2009-04-25 51 7
| Sat 25 Apr 2009 in 51,7: 51.4809778, 7.3527699 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox |
Plan
Arvid will go there. Options were either do 52 6 and 52 7(180km roundtrip), or 51 6 or 51 7(both around 200km). Since wind is from the south(east), I'll be heading southeast. It's somewhere halfway Dortmund and Bochum, in... a field!
Achievements
- Cycled 205.8km
- Crossed a border.
- Geotrash Geohash
Expedition
At 10:30 I left home. I expected the trip to take 5 hours, because of headwind, and an unknown amount of hills south of Reken. Just to be sure I gave myself an extra 30 minutes, for unforeseen things. There might be some unpaved roads in my plan, that i'd rather not take, for instance.
I was familiar with the road until Reken. From there on it would be unknown. I know there are hills there, but I had no idea how serious they were. Nor did I know the state of the "service roads". Quite often these are perfect asphalt in my area. But they can be any sort of mud or sand. I thought I might have maybe 1km of unpaved roads. I was wrong. It was 3km. Most of the time the road was rideable, and when it didn't there was a cycle/walkingpath next to it. It had bushes growing over the path now and then though. On the way back I found out it wasn't level either.
After that I missed a turn(between Haltern and Oer/Erkenschwick), but decided not to cycle back, since I didn't remember seeing a real road there. I continued and just took the main road, since going back and take the shortcut wouldn't be a lot shorter anymore anyway. On the way back I checked the missed turn (I took the main road on the way back too), and it was another service road with a gate. As cyclist I'm probably allowed in, but I didn't really regret not taking it.
Other shortcuts were fine. One had a very nice sign. And although it was paved I got deja vu's to the Tour of Flanders and the cobblestones there. I never been on asphalt this bad. I think the Belgians will sue the Germans when they find out about this.
The hills and wind and shortcuts weren't a lot worse than expected: at 15:25 I arrived at the road closest to the hashpoint. Since there was no tree to park my bike against, I went back a bit and took a small sidestreet.
Dinner time. More later tonight.
It was either this path.
Or this road.
Hohe Mark, the area around Haltern generally looks like this.
Blooming field, nice smell too.
Blooming field, two sorts of energy production.
No access. Unless for no. 206. And bikes.
The road was the crappiest pavement I've ever felt though.
View towards the hash after crossing the railway.
Time&date.
View uphill from the sidestreet.
