werk- und Gartenmarkt | ||
| 2:53pm | 30.4 | 30 km | 60 kph | |
| 3:24pm | 8.3 | forest pictures | ||
| 3:32pm | 19.8 | 15 km | 45 kph | |
| 3:52pm | 13.7 | furniture store/hardware store confusion, buy tape at tedox | ||
| 4:05pm | 44.6 | 22 km | 30 kph | |
| 4:50pm | 6.1 | fuel stop TotalEnergies | ||
| 4:56pm | 2.8 | 1 km | 17 kph | |
| 4:59pm | 6.9 | arriving Hotel Superbude, Hamburg | ||
| 8h16m | 6h30m moving | 378 km | 58.1 kph | 79% moving, 106 minutes of breaks |
| Google time (6h27m) + 28% | ||||
The Honda sh350i windshield is about 3 inches too tall. You really cannot look over it, you have to look through it. This is a problem in the rain for three reasons: 1) two more layers of raindrops to look through, and 2) insufficient wind to push raindrops off of your face shield, and 3) turbulance behind the windshield gets raindrops on my glasses. Combined, it means I am looking through 6 layers of raindrops instead of ideally one. Also, as the windshield gets dirty and scatters bright sunlight, it can be difficult to see heading into the sun. Combine that with entering a dark tunnel, and you can suddenly go blind. I really wanted to cut the windshield down 3 or 4 inches.
I saw this shop (PANNENHILFE Domenico Küster) with a couple of very young children playing in the driveway. I stopped and asked the mom if they could help me cut down my windshield. She got her husband and he tried to tallk me out of it, saying it would crack. I said it's polycarbonate and won't crack. He said I could take the risk and do it myself and gave me a pneumatic reciprocating saw. He also supplied some masking tape and a sharpie. Perfect! This is sooooo much better. Thank-you!
He didn't ask for payment, but I gave €40 to the mom who didn't argue. Moments later, the guy rushed out to thank me. We both left happy.
great rustic picnic tables, gazebo for shelter from rain (not today). This is a really exceptional park to be situated a couple of km outside a town with population 785. Somebody put serious effort into this.
Schützenvereine, are centuries-old community organizations blending target marksmanship sports, local civic tradition, and social festivals (Schützenfest). Rooted in medieval town defense, they today function as local social hubs governed by strict German gun ownership laws. Germany has over 15,000 Schützenvereine. So it makes sense that they might have planted a tree here 37 years ago, and I can believe that tree is 37 years old. But why here, so far from Egling an der Paar?
After going into the wrong store, I finally was redirected to the nearby tedox hardware store, where I was able to find vinyl electrical tape to shade the top of my helmet visor. This is becoming important as I get farther north and the sun is low in the sky for long periods of time.