This past Saturday, I made my first attempt to ride from Wolfenbüttel to Hamburg in a single day. Since I’ve already called this my “first attempt” you can probably figure out that I failed. Crap.

Anyway, I did document the occasion so it’s worth posting. It was a really nice albeit cold trip!

Quick Stats

• Distance: 190 km / 118 mi
• Weather: foggy, misty, gray…just unpleasant
• Topography: flat as an air-hockey table
• Fuel: 6 hard-boiled eggs, 12 milk rolls, 3 liters magnesium water, 2 cans tuna
• Luggage: 10 kg / 22 lbs
• Result: sabotage via left-knee after 110 km / 68 mi
• Time: 7 hours

I was all psyched up to attempt this little trip on Friday night. I even went to bed before 10pm so, when my alarm went off at 4am, it wouldn’t result in me instantly shutting it off and rolling over.

Didn’t help.

Sleep was a bit tough to come by but I did manage to crawl into the living room around 5am. After an episode of Diggnation and a fatly brewed coffee I was kind of ready to go.

Here’s my somewhat hopeful introduction to the trip. Oh, if I’d only looked out the window before filming this, maybe some reality would’ve sunk in.

Hopeful, right? Here’s another video about an hour into the trip…

Yuck. If I blinked really hard, condensation would actually fly off of my eyebrows and eyelashes down onto my face. But, for some reason, I wasn’t cold.

My first goal was Celle, about a third of the way to Hamburg. It was finally light around 8am as I crossed this bridge over the autobahn. Celle was still 20km/12mi away.

After that it was about time for a break. Behold, my fuel!

Those milk rolls are really a secret weapon. They don’t weigh anything, taste pretty good (when you eat less than a dozen in 24 hours) and have ~150 Cal each. Basically, they’re horrible for you unless you’re looking for exactly those features.

I made it into Celle after about 4 hours. That’s about what I had planned so things were looking good. Now I switched to the next road which I should follow for nearly the remainder of the trip.

Still foggy…and in the open air on this road (no longer surrounded by rows of trees) much much cooler. The next video is about an hour past Celle and “the fear” is starting to creep in.

My right hip had been hurting for awhile but it’s usually no big deal. I have the same thing during muay-thai practice and, as soon as I stop using it, the pain stops.

But
then
my
knee
got
angry…

I assume this is because it was cold the entire time which was not the case when touring during the summer.

Then the mental game started up. I wanted to take this picture to record another break but couldn’t seem to make a better face than “deeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

…and that’s pretty much it. I was really having trouble continuing the trip but still had an hour until my next goal, Soltau. This sign showed up as I was getting close. It was the last straw.

I couldn’t honestly think that I’d keep going another 76km / 47mi when the past hour had gone the way it had. No one to spur me on, I had to call it quits in Soltau.

Notes for attempt #2: knee warmers, find a precipitation-free date and bring a celebratory beer