Picking up our tandem at the bike shop near Frankfurt
Today is a big day for us as we will be going to pick up our bike Seavo at Main Velo bike shop in a village near Frankfurt. Riding a big rig like ours, fully loaded on long distance trips, means that we have to regularly keep it well tuned and upgrade as needed. This time we are replacing our entry level hydraulic front brake with Shimano XT 4 piston hydraulic brakes -truly an upgrade -and improving the rear Avid BB7 disc with steel pads and compressionless cables. As well, the usual tasks of replacing the Schwalbe Mondial tires, a general inspection and fixing the steering.
It is not very convenient to go to Main Velo as it requires a 25 km (but pleasant) ride to Limburg, a train ride to Frankfurt and a 30 min ride to Harheim for Main Velo. However, as they specialize in recumbent bikes and trikes, we wanted to give them a try.
We have just discovered however, that getting there will be even less convenient today as the combination of Easter w/e and construction of a bridge on the route has cancelled the train to Frankfurt. This means we will have to enlist the help of Georg to drive us with a friend’s trailer to pick up the bike and bring it back to his place. Then we will have a 40 km ride back to the farm with Cora.
The “girls” came out to wish us a good day in Frankfurt.
Molly is a curious and friendly young sheep at the farm. Recently, a fox had killed 3 of their chickens and had upset the sheep. Molly came out to warn Cora of the danger and she stuck close to Cora and seemed to want an invitation to come inside the house.
We have ridden Seavo for many years and know it well, but we have ridden our other tandem recumbent, a Rans Screamer, quite often over the winter. We are admittedly not in the best physical shape at the moment, but the different configuration of the two bikes has made us realize that we will need to develop different muscles and more stamina to be able to ride the 4500 km we plan to do this year.
Spring has arrived here in Germany with a vengeance. I just spoke to my sister in Prince George at home and it is below zero at night. We like warm better. Today it is 23 degrees and sunny.
We dropped off the trailer at Paul’s and rode our tandem with Cora on one of her favourite rides back to their home. We enjoyed the architectural feature of the arch we rode through.
It is always lovely to be greeted by animals when you return home, and this sheep, mid munch, seems to be happy to see us. Or at the very least was eager to check us out.
And this one, with its understanding expression, seems to be reassuring us that all is ok. The bill was higher than we had hoped, but the work was well done and a minor blip with the motor was rectified before we left.
