Across the mountains into Germany !!

Well, we started the day in our abandoned hotel, sitting in a 1970s retro dining room eating scrambled eggs contemplating the 20 to 30k cycle to Chomutov and then the climb over the mountains across into our next country - Germany.

The hotel hadn't been too bad. From the outside it looked like the sort of building snipers shoot presidents from. It was an old, run down, dirty and somehow russian/stalin-ist looking building. We had managed to prize our bedroom windows open the night before to let some air in and the showers were so powerful they were almost hazardous but it was comfortable and clean inside.

We'd had our usual dinner of pasta the night before. Great service - one blonde girl and one brunette girl, both very smiley.

:-)

:o)

Anyway, we were both looking forward to crossing the border. The Czech Republic had shown us some amazing scenery but the rolling countryside was becoming a real challenge so a new landscape ( hopefully with less hills ) was something to look forward to. It was a very positive feeling to cross a border into another country and as we sat quietly eating our breakfast, each contemplating the challenge ahead, it became evident we both needed that.

We got our stuff together and headed out. The cycle into Chomutov was good - flat and fast with the mountains in front of us providing a distraction. When we arrived in Chomutov we grabbed some food from a supermarket and a couple of Kinder Surprise eggs to lift our spirits. I got a mexican guy and Dave got a looking glass thingy but the little mexican guy was unable to stop me thinking of what lay before us.

Dave's nemesis was wind and my nemesis was hills and I was not looking forward to this next one. Yesterday they were a thing of beauty but today they were a thing of fear and misery. So just before we set off again, I yelled ...

Who's idea was this ?

Why the hell are we doing this to ourselves ?

What's the point ?

and then as Dave started to laugh I just laughed at myself ...

Joe's Profanity Index 8/10

We started off up the hill ... it was steep and painful. I climbed for about half an hour before I inevitably fell off my bike. Yes - ha ha ! ... Once again I found myself attached to my peddles by the shoe, sliding down a hill on my side. I wasn't sure how far I was going to slide back down the hill but luckily it wasn't too far. I picked myself up and realised I'd cut my arm but it was only slight so I brushed myself off, took off my cycling shoes, put them on the back of my bike and started to push the bike and myself up the hill. After marching with my bike for about 45 minutes I finally saw Dave drinking from his water bottle at the brow of the hill under some shade. I was tempted to swear and curse and break all records for the Joe profanity Index ( already at 8 today ) but at this point I was past that. Swearing didn't help anymore. In fact swearing didn't fit the moment. I waved and shouted "Hello !" as loud as I could as I approached. To stop and rest in the shade for a few minutes had become such a wonderful experience. Getting on and off the bike was almost like a switch to turn the pain on and off. You'd start cycling and all those little niggles would kick in at the same time but you'd stop and as quickly as they started up they would dissapear. Any moments free from pain and discomfort had become such a rare thing by this point. It was only day 8 but we'd covered a fair distance in the saddle and legs, bums and arms were killing.

We rested for a few moments, caught our breath, refuelled with yet more water and then carried on climbing. At this point something strange happened. We had been climbing for a couple of hours and we'd hit the top of the mountain ! Wow ! ... I don't know how but we'd done the impossible ! ... Our moods lifted as we cycled across the top of the mountain passed some wierd czech mountain markets selling Disney towels and cheery red faced brightly painted gnomes - 100's and 100's of gnomes ! ... armies of the little buggers ... your guess is as good as mine ... maybe German people like gnomes, I dunno but there sure were alot of gnomes on top of that mountain.

Eventually, after passing what seemed like hords of 1000's of gnomes, we came across a petrol garage purched at the top of the mountain. We pulled in and sat in the shade on the grass outside, satisfied that we'd endured the worst the mountain had to offer. It was a good moment. Very peaceful. The air seemed to taste alot sweeter up there but that was probably just the Euphoria from getting to the top of the mountain. As we sat on the grass we looked out over a spectacular view. It seemed like the best vantage point was sitting on that little strip of grass outside the garage. We sat on the grass for around 10/15 minutes and every car that came in to refuel seemed to have a driver or passenger that would spot our bikes and give us a little nod as if to acknowledge our achievement. This was the first time we saw Audi and Merc cars ( as opposed to Czech Skodas ) ... and they had German number plates !! ... We must be close to the border !

We got back on our bikes and quickly crossed the German border ( woohoo ! ) and found ourselves on a steep 6km downhill on the other side of the mountain ( the good side ). Downhills were a welcome rest for our legs. They were a chance to catch your breath and reminded me why we were on this trip.

I became a bit of a connosseur of downhills. Downhills varied in both distance and steepness but this was looking like a good one ! We saw a sign indicating a gradiant of 12% and Bucky shouted something over his shoulder as we went passed it. I didn't hear the words but he looked happy so I had a rough idea.

I'd got myself into a routine for downhills. First I'd clean the sweat and dead bugs splattered on my sunglasses using my cycle top, then I'd have a bite of a "Courtney" ( Corny energy bar ) from my back pocket and then try to hover myself just enough above the saddle to give my bum and legs a bit of a rest. There's an art to this. If you balance wrong you can lose momentum or worse still you can drop your Courtney !

After a couple of minutes we were really picking up some pace. We must've been going at over 20mph, winding our way left and right down the other side of the mountain, the cars struggling to overtake us. As we gathered momentum we had a cool breaze in our faces and relative comfort as we started to overtake the traffic. It was exhilerating to be going at such speed knowing we were eating up the miles without any effort. It was like the longest theme park ride you've ever been on. Except this theme park ride wasn't 5 minutes and then off to let the next guys on, no, this downhill seemed to go on forever. It was euphoric. It made you feel like it was all worth it. Think of the best ride you've ever been on and times it by 100 and you're still not even close. As far as downhills go, it was a real long one but boy had we earnt it !

As we approached the bottom of the mountain we saw a dip down and then another incline so we tried to maintain as much momentum as possible to help us over the next climb up. Once again the pain switch had been turned back on and we were putting as much energy as possible into maintaining our speed. We started up the hill  ...

I have to admit, Dave was always much better at hills than I was. As we started to climb, the gap between Dave in front and me struggling behind increased. After a couple of minutes I looked up the hill to see Dave waiting for me underneath a flyover in the shade. I pulled up behind him, out of breath and gasping for air. He looked over his shoulder at me and said "I think we're on an autobahn Joe ... We've only got about 10 kilometres to go till we're done for the day so, what do you want to do ?" ... Out of breath I reply, "10kms to go ? ... ( big breath )... Cool ! .... lets just ... ( Breath ) Let's just keep going." ... Dave replys "Well, we'll be fine as long as we don't get caught by the .... "

Literally, at this precise second, as if on cue, a German police car pulls up behind us on the hard shoulder. Two German police officers step out of the white police van, one tall and skinny and the other short and fat. The short fat one starts talking German at us. We look at eachother in disbelief. It felt like we'd been Punk'd ! "Sorry ! We are English." He strolls towards us, cowboy style and looks us up and down. "English ?" he asks. "Yes." We both say in unison. I try to think of the German for yes ... is it pronounced 'yar' or yars.' He shouts over his shoulder to his colleague standing by the car ... "English !" This time in a disapproving tone and turns back to face us. The skinny guy in the background just nods and smiles.

I need to elaborate a little here. Dave and I had become accustomed in the last three countrys to listening to Czech, Slovak and Hungarian peoples tone of voice as this often told us more about what people were trying to say than the actual words. We could usually communicate in completely different languages quite effectively just by using this method. Or at least it seemed that way. We'd be laughing and joking with people in bakeries and little shops where we stopped to refuel just by using a friendly tone and a smile. We didn't have a clue what they were on about and they probably didn't know what we were saying but that was funny in itself. When you're in little towns and hamlets in the middle of the countryside theirs no other option than to just try your best to communicate and be civil and this usually worked.

But it didn't look like this was gonna work this time ... Hennyway ...

The German police officer addressed us with the same disapproving tone. "Passport" he demanded. We handed over our passports and he took them away to his colleague now standing behind the hatchback police car/van. It was like a small mpv with some kinda equipment in the back. The skinny officer tapped some details into a laptop and we realised we had just cycled over the mountains into Germany, the hosts of the world cup ... so we congratulated eachother that we had made it into world cup territory but then we realised how that must look to the two German police officers holding our passports. Two English blokes cycling over a huge mountain into Germany to watch the world cup. Suspicious ? ... The smaller officer returned from behind the vehicle. He pointed to us individually ( I hate people pointing at me by the way ... grrrr ! ) saying "10 Euros, 10 Euros." ... "What ?" ... He repeated "10 Euros ! 10 Euros !" in a sterner tone this time ... "Why ?" I asked. Bucky looked at me with a calm down look and said in a slow voice, "I think we're on an autobahn Joe ... but I haven't got any cash. " ... We gave him the universally known signal of no money. Shaking our heads, showing our palms and saying "No money" very slowly. He looked at us dissaprovingly once again and signalled for us to walk with our bikes back down the hill we'd just climbed to the autobahn exit.

As the two officers got back in their car I turned to Bucky. "They've still got our passports !" ... Bucky looked mad ... "Just remember that license plate" he said "C 44 32, C 44 32." ... "C 44 32" I repeated back to him. "There's no way they can take our passports Dave ! We were doing so well today aswell. Only 10K to go and we would have finished at about 5pm. I really needed an early finish today and there's no way I'm paying 10 Euros Dave !" ... "But we have to !" he replied. "They've got our passports !" I felt we'd been treated badly just for being English. Did they think we were hooligans trying to break into Germany over the mountains ? Were they dodgy German coppers trying to con some foreigners out of their Euros ? Or were they just anti English ?

We were tired and fed up. We were so close to an early finish and now ... well, it looked like we were in for another late finish with the usual routine. Trudging around in the dark trying to find a hotel at 9pm was not a nice experience and I didn't fancy it today.

We slowly marched our bikes back down to the turn off. Dave was still chanting the police cars registration plate like a character from Indiana Jones but what could we do ? We met the officer at the edge of the motorway, beside the turn off. He drew our attention to a circular sign beside the road with a stick man riding a bike and a cross through it. Didn't take a genius to realise what this meant. No stick man cyclists on the autobahn ! He looked like he had gone out of his way to ensure we recognised our mistake. He wasn't a dodgy german copper after all, he was just a German officer trying to do his job ( sounds like a movie trailer ). We nodded and realised our mistake. He was right and we were wrong. Fairly doos. We must have been travelling so fast downhill we missed the sign. He pointed to his colleague in the car at the bottom of the turn off and signalled for us to follow the police car into town so we could get some cash and pay the fine.

We followed the car into town. It was hilly which made it difficult to keep up. As we cycled through the town we eventually reached a square where they were having a German motorbike convention. They're bikes had a bit more power than ours but as we followed the police car through the square the bikers smiled at us like we were bad guys. I'm not too sure why but I guess they thought we'd committed a much more serious crime. We'd suddenly gained some street cred for cycling behind a police car. For a brief second we felt accepted then all at once the feeling was gone as we entered the police complex through an electric gate.

It was still blistering hot and our detour was starting to feel like a real inconvenience. We propped up our bikes against a wall inside the complex. One of the officers marched Dave back out of the electric gated complex to go to a cash machine. I sat on a bench contemplating our misfortune, waiting for Dave to return. We only had about 10kms to go and now this ! Damn, how unlucky is that ?! And just as we stopped under that flyover they pulled up behind us. Sod's Law or what ? We had only just entered German but we'd already been stopped by the police. We didn't have these problems in any other country and as soon as we enter ... I mean, where were the other exits off the mountain ? This was the only route ! How are we supposed to spot such a small sign when we're cycling at 25mph downhill ? ... What's the chances ? ... Where's Ashton Kutcher ?

Dave returned to the police station and we were taken inside the building into a room full of monitors all directed at roads and motorways. It was like a scene from the Matrix. There were 5 or 6 police officers in the room all milling around checking the screens and tapping into keyboards. Some of the other officers smiled at us knowingly. "You are from England yes?" ... "Yes" we replied. "You are going to watch the World Cup yes ?" ... "Yes" we replied. We weren't feeling too chatty. They seemed friendly enough but we were pretty tired and fed up by this point so we were in no mood to elaborate more on our trip. He handed us a ticket each which said something about "Spiel Spiely Spielen 10 Euro finem autobahn." They looked like our receipts for our fine so we handed over the 20 Euros. He smiled at us. One of the officers at the back of the room said something loudly in German and the officers all laughed. The english speaking officer then turned to us and says "He said that this is German souvenir," pointing to our tickets. "German souvenir !" he says again. We smiled politely. And then "Welcome to Germany !" Then one of the other officers repeats, "Welcome to Germany !" Dave and I looked at eachother and tried to false another smile. We'd arrived in Germany !

After leaving the police station we avoided the autobahn for fear of more detours to police stations and cycled the rest of the distance via the smaller more hilly ( grr ! ), less direct ( grrrrr ! ) roads. What was 10K to the finish an hour and a half ago by main roads was 20K via the smaller roads. We soldiered through and eventually reached our target. We went with the FHWF ( First Hotel We Find ) method and ended up in a German hotel directly opposite a supermarket. Top Bonza !

As we walked into the hotel Germany scored two goals in quick succession so the hotel receptionist treated us like good luck charms and gave us a reduction on the room price from 75 to 65 Euros.   ( ?? Maybe it does pay to visit the gnomes at the top of the Chomutov mountains ??). We watched a bit of the game with the locals and then headed to our room for a well deserved shower. After which we popped across the road to the supermarket to get some pasta and some gnochi to cook in our hotel room. It was great to get the exact food we wanted and eat like pigs stuffing our faces ...

Were we turning into animals ? ...

Who cares ?

We'd made it into Germany ! - over the mountain, passed the gnomes, down the theme park ride, passed the police and into the hotel to watch Germany score.

"Welcome to Germany !"

65 miles ... ever feel like you've had one of those days ?