So, with a dog leg out to the West from Harwich to call in on sister Calla just outside Cambridge, yesterday Monday July 17 saw us setting a final distance record of 170km/106 miles (!) for our 2023 tandem journey around Germany, a second-best-ever since traversing 240km of the GDR in one day 44 years ago.

Admittedly this time of course with electric motor help (without our Pendix, we couldn’t at our age have done this trip), 12 hours in the saddle, and smooth as a baby’s…

Last night at half nine we could have gone on and on, and were thrilled to be welcomed by a spectacular sunset casting our shadow as we approached Sheringham through the NOT-FLAT North Norfolk hinterland (Oscar Wilde was wrong, and confused us, we think, with the yes-very-flat Fens – the height profiles at the bottom of the above images tell the story.)

Our two days 270km home from Harwich confirmed that the UK lags lightyears behind Europe in establishing – and maintaining – cycle paths.

On this side of the Channel, there is simply no cycling infrastructure worth taking seriously, despite the underfunded endeavours of organisations like Sustrans.

National Cycle Route 1 starting in Dover and coming all the way through Norfolk before heading up the East Coast is – I’m sorry to be blunt – largely a joke.

Approaching an East Anglian road crossing through weeds and narrowest of gates.
Terrible signage
Major cycle route through Norfolk overgrown with brambles and nettles. Unmaintained, and as consequence barely used.
Now how might ordinary cyclists negotiate this bridge over a dyke in the Fens.
Just to compare how cycling, in NL, can be prioritised.

See pictures, of cycle routes overgrown with nettles and brambles, muddy under-tyre and appallingly signposted – though curiously on the road between the North Sea port at Harwich and next town Manningtree the route has signs almost every 100 yards to confirm this is a Cycle Route, capital CR.

Compared to what we enjoyed in Germany and even more so in the Netherlands, Britain’s official cycling policies are a joke, an embarrassment, discouraging all but the seriously dedicated like us from cycling themselves, to work or with kids to school.

Still, hey ho, we do have nuclear aircraft carriers and Brexit. What’s not to like…

After the sheer pleasure, the distances, the weather (hot and sunny pretty much all the way round, mostly with wind behind us), the conversations, the culture and the (relative of course) political, social and economic grownup-ness of Northern Europe, returning to the UK is a sobering reminder of how this country is falling behind in so many ways.

But, I digress. Let’s illustrate the better bits of the past two days.

Daisy at Flatford Mill of Constable Haywain painting fame.
Fenland cycling
As we visited Jutta’s grandfather’s grave in Dresden, we found ourselves yesterday close enough to Ashill in S Norfolk to call by the graveyard where my own paternal grandparents are buried.

Jutta (who will be writing her own thoughtful wrap-up blog here in the next few days) and I are glad to back in Sheringham – with our coast, skies and walks one of the prettiest places in England to live, and with local Brits who despite everything I moan about above are actually very friendly folk.

We did keep meeting Germans who love – or at least loved -England, especially for our friendliness.

So as we prepare to re-immerse in the world of family, in due course of EMDR and of ordinary daily routines other than Daisy and food and kilometres, there are definitely worse places to live.

Next steps are to take Daisy to her maker, Thorn in Somerset’s Bridgwater, for a solid overhaul, perhaps with addition of a rear disc brake and lower front handlebars so that Jutta can ocasionally see over my back where we’re actually going.

Thrilled to be back on a computer that responds almost immediately to uploaded photos and blog-writing (campsites and small hotels, combined with of course simpler travelling tech, can be a frustration), and hoping that despite being as down at times as I am on England and the gathering collective disaster of climate change, we’d all like to register the warmest thanks for following us on our rather special journey.

Next year, Inshallah, we’ll take Daisy clockwise round France, exploring Jutta’s French ancestry on her father’s side as son of a German army officer and a local lass in wartime 1915, and the deaths of two our uncles in that war – mine, Mark, killed in the 1942 raid on St Nazaire and Jutta’s after D-Day in Normandy 1944.

And before handing over later this week to Jutta for some final thoughts on our shared peregrination, thanks too to Daisy and her associated tech for keeping us on track and safe. Pictures to illustrate, which we hope might also entertain.

Main gratitude goes to the Stoker – sometimes just knackered and needing a break
Legs. Much fitter than they were, but suntanned only below the shots line.
The awwesome, almighty Pendix retrofitted electric motor.
Two of these batteries, charged nightly, kept us going for up to 160km before the charge indicator light turned from green to yellow to orange to red and then flashing red, before shutting down. Not bad when helping pull nearly a quarter of a tonne of metal , flesh, consumables and clothes up hills that could reach 15% gradient.
The legendary Brooks B17. Nothing like it – after 12 weeks riding, feels almost part of one’s own skin…
The female version. And yes, more comfortable over the longer trip than any fancy gel or padding.
Butt cream. Applied liberally on any part of the lower anatomy that makes contact with the saddle…. Works brilliantly to smooth the friction and spread the weight.
Jutta’s awesome (American) Thudbuster shock absorber, without which many a rougher patch would have needed us to get off and push.
As with so much engineering, family-owned German firms have cornered pretty much the global market for waterproof, robust, lasting panniers. Schwalbe do it for tyres too.
But the Americans, with the Bob Yak single-wheel, do it for trailers. This one is carrying a good 20kg for us, with all the heavy electrical charging stuff, and as pilot, I scarcely noticed its presence.
The Ride With GPS app on a Huawei smartphone, Mate Pro 20, did the business for navigating, taking us through some spectacular traffic-free landscapes. I do hate the Garmin however. Temperamental and expensive.
Rohloff another German firm that does quite simply the best gears, 14 speeds in an indestructible hub. This the rotating gear changer, meaning we could shift from top to bottom in one turn, standing still or even uphill. Impossible with a derailleur.
The Rohloff hub
And yes, we really needed a bell. This one bought in Amsterdam on our way through
We had two power banks to keep the GPS working all day.
But above all, of course, credit goes to the star of the trip, Daisy2. Thanks old girl. 18 years young and stronger, more loved than ever.

2 Responses to “Daisy’s home, with riders. 12 weeks and a day, 5500 km/3500miles, phew.”

  2. gerrybeechmountcouk

    I will miss the smiles and quiet moments of reflection engendered by your blog. An amazing mixture of grit, legs, determination and unbounded joy, thank you