Here are some highlights of my ride from Copenhagen to Berlin:
Day 2: My ride continued through beautiful scenery on good back roads in Zealand (the old one). There was a steady headwind for most of the day, which gave me a surreal experience crossing a bridge between islands. The bridge was 3kms and dead straight; cycling into a 20km headwind I really felt like I wasn't moving. I would cycle hard for a good 2 minutes, look up and see nothing to tell me I had moved.
Day 3: Having caught a ferry late the previous day, I was now in Germany. It wasn't quite as flat but the good roads and varied scenery continued.
I had lunch at a tiny roadside place (which was brilliant: a really good schnitzel for like €6!) where a German family shared my table and had a chat. They were interested in what I'm doing and told me about Germany, such as what it was like for Germans when the wall fell. By luck they live on my route (they were on holidays when I met them) and they invited me to stay with them after Berlin.
The day was further than I planned at 128kms. Around the 70km mark this freaked me out a bit (my longest ride in training was only 80kms). My legs held up surprisingly well; I felt like they were separate to me - carrying on without complaining while I was (for a couple of hours) losing the mental battle. They got me to Waren without incident and with daylight to spare.
Day 4: I found myself on a lot more dirt and cobblestone paths than planned. It made me glad with the bike and equipment I had picked and by the end of the day I was more comfortable on dodgy surfaces. A couple of times I lost traction on sandy dirt and learnt to move my weight to the wider front tire to recover.
Day 5: I passed a man cycling with his grandson and said hello. I stopped a couple of times and they passed me... So the 5th time we passed each other he stopped to talk. He told me to stop at a bakery in the next town so we had a good chat. He was interested in what I was doing; he had done some big rides when he was young (now in his 60s he was doing a 65km ride with his 8 year old grandson). The longest ride Manfrey (as I learnt his name was) did was 220kms in a day - I can only imagine what equipment was like for that 40 years ago!
He was very proud of his grandson cycling 65kms on a dodgy fold up bicycle. I think he hoped his grandson would do cycle touring further afield - where he had not been able to go himself due to the travel restrictions in East Germany during the Cold War.
Manfrey told the bakery staff what I was doing so they gave me some free pastries for the road. I arrived in Berlin and after passing through a lot of crowds, arrived at my cousin's house.
By the numbers (because everyone loves stats!):
Distance: 460kms
Days: 5
Longest day: 128kms (6 hours 40 mins)
Pastries consumed: 6
