A Big Day Out.

This will be the last post from Karlsruhe as I head home tomorrow. Last Saturday I decided to go for a longer ride to a place called Freudenstadt. One of the knowledable receceptionists here (Herr Wolber) told me that it has the biggest marketplace in the world. Given it was going to be a 170km ride it was a bit tough that the temeperature was 32 degrees although I escaped a bit of that by getting away at 0800. The outward journey passed reasonably uneventfully with a steady climb of 1000m spread over the last 40 kms. The marketplace was indeed large.

After admiring the large market place I set off on what is essentially a 40km downhill. During this time I became completely deluded and believed I could actually cycle fast as the speedo was in the high thirties most of the way!! During one steeper bit I was buried in a pack of motorbikes. The roads here are just perfect for bikers.

As I reached a place called Gernsbach another rider joined me and asked where I was headed. The next question was "Vair are you from?" Obviously, I need more German lessons. This chap then offered to guide me through a slightly confusing built up area. He'd obviously heard of the 'foreigner found in a tunnel on bike' episode.

Before I could make my escape he isisted I come back to his place for a coffee as apparently his wife was used to him bringing home stray cyclists. Sounded safe enough. Lovely people, very friendly, he told me he was a GP then his wife told me that he brought home a Danish girl who stayed in the basement for two weeks. I quickly checked that I was not sitting on plastic sheeting, excused myself and left. The next ride will be Dyers Pass Road :-)

If You Go Down To The Woods Today.

After a very hot day playing tourist in Strasbourg on Saturday, a day out in the Black Forest seemed like a good idea. The day was overcast but warm so I set off with no fixed plan except for exploring some new roads. About 30kms into the ride I started to see a lot of road cyclists. In the next village I came across some signs for a bike race so I stopped to have a look. I was just trying to figure out how it was organised when a bloke with a fag hanging out of his mouth started thrusting a race number into my hand. I've been caught like that before so I easily avoided accepting it. I tried hard to explain to the man that it would not be fair on the others with my extensive experience racing with the Peugeot team. I even explained that I was there helping Pascal Simon try and hang onto the maillot jaune in 1983 with a broken collarbone when if it hadn't been for the team orders Roberto Millar could have won the race. I digress back to today. Anyway the local German organisation seemed a bit lax as there did not seem to be anyone wanting to see my UCI licence or medical certificates. After giving my apologies I set off down into the Gernsbach valley with the idea of riding over the hill to Bad Wildbad.

The hill was a bit harder than expected, about 8kms of fairly steep stuff, I was certainly pleased to see the summit which was only at 933 metres. The descent however was brilliant. I was so exhillarated when I reached the ouskirts of Bad Wildbad that I must have missed a crucial sign as things started to go slightly wrong. I entered a road tunnel thinking it was just a long bridge but 2kms of fast downhill later I was still in the tunnel. Scary stuff, it was fairly dark in there so I pulled into an SOS layby and tried to read my map but it was a bit dark. At this point my two new best friends turned up. Meet Gunther and Hans...

My first instincts were to shout "Bobby Charlton" and make a run for it but sense prevailed as I didn't think the project manager who arrives on Tuesday would thank me if his first job was to try and get me out of a cell. Anyway Hans seemed quite friendly in response to my profuse apologies but I had the feeling that Gunther was reaching for his baton. Fortunately Hans was driving and proposed that they rescue me. He said "Don't worry, we will escort you from the tunnel then you can go where you want." The implication was anywhere as long it's a long way from here. The last 500 metres of tunnel was ridden with blue flashing lights behind me reminiscent of my solo win in the 1979 tour.