Europe 2013: Into Hamburg

August 25, 2013

The morning lived up to the evening's promise, and I woke up gradually and pleasantly to the sound of the wind rushing in trees. After getting up, I got to see the "motorcycle factory" opposite my tent where children were busily installing cardstock from various sources to rattle against their spokes. Some of them sounded quite credible.

Renee and I shared a bench for breakfast, this being the first campsite which offered delivery of bread -- I got a Kaesebroetchen and a chocolate croissant, which was mis-delivered as a regular croissant -- including his raspberries and blueberries. We talked about an eclectic variety of topics, including trees and what they're called, his family and the misadventures of one of his sons, who went to India and engaged in "dangerous yoga," on which topic I wasn't too clear. Again, we spoke mostly in German, with occasional switches to English when we couldn't think of a particular word. It was very pleasant. I took his picture before setting off, and I suspect he took a much more serious pose than how he presented himself in conversation.

My distance tally today was quite small, as I only had to go from Bremen to Hamburg, which is a short trip. As I left the campsite (which really was lovely -- if you find yourself in the Bremen/ Bremerhaven/Hamburg region, "Campingplatz Juliusplate" is recommended) by 11, and didn't need to be in Hamburg until 7, I had plenty of time to take my time.

Really, I needed it. The chain made worse and worse noises the whole way, and I was extremely glad when I landed in Hamburg, and could park the bike. I'll call up a couple repair shops tomorrow and see if I can get a new chain installed, and ask them to test the output shaft bearing. I rode today like I was on eggshells, since I didn't want anything nasty to happen with the chain.

After discussion with Renee, he recommended, and I went to the little tiny ferry across the river, which cost 2.50 and was quite charming, in a sort of efficient German way. The ramps were cleverly set up, so that the flow of the river would always orient the boat correctly as it came in. I was a little surprised to see that it didn't use a crossing rope or chain, but realized that kind of thing must not be acceptable on a river with normal shipping traffic on it.

On my way through, just as I was trying to decide how to spend the idle part of my day (the ride was only about 3 hours, and I had 8 to work with), I chanced upon a couple riders by the side of the road. One of them was lying on his side, clearly working on his bike, an old vintage 50cc bike that would turn out to be a beautiful red Kreidler with a sticker on the side that said, "Kreidler: Fastest 50cc bike in the world: 210 km/h." If that's right, that's ridiculously fast for a 50cc motorcycle, and I wouldn't even have thought it possible.

In any case, I stopped, and offered what little help I could. After about 10 minutes, we'd worked out that the most useful thing I could do would be to take this gent's phone number up to the vintage bike meet he was supposed to be attending, and see if I could convince them to send help. I bade him good luck, and headed out.

Thus did I come across the Old-Timers Treff of the NSU Quickly club of Bexhoevede. The NSU Quickly is a bicycle-with-motor that was introduced after WWII, when the vast majority of the German population was desperately poor, but in need of transportation. Bicycles were around, and strapping a motor to a bike is a simple and cheap way to get people moving.

I looked around and tried to find help for my gent, but it was surprisingly hard to come across. The meet was comparatively tiny, but there were still a few hundred people there, and the few I approached had a fairly negative attitude, consisting of "why should I shift myself to help him, he'll probably be gone when I get there," which I found quite discouraging. I'm hoping that the help he'd been expecting when I left was in fact the two motorcyclists I saw going his way on tiny vintage bikes, otherwise he may still be stuck out there.

As there was nothing else I could do to help, I took a look around and snapped a few pictures. I got myself a fish sandwich (why pass up a cheap lunch?), and headed out.

The whole adventure with Horst (the gent with the Kreidler motorcycle) had taken an hour and a half or so, and I realized that I should probably orient myself towards Hamburg, so I wouldn't put too much unnecessary strain on the ailing chain, and not arrive too late.

The rest of the drive was ridiculously pretty, with north Germany putting on its best weather for me: puffy clouds gently traversing the sky, gentle wind, slightly more than room temperature. This, combined with a careful avoidance of thought about the chain, resulted in a completely lovely ride to Hamburg.

Once there, I was directed through a large industrial district, with lots of little finicky turnings. After I achieved a more city-like environment, I was also surrounded with a whole bunch of coincidentally-together motorcycles. It just happened that about 5 different groups and individuals came together on the Sunday-evening streets of Hamburg for a little thunder-fest. The other bikes were all cruiser-style bikes, some of them clearly heavily customized, with super fat rear tires and perfectly clean lines.

A few minutes later, I was pulling up to my friend Lissen's address (some of you may have met her when she was in Seattle a couple years ago: my German friend with the reddish-brown hair). I spent a little while reading, as I was early, and then rang up to her apartment.

At this point, we have just returned from our dinner of pan-Asian food at a place a few blocks away, and have had a good conversation on a variety of topics. Tomorrow, I begin my bike-repair adventure, and then we have a couple of days of hanging out to look forward to. Most pleasing!

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Created by Ian Johnston. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.