I made it to Reinsfeld. From here it's less than 100km to the French border, so I hope to enter France in about a week.
At the Rhine I teamed up with two other tramps, Peter and Herbert.
We set up a very simple camp - no tents, just sleeping-bags. Herbert, whose gigantic carriage made even me look like a sunday-driver, had built himself a nice oven. With the hot water he provided Peter and me, we were able to produce coffee and soup. And when my flask of scotch was empty, we lay down to get at least 5 hours of sleep.
The next morning I tried to fix Peter's bike. He had a broken spoke. By now that's now problem for me, I thought. But different bike, different system. We couldn't push the spare spoke in position. And when it finally broke, I just straightened the wheel.
"You can do some distance with only one spoke missing until the next one follows. Enough to reach someone with the right tool!"
Later on we actually met that kind of guy. Unfortunately this one also had a very strong refusal to fix things instead of selling new ones.
Anyhow he confirmed my thesis of " the very slowly starting snow-spoke-system", for free.
But our odyssey for some help gave Herbert the chance to join us again until Koblenz, where he set up camp, while Peter kept me company. Along the Moselle we rode a few kilometres out of town and found a nice spot with access to the water.
Two very important requirements for a good camp-site:
- no-one knows you're there to avoid any kind of trouble
- plenty of water to wash myself and clothes - keeps my sleeping bag clean and my body healthy
Peter left too early for my well-being and got himself an hour head-start to collect some returnable bottles before I caught up. In my opinion a good way of filling up the budget.
In Cochem he finally found a workshop, willing and able to provide him with a new wheel. (Un)fortunately the next morning around 9 o'clock at the earliest - definitely too late for my well-being.
"Don't loose today's chances while trying to solve the problems of tomorrow" I told myself and agreed with my conscience to spend the rest of the day in the water. So we searched and found a spot with access to the river, a bench for Peter and a quite acceptable meadow for me.
When I woke up my companion was already gone and the sun took his place. I took my time getting started and rode forward even more slowly than usual, to give Peter the opportunity to catch up. But when it was nearly noon
The Moselle wasn't very kind to me. The sun burned me up "medium rare" and the road destroyed my back-wheel and carriage.
So now I take few days shelter at Tobi's place to heal my sunburns, repair "Rosinante" - the bike and start writing this travel-blog.
Healing is the easiest part.
More difficult was the task of selecting the right bicycle-parts, to order, with my rookie-skills.
I can't recall how many times I had to run downstairs into the garage to count chain-links and measure distances between tiny screws.
Creating this homepage was however a welcome alternation, although I have even less experience in this field.
But one of the reasons I started my journey was to improve myself, so I'll go on facing every new problem by searching for the best solution.
love you both
your Michael