We decided to rent bikes this weekend and tour the local area, in part because we are going on a Backroads bike trip in 10 days and we wanted to get our legs (and butts) a bit into shape, not having done any biking since we left the US almost a month ago. This was such an interesting cross cultural experience.
The original plan was to bike from Thursday to Sunday. We were surprised to discover there was an official German holiday Thursday -- Ascension Day -- and everyone takes a 4 day weekend, so the lab was empty. By the time we figured it out, Jay had some concalls with the US he couldn't avoid, and it seemed that all the trains and hotels were full. When we say "everyone takes a 4 day weekend", that means everyone. Despite weather predictions that the rain would end Wednesday, it rained all day Thursday, and Friday was a bit too wet to bike comfortably (but we did get a good 6-7 mile hike in).
We rented bikes at a place less than 1km from our guest apartment. They would only rent us "city bikes" -- heavy (maybe 40 or more pounds) very upright bikes, with no cross bar and a fat saddle. Also coaster brakes and a 7 speed shifter. Not quite what we are used to (which are 10 pound bikes with 30 speeds, caliper brakes, drop handlebars, and a racing saddle. ) Some Germans do own "trekking bikes" -- what we would call touring bikes -- but most of what we saw were people on bikes about one step up from what we were pedaling.
The place did not rent helmets, so we biked heads unprotected. This bothered me a lot on both days -- I am so accustomed to riding with a helmet. Most Germans do not wear helmets, as most German bike paths are separated from the traffic (sometimes as part of the sidewalk, with the curb as a barrier, sometimes with another barrier), but there are times when the bikes are adjacent to traffic, as in the US, or that you ride as part of traffic, and there the lack of a helmet bothered me most. The routes we took included such places, and most of the riders we saw on those parts were wearing helmets (these were usually fit young guys who had American style road bikes, spandex clothing and rode like hell), but our route directions didn't warn us that we were going on "helmet advised " parts of the road. Maybe overall 20% of the bike riders we saw wore helmets.
I had brought my new Garmin Edge Touring with a biking map of Europe. We were able to download two 10-12 mile routes that started near us (making it 20-25 miles round trip, for us normally a gentle ride, especially with the flat terrain). Had we not had the Garmin, with its ability to notify me that we were off course, we would probably be still wandering around Duisburg's surroundings, trying to find a route home that didn't involve freeways. The routes we picked didn't always end up on the most scenic route, as we discovered, but having a route on the Garmin helped us know where were we and how to get home. We probably spent 20% of our biking time discovering that we were off course and trying to find the right route (sometimes a bike path hidden in the trees that we never noticed, other times going through something -- e.g., a parking lot, a path that seemed to be limited to pedestrians, a bike lane on the wrong side of the road -- that we would never have thought was the intended route).
Luckily, most German bike routes are relatively flat, since with these heavy bikes and their limited gearing, even going up the short hills we did find was hard. This is not made easier by the German habit of putting some kind of barrier either halfway up the hill or at the top just before it flattens off, forcing you to dismount and walk up the rest of the hill. I think the assumption is that you are walking up the hill anyway, what does the barrier matter? Add to that adventures like bike lanes that require you to go over substantial curbs (and not the rounded curbs we have in California, but right angle curbs), cobblestones, lanes that are paved changing to unpaved and back -- biking here is a much different experience than in California.
People of all ages bike in Germany. We saw lots of people I would put in their 70s and possibly 80s biking (I bike with a bunch of retired people weekday mornings in Palo Alto, but I think that the 30-40 people that come at various times to these rides are likely 50% or more of the entire population of the Peninsula over 65 who bike these kinds of distance.) We saw lots of people -- from age 40 to 80 -- toting panniers; true bike touring, where you ride from point A to point B and stay in a hotel each night, is very popular here, in part because there are so many bike routes that you can more or less traverse the entire country by bike (or at least by bike and train). One of the professors at the lab Jay is visiting goes off about once a month, taking the train to some new starting point, biking for two days, and taking the train back home. He is not unusual. We also saw lots of families biking -- kids from about 3 to 15 with mom and dad (not just dad).
These strange bike routes, with dirt roads, curbs and people going both directions sharing a narrow bike path, are not meant for speed, so everyone tootles along at about 10 miles at hour at best. The bike paths, at least during the sunny weather we had this weekend, are crowded. Other than today while we were on the trail during the normal lunch time, we never went more than about 2 minutes without seeing another biker (which reassured us that even if we were not on the right path, we were on a path that went somewhere).
The scenery was lovely (at least during the time I was able to enjoy it and not preoccupied looking for the next hidden turn) -- along the Ruhr river or through rural fields and woodlands. Very different scenery than we have in California.
German bikes all have bells, and they are used pretty frequently, rather than, say, the US convention of saying "on your left" when you pass someone. But people are quite content to move along at whatever speed the bike traffic is going and not even try to pass. And I found that the heavy bikes with their low center of gravity made it much easier to be stable at low speeds, so I didn't feel I was going to wobble into the person in front of me.
At the end of both of our days, we were exhausted when we got home from what we would normally consider an easy day (and one that included a lunch stop at a restaurant, giving us a good hour to rest up). We lolled around all evening and went to bed exceptionally early, falling asleep as our heads hit the pillow. Not having biked for a month is surely part of it, but I think it was easy to underestimate the effort it takes to pedal these heavy bikes. I hope this does serve as some form of conditioning for our bike trip.
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