2011-03-05 51 13

Location

100 m into a field near Burkhardswalde-Munzig in the middle of Saxony.

Participants

Expedition

This is part II of a double bike geohash which started in Leipzig in the morning.

Coming from their mining ground hashpoint, Manu and Reinhard got back on the road and cycled on to the next graticule, having to travel an air-line distance of 70 km. It didn't take long until Manu and Reinhard got weaker and felt seriously hungry, so they had a quick snack from their lunch box. Nevertheless, they were afraid of getting hungry again soon, and thus decided to visit a supermarket in Colditz at kilometer 74. Strengthened, they rode on with Döbeln as their next bigger stopover, since Google told them in the morning that the shortest route would lead them through Döbeln and Reinhard knew relatives living there. At kilometer 100 they rang the doorbell, but nobody opened, so a quick note in the mailbox had to suffice. In fact, our hashers were even relieved that noone was at home as from now on they had exactly two hours for the remaining 35 km and including the short hash walk to get to the train station in Deutschenbora on time or else would have to wait for further two hours (in the dark). Being optimistic to reach their goals they rode on through the city center of Döbeln, where a small steel pin in combination with a bad pothole changed the situation dramatically: Reinhard's bike got a flat rear tyre. While the clock was ticking, Reinhard did his best to change the tube and pump it up as quick as possible. Of course, they lost critical minutes (maybe 10) and now had to hurry even more. One further problem was routing, because Reinhard wasn't sure, whether all of the remaining tracks Google recommended were useable. No, they weren't and that meant detours of at least one kilometer. Anyway, Manu and Reinhard got on well and the chances for getting the train at 17:40 improved. Shortly after 17:00 they reached the hash field, ran across it (carefully, using the tractor trails) and took the usual photos for proof. Double bike geohash in a not yet conquered (by Manu and Reinhard) graticule succeeded! Still, there were 8 or 9 km to go to the next train station and, as both were aware of, they were mainly (slightly) uphill. Manu was that eager to get the train, that she unleashed unimagined power, which hit Reinhard during a serious bonk and made it impossible for him to keep pace with her. Instead of gulping one of the innumerable cereal bars in his backpack, he toiled through the last kilometers and was quite happy (as Manu was, too) to reach the station six minutes in time. An unbelievably long journey (2 hours for 85 km) with a regional train followed at unconceivably high costs (29 EUR using the low-budget Saxony ticket), but got the hashers back to Leipzig, where they cozily rolled back the last 3 km and finished their Saturday trip with 139 bike kilometers (at temperatures hardly above 0°C).