The Axle of Evil strikes Back!
22-23. May 2003
The Axle of Evil strikes Back!22-23. May 2003 |
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The idea to make a bike tour to Magdeburg for the 2. anual Mücken-Cup (an ultimate frisbee tournement) started last year. Frank, Matthias and I all planed on going but in the end, none of us had time. Having already made this tour with my old bike and Jenny two years ago, I new it was a very nice trip along the Elbe Bike-Path and decided that I had to do it this year. This time Matthias (the president of our frisbee association) had time and came along. We planned one and a half days for the trip, so we left just after noon on Thursday in order to arrive on Friday night. According to the Bike-Line "Elbe-Radweg 1" Bike-Map, the trip should be about 270 km.
The main driving direction was north-west, and we had a west wind of about 15 km/h, which was not to strong for us, but surely made it a little harder. On Thursday we had good weather and no rain. On Friday, however, we did encounter some showers in the morning hours.
We made camp on Thursday night after 119 km just outside of the village Mockritz near Torgau. There we had a nice site directly on the Elbe (with a couple fishermen) where we relaxed and cooked up some pasta! The site is pretty far from any civiliziation (for Germany) and was nice and quiet.
After a nice lunch in Wittenberg on Friday, we drove further untill the tour came to an ubrupt end: my rear axle broke. Luckly we were only a couple km from the village of Lübs, that has a train station. Unluckily we had just missed a train to Magdeburg and the next was to come in 3 hours. After carrying my bike (thanks alot to Matthias for staying with me and taking some of my load on your bike!) all that way, we were pretty exausted and decided to look for a pub to wait out the time.
At this point a discription of the village of Lübs would be appropriate. In Lübs there are 245 male citizens, 222 female citizens, 1 small train station, 1 church, 1 pub with 0 signs, and 1 soccer team with 1 very nice soccer field. The one pub with zero signs, which we only found by asking multiple friendly citizens of Lübs (I guess if you live in Lübs you know where the pub is), happend to be the site of a wedding on this Friday evening. Luckily they served us two dirty bike riders through the window and we were able to drink our arrival beer, even though where we arrived was not where we expected to. To raise our spirits, Mathias and I decided to through around a disc on the very nice soccer field. Frisbee always seems to make things better!
Anyway, we cought our train and arrived in Magdeburg around 10 p.m. and started a long week-end of carrying my bike around Magdeburg. Thanks to the bike shops in Magdeburg, who seemed to have all gotten together and refuse to do repairs on Saturdays, I even had to honor of taking my bike per train back to Dresden on Sunday after our tournement. Luckily there are still some bike shops that know the meaning of Service, such as Fahrrad Pietzsch in Lö btau, Dresden. Unluckily I found out that cheap parts were built into my bike to keep the costs down, one of which was the evil-axle!
Lesson: Next time buy a Diamant!
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Tour Statistics
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 From Goldener Reiter to Lübs (Yellow) |
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Carl and Matthias: Goldene Reiter |
Matthias near Meißen |
Baker for Mohnkuchen |
Spiral Path in Torgau |
Castle in Torgau |
Noodle Feast |
Campsite near Mockritz |
Lunch Break in Wittenberg |
Ivy in Wittenberg |
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Waiting in Lübs |
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