Lohr: Ken was in tractor heaven! - A Miraculous Tour Around France and Germany - CycleBlaze

September 22, 2017

Lohr: Ken was in tractor heaven!

This was really Ken’s day today so he can do the writing

We ate at the Wursthause last night and it was great. We arrived at 6.30 and as we went in all of the many faces looked at us. I wondered for a moment whether I had forgotten to put on any clothes! No. It is that every else in the Wursthause knew all the other patrons. Clearly tourists didn't stray in there. We eventually got a marvellous meal with local beer. Mine was sausage with sauerkraut. My enormous German neighbour approved.

Today because of difficulty getting accommodation Tricia had booked us only at Lohr. But it turned out OK. We are in an area with grassy fields interspersed with crops, mainly maize but also sugar beet. It looks quite like areas of Austria we have been through.

The first tractor highlight was at a camping ground where I spotted two tractors in a shed. The turned out to be Schulers - a fine maker from Munich. I have seen two or three before. They are high quality and stopped making tractors in the 80s. This one was perfect and the proud owner had excellent English. His other pride and joy is JohnDeere Lanz - not one of the single cylinder ones John Deere made just after they took over Lanz (as spotted by Keith and Kathleen also cycling) but the next model with a 3 cylinder Diesel engine. He told me of a man in the village who collects and restores Porsche tractors.

About a km along the road I spotted a Porsche in front of a house, went around the back and found the man and his tractors and cars. He has restored at least 10 Porsche tractors made between 1950 and 1964. There are single, twin, triple and four cylinder models. All immaculate, all air cooled. As well he had an early single cylinder Holder (I have two later models), two bug eyed Austin Healy Sprites, an E type Jaguar and an Austin Healy 100. I might have missed some. He Walter Tabellion used to work for the car division of Porsche, but he clearly has a weakness for their diesel tractors. Did I mention there were 2 Porsche cars there as well.

This all used up time so it took us till midday to reach Lohr which has a beautiful old centre. My front derailer gave up today so we found a bike shop and a skilful man who has patched things up so I can still get into my small front sprocket for the rest of the trip. While we were waiting we had soup and cake on the Hauptstrasse

The wine from this area comes in a bottle like this
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Acroos the river
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One of Walter's lovely Porsches
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And another
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This is his little early Holder
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Across the river
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We thought it looked rather like Austria here
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Harvested sugar beet
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Lohr
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Our hotel said to be the second oldest in Germany
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The castle in Lohr
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Our room
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Today's ride: 22 km (14 miles)
Total: 2,551 km (1,584 miles)

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