2025-02-15 53 8

Location

On the road "Birkenheider Weg" inbetween spacious meadows in Loyermoor, Germany.

Participants

Beardygrade

Plans

Bicycle ride from Oldenburg to the hash. Waiting around till 16:00. Riding on to Elsfleth in order to catch a train to Nordenham. Cycling to Blexen and attending the concert of a friend. Bike to Nordenham, trains to Oldenburg.

Expedition

Will try to be there at 16:00. -- Beardygrade (talk) 21:09, 14 February 2025 (GMT+01:00)

The first part went according to plan. I started at around 14:00, granting me a copious amount of time for orientation, photographing, and in general being not a very fast cyclist. At first I was in well-known territory, crossing the northern part of Oldenburg from west to east. Then I proceeded in northern direction through Wahnbek (famous for its telecommunication tower) where I took a short but pointless detour before going north again. Without incident I followed the main road "Braker Chaussee" (thankfully equipped with a bike path) until I reached the beginning of "Birkenheider Weg". Here, a delightful surprise awaited me: this road has a speed limit of 25 km/h (roughly 15.5 mph), possibly due to serious discontinuities of its surface. This should be manageable by me and my bike...

Lacking a tachometer, I made a pass of the geohash with a velocity that felt about right, in the hope to recover that information later from the tracklog. It turns out that different tools report different speeds. While osmand.net claims 30 km/h, the online track analyzer https://geo.javawa.nl/trackanalyse/index.php?lang=en reports 24.8 km/h, which should be close enough for claiming the achievement, I guess (see screenshot).

There were more than 30 minutes to cover until 16:00 and I decided to enjoy the scenery, the cold but clear weather and sunshine, the relative calmness far away from the more frequented streets, and my lunch. Beside the birch tree were I had parked my bike, a flock of mosquitoes were hashdancing in the sun. Sadly, no other geohashers showed up.

I completed my way to Elsfleth mostly on very deserted roads without incidents.

Epilogue

After reaching Blexen's historic church, I was treated with a beautiful concert. Four vocalists performed music from the early baroque, two of them taking turns at the organ. Afterwards, the next train from Nordenham was cancelled, leaving me no choice but to enter a Greek restaurant. The following train was operating only the first part of the relation, to be replaced by bus transfer from Berne. Because bicycles are typically not allowed on these buses, I disembarked in Elsfleth and cycled back to Oldenburg, this time on a more direct route. By then it was quite cold, but I had a slight tailwind and nice illumination from an almost full moon.