DAMDetails - Triplog

Category	Type	Name	Description	Service Provider	Cost	Kms	To Date	Total
Activity	Cycle	To Kelsterbach	Today: 35km; Total: 1157km		$0.00	35.00	35.00

Last night was my last night of sleeping on the “egg crate” sleeping pad thing. Worst gear mistake of this trip for me to bring one of those instead of my beloved down mat. I’ve had to fold it in three and keep pretty much the whole thing under my hips, leaving the rest of me on no sleeping pad at all just so my left hip doesn’t bother me too bad. Blah. Brent really likes his, and the advantage is that you don’t have to worry about it getting punctured. That’s why I brought it in the first place. But it doesn’t work for me at all.

On our 2015 tour, I decided that I needed a super-safe way to carry my ortho appliance. I’ve had it since I was a teenager, and it is the only thing that stands between me and endless, chronic headaches for the rest of my life. So, in 2015, I bought a bra with a zipper compartment in it where I carried the appliance. I called it the “boob safe”. It had its problems, specifically, lumpiness and acne-inducing properties.

For this tour, of course, I still needed a super-safe way to carry the appliance. I was planning on bringing the “boob safe” again, but at the last minute I found some awesome cycle shorts with little zip pockets on the back, so I brought two pairs of those instead. I call them, of course, the “butt safe”. They have worked out WAY better than the “boob safe”. They’re awesome bike shorts – way better than my old ones – and the little lump of the appliance that sticks out on my back is virtually invisible, especially when I have the Beaver Bag (my day pack) on. Yay for the “butt safe”!

We had a super easy ride to Kelsterbach today. Kelsterbach is a small town in between Frankfurt and the Frankfurt International Airport, so it’s super-handy for our last couple of days. Sometimes we have trouble remembering the names of places because we go through so many places, and lots of them have similar names. So, to help us remember, sometimes we “modify” the names. For example, the other day when we were going to be going through the towns of Unkel and then Erpel, so we started saying Uncle Erpel”. As a mnemonic, Laura has dubbed Kelsterbach “Cluster-F*ck”, although it is not remotely living up to that moniker – it’s a great little town and so far everything is going smoothly. We’re staying in an AirBnB place, which is always an adventure. The person who manages the AirBnB listing is not the person who met/greeted us, and our actual hostess’ English is a little limited, so it took us a few minutes to figure out what was going on.

Brent and Laura are doing a bunch of scheming and planning for how to get their bikes to the airport. I’m trying to figure out who to give my bike to. It’s always been my plan to give Dewie away at the end of this trip. She has too many “issues” to be worth bringing home. She got me through this tour, and did a great job, but she’s done now. Anyway, Brent and Laura are planning to ship their bikes home using DHL, instead of taking them on the flight. DHL is the national postal service in Germany, and their prices are amazing compared to other places. UPS wanted over E500 to ship a bike to Canada, but with DHL, it’s only E100. That’s $150 Canadian, which is exactly the same as taking it on the flight as luggage… only easier… we hope. The plan is to get bike boxes and take them to DHL, which is only a few blocks from our AirBnB. We would then bring the bikes over to DHL and pack them there and ship them directly. No fussing around with trying to get packed bikes someplace. Let’s hope that all goes well and doesn’t turn into a “Cluster-F*ck”.

Our AirBnB was supposed to have WiFi. They really don’t. They have some kind of repeater that amplifies someone else’s WiFi, but it barely works within the house. If we’re sitting within 5 feet of the box, we can load one web page every five minutes or so. It has been a tremendous hindrance to our ability to get our required research done for preparing and packing to come home. Which leads me, finally, to our trip "Kelsterbach" (see “Cluster F*ck”, June 27).

I have never been more frustrated with German efficiency than I am right now. After doing a small amount of research last night (with our horrifyingly slow WiFi), we set out at 7:30AM. We would have liked to do more research before we left, but sometime in the night the WiFi connection point completely disappeared and never came back. We finished up at 7:30PM after achieving absolutely nothing.

We stopped first at the Flughafen (airport) to ask Air France if they sell bike boxes. The internet has them selling them for €5 in Paris, but I couldn’t find any info about Frankfurt. The Flughafen is just one stop up from where we’re staying in Kelsterbach, so it’s easy to stop in there. The young lady had a heck of a time trying to sort out whether they sell boxes – it included asking other staff members and making some phone calls. Finally she said that she thought they did, but it would take them a while to find some and we’d have to wait. We suggested that we would come back later in the afternoon, which she thought was a glorious idea.

Laura remembered seeing a DHL at the Flughafen in 2015 (wow) so we looked for that and talked to them. They close at 7PM, and they take large packages, just like the place in Kelsterbach. Taking care of the bikes right at the airport would be easier, so that’s our new plan – shipping the two bikes out from the Flughafen DHL.

We proceeded into Frankfurt where we tried to find some cheap duffel bags. We’re probably going to walk 1km from our accommodation to the train to get to the airport, and I’m not sure I can carry a packing box that far, so I’d like to have a duffel bag. We did end up finding a few; the cheapest being about €40. None of us actually needs a duffel, so that seems expensive for a shipping container for a one-way flight. Brent convinced me that packing boxes were the way to go, and both Brent and Laura assured me that they’d come back and help me with my packing box if necessary.

We snooped around Frankfurt just a little, stopping in at the Galleria and looking at outdoor stuff (i.e., skorts) and shoes, and also the Hugendubel to look at cycle maps and English books (for the flights home). Then, we high-tailed it back out to the airport to find out about the Air France bike bags. The fellow who talked with us on our return (our young lady was gone) advised that they don’t have bike bags.

So, back into Frankfurt we go, with our little bit of information about where to find some bike stores, which is where we would normally get our bike boxes. It was a terrible game of “hot potato”. Each place we visited passed us off to another place until we essentially ran out of business hours. The most “unfriendly helpful” guy told us to look for bike boxes in the Müll (garbage). The problem with looking in the Müll (and here’s where my frustration with Germany comes in) is that there’s no flippin’ Müll around ANYWHERE. You cannot find bins of cardboard recycling for love nor money. As soon as a bike comes out of the box in the store, the box is somehow magically whisked away to Müll heaven never to be seen again.

Disheartened and frustrated, we headed back to Kelsterbach. Laura and I were physically done, but Brent still felt good. We had dinner at the Italian restaurant and went back to the AirBnB.

I had exchanged a couple of emails through the day with our AirBnB host. He first of all advised that we speak to his wife about the WiFi. Very unhelpful. When we stopped back in briefly in the afternoon, she told us that she had the WiFi unplugged when no one was using it. No wonder it disappeared and never came back. She told us we could plug it in if we wanted to use it, which we did, but it is still just as bad as ever. She said that they were getting better WiFi “next week”. I have my doubts. The host said he would call their provider, but I doubt that too. I don’t think they have a provider. I think they’re amplifying someone else’s WiFi and feeding me a line knowing that I’ll be gone soon and can’t do anything about it. I will definitely be complaining to AirBnB about it anyway… I made it super clear that WiFi was critical to our last two days in the country and asked him to confirm that he had good WiFi before I booked.

With the inferior WiFi, early this morning I spent about 1.5 hours getting about 5 minutes worth of research done. I found some moving supply places that looked promising for buying boxes. We had finished up so late last night that we ended up not buying breakfast groceries before we went back to the AirBnB. So, this morning when everyone was ready to move, we came into town and had breakfast at the Haupbanhof (main train station). We then took the tram out to LagerBox, which to me looked like the most promising moving supply place. Finally, luck was in our favor. We bought two wardrobe boxes (for the bikes… Brent and Laura will have to cut them to size and reinforce them), and three packing boxes for our other stuff. What a relief!

Back onto the tram we got with all the boxes and rode the tram, then the train, to the Flughafen. I am currently waiting at the Flughafen with the wardrobe boxes (right across from the DHL). Brent and Laura have taken the packing boxes back to the AirBnB and are going to return with their bikes to pack up and ship off at the DHL here. Assuming that our "Kelsterbach" is over with, they should be back here soon, pack their bikes up, and pass them straight over to DHL, which should cost €99/ea, which is the same as taking them as luggage on the airplane ($100 for oversized luggage and $50 for second piece of luggage).

Laura and I have vowed, no more looking for cardboard (bike) boxes at the end of a bike tour. We will buy the small bike bags that Laura has found, or we'll rent bikes. Even ever-optimistic Brent has said that if it's going to be this hard to get the bikes home after, he'd be interested in renting. Now THAT'S something.

I messaged two "small time" bike repair guys to see if they wanted Dewie, or could suggest someone who might want her. They've both replied to say they want her, but with my bad WiFi, I only saw the messages today. I've responded back to them. Hopefully I can connect with one of them and get her shipped off to start her new life.

Annnnnd... the saga continues. The largest dimensions for DHL are too small (for bike wheels). So, Brent checked on luggage storage, which is do-able with pick-up early tomorrow morning. We also ran into a couple of cyclists who told us that the luggage wrapping guy in departures sells bike boxes for €25/ea. The wardrobe boxes are proving difficult, so Laura and Brent have opted to buy the bike boxes.

Hopefully they'll have their bikes packed up and into luggage storage sometime this afternoon. If our "Kelsterbach" karma will allow it. I have a guy coming past the Kelsterbach "S-Bahn" station at 6PM to get Dewie. I'd contacted a couple of little local bicycle repair guys to see if they wanted her, and they both did, so the first guy I talked to gets her. Hopefully THAT works out.

It was always my plan to leave Dewie behind in Germany rather than bringing her back to Canada. She was ridden hard by her previous owner, and by myself, and she had some “pre-existing conditions” before we even went to Germany. I knew I wouldn’t want to pay the $200-ish to bring her back. So, I packed the original pedals and front skewer along on the tour so that when I left her behind, I could keep my long skewer and clip pedals, but still give someone a rideable bike.

Before we reached Kelsterbach, I’d used Yelp to reach out to a couple of local small bike repair guys to ask if they’d like to have Dewie when I leave her behind in Germany. Because of the lack of WiFi at our accommodation, I’ve barely been able to check anything… especially e-mail.

Today when I was waiting for Brent and Laura at the airport, I had access to the WiFi there, and checked on some things. The first thing I noticed was a message from a young fellow named Jonas who is learning to be a bike mechanic and wanted Dewie as a “test subject”. Perfect fate for her since she has some mechanical challenges. I replied right away to make arrangements to give Jonas the bike.

Then I noticed that I’d actually already received a message from Sven, two days earlier, from the other shop. He overhauls and sells used bikes to cover shop costs and wanted Dewie for that. That would have also been a good solution for her. I felt bad because Sven had messaged me first, but I’d already promised the bike to Jonas. I told Sven that he could have her if Jonas didn’t work out.

My arranged time to meet Jonas was 6PM in Kelsterbach. A rain shower had just blown through and I was standing in the drizzle with Dewie. By about 6:08, I was starting to wonder if Jonas was going to show, when suddenly, here was a young guy approaching. He was SO nice, and SO excited about getting the bike. He even gave me a little bag of presents as a thank you – some cookies and candy. SOOOO sweet! I am so happy about the way it worked out. Brent and Laura were waiting in the nearby restaurant, and Brent had gotten up to have a look when he saw a young guy ride by on a bike looking “really happy”. Yay! Yay for Jonas and Yay for Dewie! Have fun on your next life adventure, Dewie!

A city bus running to the airport stops almost right outside the door of where we stayed in Kelsterbach, so we checked the schedule for it. We easily took the bus to the airport, easily picked up Brent and Laura's bikes, and easily checked in and departed.

The universe couldn't let us get away with a completely easy get-away, though... just to add a final little "Kelsterbach" to everything, Laura noticed on the flight to Toronto, that her boarding pass for her connection to Calgary was for 8PM instead of 1PM. That would not be great in any case, but considering she's flying to Winnipeg at 7AM tomorrow, it's particularly crummy.

When we got off in Toronto, she raced to the Air Canada customer service desk and the nice lady there helped her get onto the 1PM plane. She raced to the flight and just barely made it, but apparently her bike didn't. Hopefully she'll be able to get it delivered by AC, although I'm not sure who they'll deliver it to, what with Laura being in Winnipeg.

Brent and I landed in Edmonton just after 4PM. Brent's bike box was upside-down and open, but the bike seems unscathed. Michel picked us up, per the plan, and whisked us home. It was all good.

Thoughts on Cycle Touring Hardships

Romantische Straße and the Mittelrhein

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