Highway 5, Cycle Route 2, and Runway!

So it turns out that part of my route on the final day was also used by the A-10s of the Michigan Air National Guard as a runway!

(The giant sign you saw in my blog about my final segment gives it away.)

Finally home!

My ferry from Helsinki ended in Travemünde, Germany, which is in the northwest corner of Germany, near Lübeck. The ferry didn't dock until 9:30pm, which meant it was starting to get dark. So now my super bright lights were not just a good idea, they were a necessity!

As I was waiting by my bike for the cars to start pulling off, I noticed one guy seriously looking at the bike and he asked me how much it weighed. We struck up a conversation about how he is from Finland and a cyclist. I asked what kind of bike he had, figuring he must have it at home. But then he says, "here, I'll show you!" and opens the back door of his giant VW panel van to show me the Cervelo S3 road bike. He also had an air mattress and a set of rollers. (This is a device that you put your bike on and it allows you to pedal in place, kind of like a treadmill.) I could tell this guy was serious about cycling.

He was driving down to Italy to go do some training for a week or so, because "we have no mountains in Finland." And he was going to start driving immediately and drive all through the night. I hope he made it OK.

After the 10 min ride to my hotel in the dark, I was quickly in bed so I could be up for a fast breakfast before my train.

I had about a 2 hour stopover in Hamburg. When I originally booked my ticket, I gave myself extra time so I could go out and do some sightseeing. This was an excellent idea, but I used the additional time to go to the train travel desk.

I needed to buy a ticket for taking my bike on the train the next day, but I also wanted to resolve my ticketing issue. I had booked my tickets online and had used the credit card that was in my passport bag and was now gone. The ticket lists the last four of the card used, and the conductor is supposed to use that as verification of the ticket holder's identity. (It specifically says that passports cannot be used, which seems very bizarre.)

At the desk, I explained that my wallet was stolen on my trip and asked if the lady could reprint me the tickets. After consulting with her supervisors, the ruling was that I should "hope the conductors are nice and don't require it." Oh, boy. If they weren't nice, I would get a fine that was the value of the ticket plus a percentage. This trip required many connections, so that meant many conductors to explain the situation to. I was not feeling confident.

With my bicycle ticket purchased, I ventured out to find lunch that was not from the train station. The Rathaus was only a few minute walk, so I headed that direction.

I found some lunch and then headed back to catch my train to Frankfurt. There were a lot of bikes on that train (10+), but the car actually had a bike rack in it and every bike was assigned a place.

Once in Frankfurt, I was able to avoid the impending rainstorm and took the underground to Tim's apartment where I was staying for the evening. Since I was returning his pannier bags, I had mailed myself a backpack to carry all my stuff home in. Now the bike was nice and light, but I was lugging around a heavy pack.

When I look at the route I took on the train today, it was a very good thing that the bike was light, because there were a bunch of stairs to go up and down. Instead of running around and trying to find an elevator, I just walked up/down them. But my final train was the most harrowing of all:

Those are the stairs leading into the car and they are really, really steep. This is also the car where you are supposed to take strollers, as well as wheelchairs. It seemed like a cruel joke.  I helped a few of the stroller users - it was impossible for them to move in or out singlehandedly. 

Thankfully, all of the conductors took pity on me and were OK with just seeing my passport. So, no fines!

Finally, after lots of travel, I was back at my train station, and I walked my bike home. It's only a 10 minute walk, plus trying to ride with the very heavy pack and another bag seemed like recipe for disaster. It would be my luck to ride over 1000 miles with no problems and then crash in the last mile. 

I was expecting my internet to not be working, since we had a huge electrical storm while I was gone. But I walked in and found everything to be working fine. And the consulate e-mailed me, stating that someone had turned in my passport and credit card. She didn't have any information about the circumstances, but that is reassuring that they are not still out there.

So I guess that's the end of the adventure! I hope you've enjoyed reading about it, because this was an amazing experience to both see the area, as well as to learn things about myself. I had never done anything remotely like this before, so I was way out of my comfort zone and very naive about what to expect. But using my mantra of "just keep moving forward," I was able to go out every day and accomplish the task that needed to be done. Sometimes all you can do to move forward is walk your bike because you wound up in the sand pit. And sometimes it is a downhill, smooth road, with a tailwind. There will be both, but just keep moving forward.

Buses and bikers

This trip was an opportunity to see the more local landscape of an area, to include how people get around. In Germany, the train is the main source of public transportation, and while we lived in the city in Poland before, I never really got to experience what the people out in the more remote areas do.

So what is the answer? Bike or bus.

I really did not see that many sports cyclists (which I'll define as a person clearly riding for sport and not transportation; they were usually the only ones wearing a helmet.) There was Pawel, plus maybe one other road cyclist in Poland, and I actually saw a group with a support vehicle in Riga. I saw a few bike tourists with the pannier bags like me. 

But there were many other people on bikes, especially in Poland: kids, grandmas, people going fishing, men using the bike as a pushable cart so they could transport things they couldn't just carry. It is quite challenging to ride with sacks of groceries hanging off your handlebars, but I saw plenty of people doing just that.

On one lonely road, I encountered a mother riding her bike with two child seats installed; one was in the front and rear facing, and one was the regular kind in the back. The third child was riding alongside on her own bike, but she was only maybe five years old. It was pretty windy at that point, so it must have taken them forever to get where they were going.

I also saw an old lady riding along on a gravel road with a cane in her bike basket. I was so impressed by that - I was struggling on these roads and this lady is just calmly riding along. She did have wider tires and was going much slower, but still! 

Your other option for non-car transportation is the bus and I passed hundreds of bus stops along my route. There was almost always a bench, but there wasn't necessarily always shelter. And some of these were in the middle of nowhere, far from any kind of building. At one point (actually, probably multiple points) I thought to myself "you know, I could just stop and wait for the bus," but wondered how long it would take the bus to get there. I realized that it was probably faster to keep riding. Except for once, when I looked at the bus stop, thought about stopping, then looked over my shoulder as a bus passed me, all in the span of five seconds. I should have flagged him down, ha ha. But it was reassuring that if I had some kind of problem, I could just get on the bus.

I also determined that the buses are slow: In Lithuania, while travelling on a road between larger towns, the bus would pass me, and pull into the stop. If people were getting on, they had to pay the driver, which gave me time to go down the road, then the bus passed me again. If you have lots of people using the bus, it can be a very, very slow process since the buses only stop if necessary.

The bus I took from Riga to Tallinn was a coach bus, more like the private charter buses in the US. Our driver was pretty fearless in passing semi trucks on two lane roads, so we were actually ahead of schedule. These are very popular in Europe and there are a few in the US, like MegaBus. 

In Riga, there were dozens of choices for destinations. Fortunately, I did not see the bus that said "Prague" until after I had bought my ticket to Tallinn and committed to finishing. Prague is only a few hours from home, so it was be really easy to get back that way. 

The train that I took in Estonia, from Tapa to Tallinn, was very nice and modern, to include WiFi. I don't think Estonia has a national railway system (like Germany and Poland do), so private companies have set up these routes and I was impressed with the whole operation, to include the smoothness of the tracks. That's very important while you are standing and trying to hold on to a very heavy bicycle.

I'm still on the ferry until this evening. Last night, they had karaoke that was mostly in Finnish, so that was my cue to go to bed early!

Getting home: Ferry, Zoo, Ferry (now with pictures!)

(Next morning AM edit: when you are the first one up, you can use all the bandwidth!)

After a night in my tiny hotel room, I had a 7:30am ferry departure for Helsinki. I have ridden on these Baltic ferries before, both with a car and without, but I was unsure how the bike was going to work. To be safe, I got to the terminal extra early. When I asked at the check in desk, she told me I had to go to car check in and wait with all the other vehicles (cars, motorcycles, RVs, etc.) There were actually quite a few other cyclists on this trip.

I had prepaid for the breakfast buffet, since I missed breakfast at the hotel and I was there when it opened. The buffet was not organized very well, which is bad news when all the hungry passengers swoop in like a swarm of locusts. While most people went to the hot buffet line, I instead made myself a salad.

After a two hour trip, it was time to disembark. I talked to another American who was completing his cycle touring trip of the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia). He was actually camping, so he was pretty loaded down. We commiserated on the extremely windy conditions and it was nice to know it wasn't just in my head.

After riding off the ferry and following my map, my route took me through the main tourist area of Helsinki. I stopped to take a few pictures, as well as take a breather from dealing with all the people. Almost my entire 20km/12mi trip was on bike paths, but they become less useful when they are littered with people not paying attention or runaway small children.

Once I was out of the main tourist area, things got a lot better. On a few occasions, I rode through a construction zone where the bike path had been inexplicably closed and I was forced onto the road. To be fair, there were plenty of signs warning me, but they were only in Finnish.

Since I had a little bit of time before I had to be at my next ferry on the other side of town, I decided that I would make a brief stop at the zoo. (If you are wondering why I have not been doing much sightseeing before, it is because a) I was tired, and b) I've already been to Riga, Tallinn, and Helsinki.) But the zoo was a novelty, so I decided to check it out.

The zoo is actually on an island, accessible by a pedestrian bridge. I budgeted myself an hour, since I still had a ways to ride to the next ferry terminal. So I did not see everything at the zoo, but I did see some interesting things.

They also had very creative bike racks!

These geese were everywhere on the island and they had just hatched their chicks, so there were goose families roaming everywhere. I noticed a sign about what to do if a goose is protecting its nest, but I didn't actually read it.

One of the best exhibits was the walk-thru kangaroo enclosure. The young kangaroos could move from their shack to the yard through little dog doors, and the pathway went right through the yard. So visitors can get reasonably close to them.

Look at the claws!

Immediately after this were the peacocks, who were very tame and no problem walking up to people.

This creature is demonstrating a bizarre ritual called “taking a selfie.” The other is a peacock.

I loved this image of the peacock going in the “staff only” area. Clearly, it does not read any of the four languages the sign uses.

The snow leopard just got lunch, so it was entertaining to watch it gnaw on the meat on a rope. The menu was pig faces. Seriously.

After quickly seeing most of the exhibits, it was back to my bike and moving eastward. This time the bike paths took me around various inlets and through wooded areas. It was very serene, especially compared to the chaos from earlier.

I stopped at Mickey D's and then the supermarket to buy my provisions for the 28 hour ferry ride to Germany, like water and snacks. I don't really feel like paying 34EUR for dinner.

I made it to the terminal and got checked in and then put in a lane with the other cars. I think I was the only cyclist this time, but there were lots (20+) of motorcycles, mostly sports bikes that looked like they were going touring.

Also, there was a fire truck and a van from the Berlin Fire Department. At one point, a family came up and got pictures in front of the truck and wearing the helmets.

After standing around for 40 minutes or so, it was now time to load the ferry, so I followed the line of cars onto the boat. I had to pedal a little faster, but it was not that fast. As we got to the ramp, I was doing OK with the incline, when suddenly the line of cars stopped. There was also some very strong gusts coming off the water and I nearly got blown over. I decided immediately to dismount and walk it. Good call.

With my bike in the car park, I grabbed my bags and found my room.

The couch on the right folds into a bed for me.

My roommate is an older Finnish lady who lives in Spain and doesn't really speak English. We have done some rudimentary communication, and I'm pretty confident she won't steal all my stuff or attack me in my sleep. (Next AM edit: She didn't!)

So, that's where I am...on the ferry. We get to Travemunde, in northwest Germany, at 9:30pm on Sunday. Not sure what I am going to do until then, but I'll figure out something. If I write a 20 page manifesto blog post tomorrow, you'll know why.

Final day and then the train back to Tallinn

After getting a great night's sleep in my slightly sketchy "beds and not breakfast," I was off for the 90km/56mi ride from Tallinn to Tapa. This was not a route I had originally planned, but I was able to find a new route using Ride With GPS. That program and app have both been very helpful throughout this journey.

I headed out of the city on multi-lane city roads that passed by a multitude of Communist-era apartment buildings. I was travelling in the opposite direction of traffic, so the roads were actually quiet. It had rained, so the streets were wet, but the city bus drivers were usually nice enough to give me enough room and not spray me.

I then rode for about a half hour on the main road that runs east to St. Petersburg. There were more trucks, but the shoulder was very wide and very clean. But I was relieved to turn off to a smaller road.

The road I used was Highway 5, but also Cycle Route 2. This was one of the best roads I have ridden on in two weeks: well paved, light traffic, and decent room on the shoulder. I either had no wind or a tailwind, so I was excited that I could get moving at a good pace. The weather alternated between sun and threatening looking clouds, and it was a bit chillier, but I did not care because I was almost done!

I paused to switch my bottles at this little rest stop.

I continued on, only stopping to get a Coke and more water at a gas station. The city that had the gas station also had bike paths paralleling the main road and they were amazing. In lots of places, the bike paths are hazardous, poorly paved, or have lot of dips to accommodate driveways. But not here - I think the bike path was smoother than the road.

Once I turned off that Hignway 5, I only had 15km/9mi to go. I stopped briefly to send Eric a text of when I would arrive.

Soon after, a military convoy from Eric's unit passed me; they drove their vehicles all the way up to Estonia. That was a nice shot of motivation that I was so close to finishing!

Finally, I reached Tapa, another city with excellent bike lanes. I pulled into the parking lot and within a few minutes, Eric was out to meet me.

Woo hoo!

We had a nice lunch at the cafe on the base and many of Eric's co-workers were happy to see that I had made it.

After lunch, I rode into Tapa to catch the train to Tallinn. I was looking for a place to buy the ticket and wound up asking someone waiting at the platform. He explained that you buy a ticket from the conductor, and when the train arrived, he pointed me to the car where the bikes go. 

The bike area was also the stroller area, plus the bathroom entrance. At one point in the one-hour ride, we had four bikes and three strollers crammed in there. I have a new definition for functional fitness: being able to stand on a moving train, while supporting a fully loaded bike, and posting updates on your phone. Good thing the ride was smooth.

Oh, and the train had WiFi. Pretty much everything has WiFi around here - to include my taxi in Latvia, so I could look up the US Embassy information while riding in the cab.

Tallinn was the end of the line and I got to my hotel in short order. I again had to negotiate the underground crosswalk, but I had learned my lesson from Riga. There were no wheelies this time.

Tallinn is a medieval walled city that has lots of towers. It also has a lot of tourists, especially from cruise ships that take big group walking tours. I passed one such group and was able to take this picture in peace.

I took a shower and dealt with my clothes, then set out to walk around a bit.

The main square with a market.

I had a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant. After so many days of eating copious amounts of candy bars and Coke, it was time for a salad.

The menu said "gigante" and that was not a lie.

The final tally for the trip: 1713km/1028mi and 79 hours of riding. I only really missed out on 100km/60mi of my original plan. 

I had this taped to my bike - "In Case of Emergency" written in all the languages. I am incredibly thankful that it was not needed!

So now the question is: how do I get back? (Hint: I'm not riding) Tomorrow morning, I take a ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki, then later in the afternoon, I get on a 28 hour ferry from Helsinki to Germany. From there, I'll take the train home. I have been on the Baltic ferries before - they are like mini cruises. Instead of a private cabin, I am in a shared female room...so we'll see how that works out.

I need to say a big thank-you to a lot of people for their help in this crazy adventure:

• Eric, for not thinking I was crazy
• My family, for worrying about me
• Tim, for the advice and the pannier bags
• Everyone who sent me an encouraging e-mail, message, or comment - in my down moments (and there were many of those!) one of them would pop into my head and things would not seem so bad
• My coach, Rich Laidlow, for the sage wisdom and support. (He and his wife run a great training center in Amelie, France - http://www.sancture-sportifs.com/)
• Timex, for great watches and your continued support of the Multisport team, which has been a wonderful second family to me
• Santa Fe Trails bike shop, for assembling and shipping me the bike, which arrived just in time
• Lifestyle Weiden and Bike Station Weiden, for the fitting, tune up, and last minute items
• Trek Bikes, for making the 720 the right bike for this adventure
• Squirt Lube, for chain lube that kept my drivetrain happy and anti-chafe balm that kept my skin happy
• Bolle, for sunglasses that have great clarity and ensure my eyes aren't tired after 10 hours of riding
• Skratch Labs, who make awesome drink mixes that really helped during and after the hot days
• Castelli, for your great cycling clothing that kept me cool/warm/dry enough
• All of the random people who helped me, especially with the passport incident

So, I guess that's it. I will also write about my trip across Helsinki tomorrow, as well as the ferry ride. When I started this blog, I didn't really intend to write every day, but it has actually been very helpful for me. I have already started forgetting stuff from the beginning of the trip because it seems like it was so long ago!

Day 13: Getting back on track

Maybe my URL for this website was precient...annrides(thebus).blogspot.com

After my breakfast, I walked over to the bus terminal to get more information about this "packing" I will need to do. The lady at the booking desk thought that I probably only needed to take the front wheel off and wrap it in garbage bags. That seemed more do-able then trying to break it down like I was shipping it.

I also took a short walk around the city market. Some of the vegetable stalls are outside, while the meat counters are in these buildings that used to be hangars for Zepplins.

The curved building in the background.

Inside

I was a bit surprised to see how many of the different vendors had major fractions of pigs hanging up. Maybe it was because it was early in the day.

Before leaving, I managed to put everything in the two pannier bags to put under the bus, and a backpack to keep with me. The bike then had all the weight on the back and became the world's most unbalanced rollie suitcase. To get to the bus station, there was a section where pedestrians go to an understreet tunnel. As soon as I put my bike on the ramps down the stairs, it did a wheelie and I nearly dropped it down two flights of stairs. Once it was time to go up, I attempted the process in reverse, but the weight and the width made it nearly impossible. So I went to the elevator, which was clearly marked "no bicycles." But you gotta do what you gotta do.

I had 90 minutes before my bus arrived, so I staked out my spot and got to work taking apart the bike and wrapping it. I basically took off the front wheel and fender, blocked the disc brakes from closing, and dropped the derailleur as a precaution. 

I had purchased two rolls of 60L trash bags, which would be like leaf bags in the US. They were heavier plastic and obviously big enough to fit a bike wheel.

The front wheel and fender went in their own bag.

Then through a process of slitting open the bags, I made a bike sandwich for the back part and used a single bag slit halfway down for the front.

I think the real point of this policy was that the bike does not get their luggage area dirty, not to protect the bike. With this method, the seat made a nice way to pick up and move the whole assembly.

I had about 20 minutes to spare before the bus arrived, then I paid the extra 20EUR for the bike, and the driver loaded it and my pannier bags into the rear baggage carrier. The ticket itself was 12EUR.

The bus ride itself was about 4 hours. It was interesting to look out the window at a faster speed than the last two weeks. I also noticed that it was really, really windy. So part of me was glad I was not out there riding.

After I got to the Tallinn bus station, it only took me 10 minutes to rip open and reassemble the bike. However, I did notice that I had lost one small bolt that goes to the front fender, but I figured I would fix it later.

I purposely picked a hotel near the bus station, so it only took me three minutes to walk there. I rang the bell, and no one answered. And I called the phone number, and no one answered. For a few minutes I contemplated what to do, when the owner waltzes up and says "oh, you are early! I was at the shop."

While the name of this hotel is Bed and Breakfast, there is no breakfast. However, I do have four beds, so I suppose that's something.

I do need all that floor space to do my repacking.

Later that evening, I attempted to fix the missing fender bolt. I should point out that this bolt is in no way load bearing or safety related. So I fixed it with dental floss because the zip ties were too wide.

This just keeps the metal part in the plastic tabs. If it doesn't work, I'll just have to listen to the rattling.

So tomorrow I'll be off to Tapa for my final leg, which seems kind of amazing. It will be about 90km/56mi and I might actually have a tail wind! I'll do a high-five with Eric, get some more money, and then take the train back to Tallinn and a different hotel.

My total mileage thus far: 1620km/972mi (I will break 1000 miles tomorrow!) and 75:20 of riding. 

Day 12: Riding my bike was the easy part...

I left my awesome hotel where I had a good night's sleep last night. I got a bit twisted around getting out of town, and I failed to notice that my route included this very sketchy footbridge.

You better believed I walked the bike over that!

Then I was on my way on regular roads. Before long, I saw a man walking along the road towards me (not an uncommon occurance here,) but I thought to myself, "it looks like he is wearing a tri top." As I got closer, I saw it was from Ironman Austria. So I said "Ironman!" and he was super excited for that half second as I passed him and carried on.

There was a gravel section too, which was OK, just a bit tiring. I didn't do much sliding around, just a lot of bouncing up and down.

Once I was finally out of the gravel, I decided to stop for a drink at a supermarket. I resisted the urge to buy an RC Cola.

Is is featuring Columbus, GA! 

Drink complete, I was on my way. I was on busier roads, but they weren't too bad with the traffic. The Latvian drivers seem to be a bit more polite. 

As I approached Riga, I knew I would need to be smart about where I rode, since the whole area is nothing "A" roads I wanted to avoid. It is legal to ride on them, just maybe not the best idea. I had my bike paths mapped out so I could avoid the busy stuff...

But I realized before turning that the "bike path" was like a dirt track through a field. So I just stayed on my road, which went by the lake, with a gloriously wide shoulder, and then over a hydroelectric dam. Before I got to the next roundabout, I stopped to do a map check, since I was now way off my intended course.

I came up with a basic idea to get going again, and headed in that direction. Once I was off the highway, I realized I probably took a wrong turn, so it was time to map check again. I happened to stop at this awesome church.

With the map check complete, I got back on my modified course and rode on some better roads with less traffic, through the forest. It was very pleasant. 

At some point, I thought I should stop again for some food, since I was getting a bit hungry. I saw a gas station and pulled in. I decided to use the bathroom and when I took off my top, I noticed that one of my pouches was missing from my jersey pocket!!

Contents of the pouch: German cell phone (not my smartphone), passport, credit card, ATM card, and about 15EUR. Uh oh.

I remembered that the last time I had it was when I stopped at the RC cola store. I wanted to call them to ask it they had found it, but they were not listed on Google Maps. I went to ask the cashier for help, but she did not speak English. Uh oh. 

She got the manager, Julia, and she attempted to call the police station in the town, but was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, I am trying to call the German phone from my smartphone hoping someone will answer, but no luck.

I decided that I am going to go back to the store to look myself, so Julia calls me a cab. Before I leave, she let me put my bags in her office, and I locked my bike to the rack. It is now about 12:30pm.

My cabbie, Martin, droves me in the reverse of my route, and we stop at every place I stopped to see if it maybe fell out. I was wearing my vest over the jersey, so probably not, but you never know. We wind up driving the 60km/36mi to the RC Cola store, but with no luck. Uh oh.

I called the US Consulate, and they said they could issue an emergency passport, since I'll need mine for my travel home. Martin drove me to the Embassy and gave me his number so I could get a ride back. I was filling out the application by 3:30pm.

I then had to walk to the shopping center to get photos taken. "Not smiling" was not a problem. I should point out that I am still wearing my cycling kit with a fleece top over it, and my cycling shoes. I'm sure I looked completely bizarre.

With the photos done, it was back to the embassy and I had my new passport by 5:15pm. I also booked a hotel in Riga, since I clearly was not going to make it the final 100km/60mi to my planned hotel. Martin picked me up, and we go back to the gas station. It was raining really hard, and the traffic was terrible. My bike was still there, as well as my bags, thank goodness.

After more traffic, Martin brought me, my bike, and my bags to the hotel. After checking in, I immediately head to the bus station. Why not the train station? Because there are no trains to Estonia. Period.

I bought a bus ticket to Tallinn that leaves at noon. The only kicker is that my bike will have to be "packed," like luggage. However, people have assured me that if I disassemble it, and then wrap it up in plastic, that will be enough. I bought some big plastic bags and I have my duct tape, so that will be tomorrow's project.

So what did I learn from today? Don't lose your stuff (duh.) But you can also get a lot accomplished if you think straight and are resourceful. However, I was massively helped out by a) having a smartphone, b) the kindness of others, and c) the fact that most Latvians speak English. 

In the grand scheme of things that could have gone wrong on this trip, this is minuscule. So for that, I am very thankful.