11pm. With the day dimmed, it's now about listening into the dark. Close trains distant trains a few heavy cars and water flushed down unseen pipes, then and now. A plane. And the bell of a church, just once, as if calling for order but not wanting to disturb too much. Sleep as ambition and goal. Have a quiet night wherever you are.
#outerworld #elsewhere #travel #city_nights
#city nights
6pm. Temporary rest. Interesting how fast one gets used to layout and geometry of a different city. Finding waypoints. Navigating the smaller lanes off track. Always, too, wrestling reminiscences to other places, and the bygone moods linked to them.
#outerworld #travel #different_concrete_same_city
#different concrete same city
Und dann dringt doch noch Sommersonne durch städtisches Zwielicht. Im Park verkauft jemand hausgemachte Limonade, ein paar Kinder fahren auf einem alten bunten Karussell. Man hört den Nachmittag und seinen dichten Verkehr, aber für den Moment sind Vögel, Musik, Lachen imstande, das alles zu übertönen.
Irgendwann, zeitlos, zeitverloren. Welt zieht an Gleisen vorüber. Schemenhaftes Grün, Grau, Braun, vereinzelt Sonne über schroffen Felsen. Am Horizont reihen sich Plattenbauten zwischen Wald und Felder. Und immer ist da der Fluss.
#outerworld #travel #trains_and_tracks
#trains and tracks
Zwischenstädte, kleine Brücken am anderen Fluss. Brachen vor Autohäusern, aus akkurat gestapelten Betonsteinmauern wuchern struppige Blüten. Ein großes schwarzes Fahrzeug ohne Nummernschild trägt den Schriftzug "Kulturgut", in Fraktur. Einzelne ausgeblichene Wimpel hängen träge an Elektroleitungen. (Es gibt das leichte Grau windiger Übergangstage, das sich irgendwann wie eine Gardine öffnet. Und es gibt das Grau, das auf allem liegt und klebt wie der Schmutz der Jahre, alle Farben drückend, selbst mit viel Kraft kaum lösbar, ohne dass das Darunter Schaden nimmt. Manchmal ist man dankbar, in Bewegung sein zu dürfen.)
#outerworld #travel #concrete_city
#concrete city
An aurora borealis lighting up the sky of Sanderson, Texas, US, at a latitude of 30°, in the Chihuahuan Desert, is probably a once in a lifetime event. pic by @jeremybourgouin
#photography #photographie #写真 #travel #voyage #旅行 #USA #EtatsUnis #米国 #Texas #テキサス #Auroraborealis #AuroresBoreales #北極光
Some vintage images from the Jersey Shore [Ciick Link Above if preview doesn't display]
California Version: http://www.fenichel.com/LA/
Coney Island: http://www.fenichel.com/coneyisland.shtml
Keep cool, stay hydrated & safe, and have some fun!
(If you'd like, of course! And can... ) Enjoy! 😎 ⛱ 🌊
#Fenfotos #myphotos #summer #beaches #photography #boardwalk #travel
Phew, home. Approx three weeks, and 1481.82km of cycling later, back in my comfy home, in sunny Helsinki <3 My first longer bikepacking trip is over.
During the trip I visited 7 countries (Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, The Netherlands), with 3 of them being ones I'd never been to. I saw a lot of cool things every day. Especially a lot of fields and canals. I absolutely loved the mountains and my mind was overjoyed when I reached the ocean up north at the edge of The Netherlands. I did climbs I had never done before, both in absolute distance upwards during one single climb (614m in Switzerland and 793m going over the Vosges, in France) but also in daily total climb (1633m going over the Vosges, 1222m from Luxembourg to Belgium).
I spent most of my nights in a tent, which I had not done a lot of time before in my life. Afaicr, I've never been on a camping site before this trip. In total I spent 12 nights in a tent, 6 nights in a hotel, 1 day at a friends place and 3 nihts on a boat. I took on a godless amount of rain on myself, riding for hours in constant rain on many days and trying to figure out how to handle camping in wet conditions. I also met many cool people on the way and had some nice discussions especially related to bikepacking.
I spent more nights in hotels than I would have liked, but there was also a lot more rain than I had thought there would be. In fact, I think there were only 3-4 days without rain the whole time. I had to skip some sections I wanted to ride through in Switzerland to get away from the rain, using trains. I also changed my plans somewhat when in the Netherlands. My original plan was to ride along the EV 19, but tbh it was so poorly marked and I had ridden along so many canals and rivers already, I chose to cut directly towards Rotterdam and have an extra day there.
That is actually the one thing I would change if anything. I had put my focus perhaps too much on riding to the next place every day. I think for the next time I would budget in more days exploring some of the larger cities, staying multiple days in one place. Constantly packing up your tent or arranging a hotel does get a bit tiring. I also skipped a lot of things I would have liked to maybe see because I wanted to get onwards (or away from the rain).
I would also probably try to take less stuff with me next time. Due to having the two large panniers, I packed too much stuff with me. Too many t-shirts, especially. Too many things "just in case".
The biggest thing I found problematic (apart from the rain) was that camping site receptions close quite early, some as early as 5pm. At times I chose a hotel not because of the rain but because there were no camping sites available for my arrival time in the place I was riding to. I quickly learned you need to call through them during the afternoon. Some of them accepted arriving after reception closing time, some not.
As for gear, I'm quite happy on the setup I went with. The Ortlieb Vario pannier is awesome, the conversion to a backpack is just super useful when wanting to dismount for a bit but take your most important things with you. I had everything important in the main pannier, like medicine, documents, laptop, chargers, etc. My second pannier had tent poles, clothes, rain gear - and increasingly coming towards the end of the trip chocolate and other things to bring back, with more clothes being strapped onto the rack. Some extra waterproof bags for this kind of stuff were really good.
The front packs were also really good, one of them dedicated to camping stuff, one of them dedicated increasingly for things to bring back home. Initially it had like 20 protein bars that I bought for the trip. I can say they all got used, but I could have probably bought them along the way instead of bringing them from Finland.
Sanna (my bike!) performed really well. No major issues during the way. I think the bottom bracket may be gone based on the noise during the last week, also the rear break has been somewhat powerless for a while (since coming down from the Vosges?). The front tire also got a piece of glass go through it, but the tubeless sealant took care of it once I pushed the piece of glass through into the tire. I had my dry downhill sections in Belgium, being able to fully enjoy the speed, getting up to 50km/h. I averaged my days between about 30 to 120 kilometers in distance per day. I realized during the longer rides that the biggest restriction to the lenght of the ride is actually time, in getting to somewhere where you can spend the night. But at the same time, 80km seemed quite a nice distance per day, in terms of comfort.
All in all, a great experience, and a great three weeks with very little actual serious problems. Time to start planning the next trip :)
More photos available at https://photos.app.goo.gl/5ndNzMHr14hwin6u5 or https://cloud.jasonrobinson.me/s/CjD89No8ccYgtCC
Daily posts of the trip on my Facebook profile or at https://jasonrobinson.me/streams/tag/jasontravels/
Day 21 was train travel to Lübeck, using three different regional trains. I could have done the journey quicker with an IC/ICE, but that would have been twice as expensive. I wasn't in a hurry and quite enjoy the German regional trains for moving around on a bicycle. Lots of space at least outside rush hour.
Got into very pretty Lübeck early enough to go into town after setting up camp in the local camping site. The first fully vegan restaurant I picked was actually fully booked for the whole night! Amazing, even though it meant I needed to go elsewhere. One vegetarian/vegan restaurant called "Erdapfel" on HappyCow served "potato dishes" and had the "british" label on it. Intriguing! Turns out they served jacket potatoes! Fantastic, haven't had one for ages. Also did some shopping, more local chocolate to take back, given everything would be closed tomorrow on Sunday. The highlight of the evening was finding an amazing brewpub called "Sudden Death Brewering". Really recommend visiting this place, great selection of beers, especially the hazy IPA's and super friendly staff. Pizza looked good, though annoyingly I had eaten already so didn't try it.
Distance cycled: 27.35km (today), 1420.24km (total)
Day 22, woken up early by tent campers on both side of my tent packing up into their cars, with dogs barking at each other. Probably the first camping site on this trip I've seen cars driven into the tent area, which is a bit annoying. Visited a really fantastic vegan cafe called "Marae". Interestingly, the place didn't brand itself vegan anywhere I could see externally, just happened to find it on HappyCow. I wonder how many places do this by choice and how it affects their revenue? I would expect not branding as vegan, especially for a cafe, to get more random customers come in. But strongly branding obviously will draw in the vegan community passers by for sure. Anyway, this place was full to every table, had to queue to get one. Had a really nice tofu "scrambled eggs".
It was on/off raining so didn't feel like cycling too much, instead I took refuge in the Hansa Museum for a few hours. Interesting exhibition, a lot of details regarding the time of the Hansa league, focusing not only on the Hansa cities themselves but also on the area of influence and society at the time. A lot of detailed infographics, interactive panels, combined with real and replica constructions, plus audio thrown into the mix, very nicely built all in all. However, I do feel this is one place where the exhibition has been made worse via the usage of technology. When you buy a ticket, you get a plastic card with an RFID chip. This you need to customize on entrance, choosing a language, a city and a theme. I chose English (obviously), London (had to pick something) and a theme of social injustice (or something like that). When you came onto a panel, instead of being to pick a language or content, you swiped you card and the relevant content appeared. What this meant in practice was that I couldn't for example check multiple cities or theme content at a terminal, even if I wanted. Throughout the exhibition I was stuck on "London" and "social injustice". Basically, with this system the exhibition makes it impossible to fully immerse into all the content available, when the attempt has probably been to make following through the exhibition with little effort.
Quickly visited a few pubs in Travemünde before checking in to the boat. It hit me during the ride to the boat that this really is the end of the trip. It's been a fun three weeks, with ups and downs, but every day bringing something new. Next, 30 hours on a boat.
Distance cycled: 44.42km (today), 1464,66km (total)
Reading a random #travel blog, for Lübeck things to do, which lists some ways for "sustainable travel" here in the image.
And two paragraphs above has a section on how to arrive by plane 🤦
Amsterdam <3 My second visit to this city, unfortunately much less in terms of time than last time. So youthful, full of life and bustling with activity. Before my train to Osnabrück at 6pm, I got in some cycling in the center, a nice spicy vegan noodle "meatballs" dish at a nice restaurant called "Soil" and visited a few vegan themed shops. One which I also visited before, which has awesome looking vegan shoes, is called "Vega Life", well worth a visit.
IC-train to Osnabrück was smooth and with lots of room, only one other bike in the roomy bike compartment. Almost fell off my bike riding through Osnabrück when Germany scored in the, apparently ongoing, Euro football matches. Some vegetarian canneloni later, checked into a small edge of town hotel with the most unfriendly receptionist I've ever come upon. Half expected them to throw the keycard into my face.
Distance cycled: 15.94km (today), 1392.89km (total)
Time to move on from Rotterdam, towards the sea! But first, lunch. Vegan sushi place "Nori" seemed highly rated, so that way. One thing I've noticed in a few places outside Finland is that menus sometimes talk of "beef", "salmon", etc. I had to ask in this place whether it was vegan actually and the answer was yes, but that menu items needed common names people can identify with. I'm used to in Finland at least that animal like ingredients usually have a vegan name, like "vuusto" (instead of "juusto") for vegan cheese or using the brand name of whatever the animal substitute is.
Nori's specialty was their meat substitute sushi, so I took a "Meat lovers box" collection as otherwise choosing would have been way too hard. "Meat sushi" felt a bit weird and especially eating something called "meat lover" 😅 But it was very nice, beautifully made and with beautiful tastes.
With a tummy fill of sushi I proceeded north towards the sea. I have been missing the sea, not seeing it for weeks and not hearing the sound of seagulls has been weird. Does the sea have some kind of scent? I swear some kilometers before reaching the beach I could feel the air changing, which gave me energy to push onward.
The best part of this day was the ride along the sea, on a good quality bicycle road within the massive sand dunes covering hundreds of meters of land from the beach. Lots of road bikes going in both direction that I couldn't keep up with even though with the now tail wind I was putting some good amount of speed in myself.
I've always had a thing for the charm of seaside towns, with their rows of hotels, some looking like palaces, some actually called "Palace Hotel", rows of cafes and small shops selling beach stuff. I grew up spending a lot of my summer holidays in places like this on the southern UK coast, which is probably why.
Finally said bye to the sea and headed through Haarlem to Amsterdam, reaching the central camping site "Camping Zeerburg" just in time for a pizza and some beers.
To celebrate the last actual ride day pushed my daily ride record a bit further \o/
Distance cycled: 121.30km (today), 1376.95km (total)
Today is my tourist rest day. Looking back, if I could change a thing, I would have probably scheduled in a few of these in various bigger cities. But then one can't have everything :) At least cycling around is cheaper than spending a day in a big city. And the scenery is often prettier.
Saying that, Rotterdam had some really nice architecture. I didn't visit a large part of it, but the central parts had some really nice modern buildings. Especially loved the mirror dome, which apparently is some kind of museum storage depot? Also loved the market hall (Markthal), it was very difficult to walk around there and not buy lots of delicious things to eat. Today was also the day for buying some things to take back. Found some cool local crafts producer shops to fill that need.
To complete the day, good vegan food. For lunch I had an excellent avocado sandwich and "Snickers" smoothie at the really nice "Happy Food and Health" restaurant. To finish of the day, I got myself to "Vegan Junk Food Bar", whose Amsterdam branch I had already visited a few years back. Great burger with a pink bun and some blue mayo for the chips - love their use of colours in food, there should be more of that.
One thing about the Netherlands I only realized while riding from Eindhoven to Rotterdam - no one (except the few fast riding road cyclists) wears a helmet! Funny how long it took me to realize this. Having a helmet on probably really does put a "foreigner" pin on your head. Even saw small kids riding in heavy cycling traffic without helmets, small toddlers on bike seats without helmets and even a dude carrying their toddler on one arm while operating a scooter with the other. From someone grown up in Finland this is all a bit mind blowing, though I guess city bikes have brought back the "no helmet" culture a bit in Finland too. Stubbornly I kept mine on, even with the great big foreigner pin. Besides, it has great stickers on it!
Distance cycled: 34.85km (today), 1255.65km (total)
Day 16, pouring down in the morning. Somewhat lazy start and backing up in the rain. Today's target would be Eindhoven, and a hotel to dry out everything. The forecast is giving occasional rain for the next two days. Originally, I was going to follow the Meuse river to Rotterdam, but the weather is a bit depressing, plus I've seen so many rivers already, might as well take a more direct route and save a day.
The ride to Eindhoven was pretty uneventful. Strong head wind all the way (up to 10m/s, with 20m/s gusts), which made progress a bit slower.
Dropped into a small hotel, spread out everything to dry and headed to the city for some food. HappyCow told me there is an Irish pub with vegan Shephers Pie nearby - there then! Pie was ok, though unfortunately I can't remember what the original Shepherds Pie tastes like, so can't compare :P
Bike into storage and then zzz. Considering trains to Rotterdam if the weather looks horrible in the morning.
Distance cycled: 54.05km (today), 1104.87km (total)
Day 17, the weather looks better than the forecasts yesterday. Some rain possibly, but mostly cloudy or even a little sun, so I decided to keep on the plan and cycle to Rotterdam. As soon as I committed to this, there were hails for a bit 😅
Eindhoven has a really nice security monitored bicycle storage in the center btw! Security on site during the day and completely locked up during the night. Nice place to store your bike if your hotel doesn't provide storage, like mine didn't.
Leaving Eindhoven I noticed a big patch of broken glass too late and drove over it. "Shit" I thought and then "maybe tubeless will just take care of things". Got ten kilometers out and suddenly the front tire started spraying white liquid. Felt stupid, should have checked the tires for any stuck pieces of glass. This was my first time on tubeless so I wasn't sure what kind of hole would be plugged. The piece of glass was wedged onto the tire in a way that the sealant was escaping from around it. Not being able to pull it out I pushed it in. After a few minutes, the liquid and air stopped escaping. With a little lower pressure I rode 3km to the nearest bicycle shop (gotta love this country) and got the tire topped up. Completely in love with tubeless, even though a glass piece of maybe 5mm in width went through the tire (and is now inside), the pressure seems to be holding perfectly <3 Will need to top up on sealant once back though.
Closer to Dordrecht, where my camping site was, I ran into a new problem never faced before. Sheep completely blocking the path! Prisoners of some local farm. They let me push through them with some protesting baaaa's. I quickly gave this 5km or so stretch of bicycle path the name "Sheep Shit Highway", due to it apparently being the sheep toilet. Poor Sanna, already covered in who knows what.
Arrived at the campsite somewhat past 10pm in heavy rain, which paused just nicely to set up the tent and then started again. Sometimes the rain gods have pity on you. Nice flexible site called "Oude Maas" which allowed me to arrive late and pay in the morning. Going to stay here for two nights and spend a day in Rotterdam.
Longest ride every today!
Distance cycled: 115.93km (today), 1220.8km (total)
"De Oosterdriessen" camp site near Maastricht was really wonderful. Flexible arrival, friendly staff, good sanitary facilities and a great bar atmosphere. Can recommend!
Highlight of this day however was food. After packing up I cycled to Maastricht and launched the HappyCow app. Finally a big enough city with surely some vegan options. A fully vegan restaurant, yay! "Bar Verde" is about 1.5km outside the central area just south along the river, a really nice little ride. The place is beautiful, but of course food is what is the most important thing. "Plant based comfort food" is the theme. I had a "sate", which was pieces of tempeh joined with a really awesome peanut butter sauce. The nearby table claimed their vegan "cheese cake" was the best they had ever had, so obviously I had to stay for dessert as well. The tiramisu was to die for. So happy I visited this place, pretty much the best food I've had this journey.
Unfortunately it can be difficult for a fully vegan restaurant, especially a bit out of the center. Whether vegan or not, if you live in or visit the area, consider visiting the place and support their journey as a restaurant. "Lage Kanaaldijk 54", well worth the visit.
In terms of food, this day was actually my first fully vegan day on this trip since leaving Helsinki, having found vegan options also later in the day. It's been a challenge. I think the best thing was being offered salmon in a small French town when asking for "something vegetarian" from a boulangerie, where they spoke a little bit of English.
But, back to cycling. EuroVelo 19, going along the Meuse river, was my target. Unfortunately, I couldn't really manage to keep on it. Occasionally I found it, then the signs were confusing and I ended up just navigating north approximately in the right direction. The EuroVelo site allows downloading GPX files, but they're not only split into stages but also the stages are split into several parts. I just haven't figured out how to load even one larger part of the route into any app in a meaninful way, given the route has gaps.
Anyhow, doesn't really matter, as the cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands is just so awesome. Whichever route you take, you're guaranteed to be ok, so didn't really miss the EV19 that much. My only two complaints about today are: 1) too much head wind, the whole day was pushing against some pretty persistent wind from the north, and 2) hey it's unfrair that pensioners with electric bikes seem to just be strolling along while I'm having to grind for every singe kilometer. But also it's awesome to see so many cyclists of all ages <3
My target for this journey was "a minimum of 1000km", so yay, that at least is done. There is a possibility I could even reach Rotterdam.
Found a nice campsite between Roermond and Venlo. A few beers and the zzz. Tomorrow it will rain again.
Distance cycled: 86.72km (today), 1050.82km (total)
Ps. If you can only see a few photos, your platform is limiting the amount of photos on a post - if interested in all the photos, check out https://jasonrobinson.me/streams/tag/jasontravels/
