The Bike Ride

Continuing on my story of our German vacation...

One of the things Karren and I discussed, in planning the trip to Germany, was the idea of renting bikes and really getting to see the countryside up front and personal. Since bicycles are a major form of transportation throughout Europe, I felt pretty safe in agreeing to the adventure, not worrying about people not having "bike manners" like where I live. Here, I think they must give points for running over the bicyclist...or at least getting far closer than is really safe and there are very few bike lanes, if any.  Anyway, dear hubby and I ride our bikes several times a week, so I thought I was in pretty good shape.

Karren planned the route, including along the way, a couple of small breweries where we could get a taste of the local beer.  (Let me insert here that Karen estimated it was about 10 miles round trip. I mention this, because I'm going to come back to her ability to determine distance a little later on!)

So off we go to get our bikes. The scenery along the way was gorgeous and the shop was near the river.

It took a couple of tries and a return trip to exchange bikes to find one small enough for me to comfortably ride. I took a lot of teasing, because it looked like a child's bike. So ok, I'm short...deal with it! Anyway, we set off on our adventure (and the 10 mile round trip...). The country side was beautiful and the roads were perfect for us to meander around, building up our thirst.

Sheep!

Dear hubby and me!

Karren and James

We stopped at a cute little brewery with a small restaurant that had outside tables. It was fitting to sit in the sun and enjoy the gorgeous view and weather....Mother Nature really favored us with a beautiful morning. This little tavern was apparently a local hang out as several people were sitting outside, drinking beer and playing cards.

Cheers! (or is that Prost!?)

After a delicious lunch and a lot of "beverages" we set off again. Now I have to tell you, we were headed, eventually, for  another small town outside of Bamberg where Karren lives called Bischberg.  The trip seemed to be getting pretty long and we teased Karren a lot about the true distance of this excursion. Toward the end, the weather turned cold and rainy, and we were still peddling our behinds off.  Karren's theory was that because the headwinds were so strong, it got harder and harder and felt like it was longer (and longer!). That's probably true....but the debate about how long our trip actually was went on for a couple of days. ( I say it was closer to 20 miles!) In fact, it was still going on after we arrived home in New Port Richey. I got an email from Karren saying she tracked it on google maps (or a similar program) and it turns out it was actually around 13 miles.  Yeah right! I have to see that to believe it!. I think we were out between 7 or 8 hours, including the stop for lunch.

Truth be told, it doesn't matter how far we actually went. (I just know it was more than 13 miles, Karren!!! lol!) It was a blast and I think we all enjoyed it so much, we want to do it again - next time! 

But ....I am going to buy Karren a pedometer!

Toodles,