J'ai fini mon tour en France!

Ten days and 1422.6 kilometres after I left Oslo, Kristina welcomed me to her and Laurent's apartment in Strasbourg Tuesday June 27.

Day 1: Fredrikshavn - Hobro (115 km on map / 124.8 km on the bicycle computer after 5 hours and 24 minutes)
After a night on the boat from Oslo, I rolled off the ferry half past eight Sunday morning June 17. I had a nice meeting with the bicycling paths in the flat country of Denmark (which should turn out not so flat further south), said hi to the windmills, had a lazy Sunday lunch in Aalborg, and ended my first day at a reasonable hour in Hobro. In lack of restaurants, Alanya (the first) served dinner.

Day 2: Hobro - Vejle (138/154.5 km @ 6:13)
On the second day I learned the importance of precise navigation; having fueled sun protection and energy in Bjerringbro, I somehow missed the exit to Silkeborg near Kongensbro and did some 15 damned kilometres extra (on the map!). Consequently I had a late lunch in a forest near Silkeborg. Rolling down national road no. 13 among cars and heavy lorries, a rainfall stopped me to put on protective clothes--only to stop after ten minutes. Conveniently enough, a friendly old farmer refilled my water bottles with the most refreshing water (some 22 kilometres north-west of Vejle). Finally in Vejle, people in the youth hostel neighbourhood must be living for their gardens--yet, they have to turn to Alanya's for dinner (which I did, anyway).

Day 3: Vejle - Flensburg (112/135.7 km @ 5:52)
After sharing room with a snoring but very nice Danish guy from Copenhagen working on an archeological project in Vejle, I followed road no. 170 south against the wind towards the German border, only stopping for food in Haderslev and other necessities along the way. The stress resulted in a very painful right hip, and I had to abandon Schleswig as destination and stop in Flensburg where I saw a physioteraphist--and all she came up with was some light massage and the usual advice of going easy. The Germans themselves went crazy, as they won their game in the World Soccer Championship that afternoon, and I had pasta in a nice and quiet Italian restaurant while Jake (an American student wrapping up his studies in Stockholm by bicycling to visit friends in Hamburg) arrived to share room with me and Miyazaki (a Japanese guy travelling Europe with a particular interest in thatched roof houses) at the youth hostel. Nice meeting you, guys!

Day 4: Flensburg - Neumünster (99/112,8 km @ 5:27)
I tried to follow the advice of going easy on Wednesday, and stopped for an early lunch in Schleswig. But after meeting a language professor in French I was so cheered up that I failed to feel the pain and rolled straight through Rendsburg all the way to Neumünster, only cursing about paved roads and a silly misnavigation placing me nicely in the centre of a field. Neumünster youth hostel was governed by a strange but nice lady and filled with kids crazy about soccer, but offered the most awesome room! In addition, I found the nicest, calmest, and best serviced dining place (at not so cheap but still a fair price) in Bistro Blechknapf located in the refurbished and reused paper mill factory Dienstleistungszentrum Papierfabrik just two blocks away! Neumünster is not a nice city, but certainly has its share of qualities.

Day 5: Neumünster - Soltau (137/144 km @ 6:33)
Thursday started with my brand new Fujifilm Finepix V10 going into "pink mode", and my minimalist pack now comprised a piece of high-tec waste--amazing! In an attempt to turn waste back into high-tec digital camera, I stopped by two camera shops in Hamburg. But Fuji has no "camera replaced, no questions asked"-service, magic remains a mystery, and I had to continue with pink mode on. Consequently, as I am not crazy about pink, there are no more pictures from the trip... Sorry about that. Lunch in Hamburg meant sleeping somewhere else, and the day ended at a hotel in the quiet city of Soltau.

Day 6: Soltau - Elze (120/125 km @ 5:27)
After one night in drab Soltau, Celle followed as a marvellous place and I almost regretted that I didn't go the extra 47 kilometres (on the map) the day before. Instead, I had lunch in wonderful Celle before rolling to and through Hannover. I stopped reasonably early in a place called Elze some 31 mapometres further south. Elze featured a hotel by the train station and that was it. So I ate dinner, slept and had breakfast there. Nice hosts, though.

Day 7: Elze - Bad Hersfeld (175/192 km @ 8:16)
After a few days in flat terrain, things got bumpy south of Hannover and all of a sudden I found myself climbing uphill and speeding downhill on my way towards Göttingen, where I planned to stop by a bicycle workshop and find out why my bike was squeaking. A guy directed me to Radsport, where it took three minus two seconds to conclude that my crank was about to blow. Being exceptionally kind, the workshop guy--whose name I should have known but don't--called around town, the next town (Kassel) and even Frankfurt to find a spare bottom bracket for my FSA crank, but without success. Neither did any of the open shops in Göttingen have a spare Shimano 105 crank that I could change to, so I had to continue with the squeaky one--after lunch of course, this time at Nudelhaus. I continued head first towards Bad Hersfeld along a "scenic" route, meaning a nice drive by car and a heavy ride on bike. Yes, it was nice... And so was it to finally find a place to stay in Bad Hersfeld, where a music festival was attracting visitors en masse, filling up the hotels... Dinner became a repetition of Elze: schnitzels.

Day 8: Bad Hersfeld - Frankfurt (135/183 km @ 8:13)
Sunday is excursion day, and this Sunday the local bicycle club arranged a tour in the area around Fulda. For a period I felt like a participant, but got rid of the competition when I continued beyond Fulda. Instead, I got into serious navigational trouble and wasted time, energy and my spare inner tube before I found the right track towards Frankfurt. Cursing around on gravel roads and doing some major detours in the heat almost made me loose my mind, but serious refuelling with an awesome piece of cake in Neuhof saved the day, and I even got a bed in a youth hostel in the busy soccer-city of Frankfurt. Meeting real skyscrapers for the first time was not the grand experience I thought it would be, but nevertheless an experience.

Day 9: Frankfurt - Heidelberg (90/99.9 km @ 4:10)
Waking up to a working Frankfurt on Monday, I got my bike to a (work)shop and had the crank replaced with a Shimano 105. But it wasn't exactly done in a flash, and as my room-mate at the hostel told me that Heidelberg was a very nice city, I dropped the plan of going to Speyer and stopped for sleep in Heidelberg instead. A clever move, as Heidelberg turned out to be very nice (and Speyer very ugly...)--particularly the old city of Heidelberg, where I had my last German dinner.

Day 10: Heidelberg - Strasbourg (140/150.9 km @ 5:59)
Except from being one day early, everything was going as planned when I left Heidelberg Tuesday morning. I even found the way to and through Speyer when the sky became dark and it began raining. There was also a piece of action, as two cars bumped into each other at the petrol station I was at when the rain began. I left the involved parties arguing uninterrupted by me, and rolled on in rain-protective clothes only to take it off a few minutes later when the rain stopped. Focused on getting to Strasbourg I totally forgot to stop for the normal lunch break, and only stopped by the occasional bakery for energy refill. Being eager, I reached Lauterbourg in France earlier than expected, and recalculated my arrival in Strasbourg. Which I failed tremendously at, and therefore had to send two SMSes to Kristina postponing my "new" arrival one hour each. I finally arrived in Strasbourg just before 5 p.m.

I don't know where I'll go bicycling next time, but did I hear someone mention Strasbourg-Brest...?