Les said, the better II

August 22 & 23

Woke up yesterday in Odensee and then started biking east. Alas, we did almost no sightseeing there because we were trying to not end up bikong through christmas or something. Odensee has great bike routes, though. There is a great system of bike paths that form their own grid with underpasses to avoid trafficy roads. It is really a great place to bike.

The countryside east of there was mostly flat, although kind of dull and the weather was not so great. Tourist office books have described fyn as a paradise for bikers. I don’t think that i can agree with that.

One really nice thing was an oak tree on a spiral mound. It looked like an ancient fairy tree, but a plaque dated it as much later. We went up and surveyed the view.

The last city on fyn befe the bridge east is nyborg. It’s pretty and at the bottom of a fjord, so fun to coast in to. We got in around 15:30 and went directly to the tourist office to get the next map. They didn’t have it, but told us to cross the bridge to go to the tourist office in the town on the other side.

The bridge is really long and you can drive across it or take a train, but not bike. Which is fine. Biking on long bridges or on long dijkes sucks anyway. So we went to the train station and dissassembled everything. Then ticket confusion. Then, unexpectedly long train ride. Then reassembly. Then SPRINT from the remote train station to the ceneter of town where at 17:05 the tourist office folks had locked the door, turned off the lights, and gone home 5 minutes earlier. Arg. No map means no housing or camping info.  Fortunately, i had a list of hotels on the eastern island. I asked nicole if she would be willing to go 20 more km to the next town without a map IF we had a hotel reservation.

I started calling hotels and finally found one that both had rooms and took dogs. Yay. 20 more k seemed reasonable, despite it being 18:00 because we’d only gone 30 k so far that day.

We started booking along the route, which was fantastic. It curved north and took us along the coast by some spectacular beaches. It was a mercifully flat coastline. The sky was kind of blue. The sun was setting behind the huge bridge towers. We were riding towards a rainbow, past a newly plowed wheat field.

The sun here has a lovely golden quality, if it manages to get through the clouds. The angle is sharp, i don’t know if i’be ever seen my shadow be less than a meter long, even at noon. So the freshly plowed field was intensely golden on the remaining wheat stalks. And the dark, wet eart underneath was in shadow. With intense, moody clouds and a rainbow. Right by the beach. This more closely conforms to my idea of bikers’ paradise.

Alas, though, the moody clouds and rainbow turned into rain. Which turned into a really heavy downpour, complete with thunder and lightening and sheets of rain of the sort described by bullwar-lyton. It was, indeed, a dark and stormy night.

In general, the signposts for national bike routes in denmark are excellent, but still, i can miss them or maybe it was absent, but a wrong turn was made. I was staring at a tiny non-detailed map as the rain slowly but steadily increased and the temperature dropped. Nicole started to cry.

I found a route to town and we rejoined the 6. Our booked hotel was far south of the city center. It turned out to be one of those highway hotel sort of things. We were staying at a truck stop.

Imagine an american truckstop with a clean, decent, cafeteria-style restaurant and an overpriced chain motel. Now imagine the neon signs are in danish. And the chairs are sort of scandinavian-modern looking in thier design. And the restaurant has a nice terrace with umbrellas. Add some slot machines. Now you’re picturing it.

The rain was around it’s peak when we arrived. I grazed at the salad bar. I felt odd for having biked to a truck stop motel to sleep. I kept having those weird, oh-that’s-right,-i’m-in-europe flashes.

This morning, we biked to the tourist office in the town. But they were sold out of maps. And the sole book store only had maps for another specific route. Truthfully, the signs from last night had been much more spotty than usual. If the whole island was like that, we would spend a lot of time very lost. Even my gps didn’t have adequately detailed maps.

Rather than bike the whole day to other tourist office of just taking regular roads when we lost our way or employing any other non-mechanized solution- we rode the train the last 100k to copenhagen.

So we got in two days earlier than otherwise.

Which actually sucks because there aren’t many hotel rooms free over the weekend. The tourist office here said that the cheapest they could get me for one night was a 4 star. It’s fancy.

The lobby has real paintings in it. Of danish scenery and the royal family. The rest of the hotel just has the same 3 prints over and over and over again. One is of some women singng around a piano. One is a girl combing her hair. One is a scene in copenhagen. They are in my room. They are in the hallway. They are in the stairwell. They are everywhere.

I think a star should be removed for crimes against art and decorating. Who do i contact?

We got dinner and then looked at an outdoor exhibition about design. Somebody in croatia has made the portable wind turbine that i was dreaming of. The way to charge my cell overnight while camping. Hopefully, i can contact the creators and get one.

Came back to the hotel and searched an official bed and breakfast website. Why no advanced search? My online booking for tommorrow night seems dubious at best. Maybe we’ll have to camp again.

Ok, so i’m bummed that we didn’t bike the whole way, but the last few days have been sub-optimal and i’m excited to be finally here. Nicole wants to get a viking tatoo. Maybe i will too. i need sleeves if i do more bass gigging in san francisco ever again.

By train.

Well, let me say that 4 star hotels are nice if you can affjord it. We lingered a bit and got a late start. Also, the breakfast was suck. Super bitter coffee and a soft boiled egg followed by a steep fjord ascent is not the best way to start your day. My stomach was unhappy.

The route 6 out of kolding is not so great. The start of it is pretty and goes on residential streets, so if you need to let your dog walk uphill *cough* or push your bike up the hill, you can.

I’ve been letting y’all believe that i’m Mr. Sporty McToughGuy, but, alas, i’ve pushed my bike uphill now and again.

Anyway, the 6 is not a route out of the fjord, but instead along it. This means really steep ups and downs. Also, it’s along the margin of a busy national road. So i have a moment, as i speed downhill, of realization: I’m on a tiny bike, going really fast down a really busy twisty road with cars less than a meter from me and the road is wet and if i wipe out, i’m dead. Lots of squeezing of the handbreaks.

Of course, there were also uphills. Really steep uphills on the same busy street with no safe way to make poor xena walk it. It was slow going and unrelenting for 20k. Maybe when they say that denmark is flat, they mean on average. My trip started and ended at sea level, so really, i didn’t climb at all.

We crossed to the Isle of Fyn. Those of you with your maps in front of you will note that this island lies between the jutland peninsula (the part attached to germany) and the island which has copenhagen. We came to the town of middlefart and got some food and stocked up on supplies. Xena, for example has a new leash on life. Her old leash got dropped in the woods on saturday. However, as i was shopping for muesli bars and dog leashes, i began to feel more and more ill. I came out of the store and sat at a table with my head down. If i had to bike anymore, i was going to vomit. Nicole got me a mocha wich kind of revived me. We went slowly to the tourist office, where exhaustion lead me to be kind of rude, alas. No hotels in middlefart take dogs. We had to backtrack, uphill to camp. The hills weren’t steep, but to keep my lunch, i pushed my bike.

Went to sleep early. I think i might have eaten bad ice cream. We had stopped for ice cream the day before and i had one that was so good, that i wanted to describe it to you. But now, when i think of it, i feel really queasy. So no description. Think of something else!

Ok, so woke up the morning of august 21st at a campground in middlefart. Dedicated readers will recall that i was supposed to be leaving copenhagen today to return home. Didn’t count on fjords or downpours or the sustained difficulty of biking in “flat” denmark.

I felt ok this morning, so we carried on to odensee, denmark’s third largest city. (What is number 2?) This was 50-something k over “undulating” country side. Mostly not worth the effort, but nice views in the afternoon and coming in to odensee was actually pretty nice. i’s a very bike-friendly city.

However, no day is without it’s wrong turns and so right before getting to odensee we followed confusing signage on to a horse trail. It’s the first time i’ve gotten a bike stuck in mud so deep that i couldn’t just push it out. Came in to the hotel covered in mud.

Nicole had the brilliant idea of calling the tourist office at 16:00, so when we rolled in two hours later, we already had a hotel reservation. She’s smart.

The rest of Fyn looks flat on the map, so tomorrow we’ll get a map of the other island to discover whether we should just ride the train in or keep biking.

We’re so close, i just want to bike, but not if i feel fjord sick again. And as it was pouring rain this afternoon and i was pedalling up an undulating hill, this began to seem suspiciously like work and not a lazy holiday. Also, we’re behind schedule. So, we’ll see.

And if you ever decide to cycle here, get more than 3 gears!

This is the real august 19, not no-coffee, fake august 19.

On account of it beng sunday, we slept a bit late. Then we went to a bakery and got danishes. Danish danishes! They call them snegls in danish, which means snails. Oddly, the french call fancy little pastries (aside from ones they call escargots) vienese. Anyway.

I always right these during downtime, which means pre-coffee or right before sleeping, so uh zzzz.

(I’m not fixing the right/write typo above.)

So we biked to Jels, which is well known for both it’s dutch-style windmill nad it’s viking themed attractions. Alas, viking take sundays off. All i wanted was an unhappy, surly teen in a goofy hat to serve me an overpriced, inauthentic alcoholic beverage, but it was not to be. No orgy of viking goofiness was to be had.

And with that, we parted from the viking route and the ancient military road. We turned eastward again, towards copenhagen.

We were pining for the fjords.

Poor xena seemed exhausted. Dogs are only supposed to be awake for like 8 hours a day and she’s been up for 12 most days. This morning, she just refused to get up for a long time. Her parentage is a matter of much speculation, but i’m guessing none of them were bred to trot up fjords.

So i carried her down dirt roads that i would have made her run. And we didn’t go up a fjord today, but we did go down one. For those of you keeping track at home, that’s down 3 fjored in 3 days. We’re built fjord tough.

Surprisingly, the dirt paths didn’t end with the military route. Some of the 64 wasn’t even jeep track, but a single narrow bike track. There, xena ran along.

We went throught the woods and passed bronze age burial mounds. I couldn’t see them through he trees, but they were nearby.

Then, we came to kolding. We followed the signs for the tourist office, but we followed the car ones, which lead us up and around and around the fjord like a snegl. When we finally got there, it was closed. So we started consulting hotels listed with the bike map. They were a step up from germany. 4 stars! We turned to another book, but the hotels were up more hills and almost as pricey. My knees were done for the day, so we went to the 4 star that looked the snootiest. I started blahblahing with the clerk sarah dotie style. “If you’re ever in california, you should stay at the hotel my dad owns. it won the ugliest building in silicon valley contest 7 years in a row.”  Nicole is some of my favorite company, but it gets a little isolating doing long trips. I just wanted to talk to somebody new, but some charges got waved and 4 stars got  pretty reasonable.

Um anyway, nicole and i had a conversation earlier that went like:
ME: “Sorry this is so hilly.”
COLA: “It’s not so bad. It’s easy after that fjord.”
ME: “Uhoh. It sounds like you just built some character.”
COLA: “I did not!”
ME: “It was challenging, but you learned what you were capable of. This has turned into a character building holiday.”
COLA: “Damn it! Why did you tells me this? This is your fault!”

So much for just being lazy and having fun.

I there a fjord in our future? I don’t know as i haven’t goten all the maps that i need yet. I suspect we will have moe opportunities to appreciate the work of Sartibarifast.

Heh, i dated my last update from the future. Oops. I should lie and say that i crossed the international dateline, but the truth is that i was writing while waiting for my first cup of coffee.

So right now really is the evening of the 18th.  All my clothes are clean! Yay.  We stayed in the town for lunch and then biked back to the viking route.

Nicole actually read the ‘biking in denmark’ book that came with our great new map. It d a section about what kind of bike to use. Shockingly, foldy-fiets aren’t reccomended. (That, btw is expat dutch-english for folding bike). However, grandma bikes are fine because denmark is so flat, it explained.

Mayne i have an usual perspective, having biked up 2 fjprds in 2 days. . . There are a lot of words i could pick: beautiful, wind-y, challenging.  But flat? Flat compared to what?

After biking up the fjord, with xena trotting alongside, we resumed our treck on what nicole tells me is an old military road. I don’t know exactly what this distinction means. We wemt over the third and final stone bridge. Also, we passed graves from 3000bce. There were sheep grazing on them. What else do you do with ancient graves? It’s better than building a hotel on them.

We also saw an ancient stone with runes carved on it. Vikings did the carving. Did vikings have their own alphabet? These folks were really smart. They had docks and boats and runes. But their reputation with anglophones is of hairy guys in pointy, horned hats. The hats didn’t have horns, actually. I want plastic horns to put on my bike helmet.

The campground guy tonight saw the shield attached to the dog trailer and asked if we were vikings. Yes! It’s so nice to be understood. I did not purchase a small viking-type horn that i recently saw. I have a tendency to acquire odd souvenirs like that.

Danish cycle routes are exceedingly well marked. I have a map of our current route, but i don’t really need it. The tourist offices also give away small free maps of the national routes which list kros and campgrounds. The routes are also really nice. The military road is more dirt than i would like, but the routes are really picturesque and relatively direct while taking you past all the important artifacts.

Nicole’s morale is again high. Between you and me, i’m kind of surprised that she wanted to camp this evening. The campground is really nice. I’m typing this inside their heated kitched that has a fridge and dishsoap and whatnot. It cost half as much as a hotel room, which is surprising. But the reason i’m nervous is because it’s cold out. I wanted to buy some fleece today after lunch, but all the shops were closing right then. Strange so early.

Speaking of early, it’s now time for me to do today’s laundry.

August 18 (typed on the morning of the 19th)

When last i wrote, i was wet and cold in a cafe on a fjord.  We got a room in the town and slept a lot. Now, all of everything we’ve got that’s fabric and not on our bodies is at the laundrymat.  At the end, we hope for clean dry everything. Before washing, everything smelled like wet dog. We washed the dog, so she smells ok, but we weren’t smelling so good.

I bought a bike map at the tourist office. It has hotels and campgrounds listed. I don’t know how accurate it is. The tourist office guy said it was ok. It doesn’t list the phantom lodging from our first night in denmark, so i have high hopes.

Nicole’s moral is low. I think having dry stuff will help. Water resistance is only so good against a biblical-seeming downpour.

Last night, it rained. After hundreds of kilometers of no camping and false threats, it fiinally came. Some minor modifications in tent usage left us dry.

In the toilets this morning, between soft rock hits of the late 80’s, i thought i heard a predication of scattered showers in the morning with sun later on.

After breakfast, we went to see the viking long houses. The areanear our camp ground had been one of the largest and most important viking settlements. They ancient town had been excavated and a sunken viking ship in the harbor had been salvaged. We skipped the museum, but went to see the reconstructed dwellings. There was a tie up post outside for dogs, so we left xena there.

I think the non-stop barking gave the reconstruction some added authenticity.

They had 5 viking buildings, a viking sidewalk connecting them, viking cattle grazing nearby and a vikng dock going to a viking ship. All of it, we were assured, made as faithfully as possible. Those vikings had some mad skills. They had thatching and adobe and a dock not too much different than a modern one. The booklet pointed out how the village was  a lot like a medieval city. Nicole observed that it greatly resembled a contem’orary dutch village with the tiny thatched houses packed close together with cows adjacent.

After the long houses and some food, we started onward and the promised shower materialized. And then turned into a gusty downpour and then hail blowing right against us! Agh. I was soaked to my skin. Nicole’s feet didn’t dry out all day.

Our route took us up several saand paths. Uphill on wet sand. Towing a dog. Wih wind. Today was a heck of a workout. At least it actually did get sunny.

Still, the scenery just gets more and more incredible as we pass rolling meadows, corn fields, cows grazing, forests, etc.

Tonight, we are camping again in a tiny little campground. Charming.

I haven’t, but I’ve biked one.

Oh my gods, so cold. So wet so raining.

Yesterday, we got to flensburg, which, although in germany, is a fjord. I didn’t know it at the time. The rain was unrelenting, so we sat at a cafe for a loooong time. I sewed velcro to my bag. And we sat some more.

Then we biked to denmark. Oh my goodness, so exciting.  The landscape difference between northern germany and denmark is striking. Different trees, different land shapes wow. That bjork film ‘dancer in the dark’ was filmed in denmark, i think. It was reminding me of that with grey skies. Kind of put a bit of a downer on my i-can’t-believe-how-far-i’ve-biked high.

And then our route went directly through the best preserved nazi concentration camp. All the buildings and gaurd towers are still standing.  Happy blahblahblahing went to silence and trying npt to cry. We went to the amnesty international exhibit. This shit isn’t over. People are still being killed for their religion, their political beliefs, their gender, their gender expression, being queer, etc etc. As we left it started to rain again.

Our royte npw takes down a lot of dirt roads. Denmark has a whole heck of a lot of them. Uphill in wet sand is teh suck.  Harder packed sand is ok. I didn’t know i would need mountain bile tires for this trip. I keep getting stuck and having to push my way free.

So far, the dirt roads have talen us over two out of three famous stone bridges. They’re old. At least one of them has no cement at all.

Last night, we went to stay in a kro. This is some sort of danish hostel. Alas, the kro on our route closed years ago. At 7:00, the former kro owner directed us to a bed and breakfast some 3km east. It staryed pouring down rain on the way. While the sun brightly shown. It was practically tropical. The double rainbow made a complete circle, ending at my bike tire (alas, no pot of gold). It was amazing. The fields were SO golden. The rain felt warm from the effort of pedalling uphill. It was amazing.

When i got to the b&b, i was cmpletely soaked, down to my skin. They wouldn’t take dogs.  We rode a few k south, looking for a campground on the map. Spent an hour going up a loose wet sand road. No camping. Got out my car map. Went 7k east looking for a marked hotel. No hotel.  It was then 22:00. Dark. Cold.

We went to a farmers field and pitched a tent there. In the dark. It was so cold. We were still wet. Xena was shivering. She insisted on sleeping in our sleeping bag with us.  She was wet and dirty, but it was so cold out, that we let her, just so she could help keep us warm.

We woke up realy eary this morning and paked up. It would suck to get run over by a corn tractor thing, although not too much danger of that, really.

Today has been cold and raining. I bought a fleece b;anket for xena so she will stop shivering. We went all on dirt roads today, until we got to aabenraa, another fjord.

I am wearing leg warmers, arm warmers, the liner from my rain jacket and the jacket over my bike shorts and slightly thicker jersey.  I am so cold. I am not leaving this cafe ever. It’s warmish in here. I hardly notice how wet my feet are.

Xena is shivering. This is august! I feel like mark twain in san francisco. I heard it’s supposed to be better tomorrow.  I hope. I hope. Brrr.

Last night, it rained. After hundreds of kilometers of no camping and false threats, it fiinally came. Some minor modifications in tent usage left us dry.

In the toilets this morning, between soft rock hits of the late 80’s, i thought i heard a predication of scattered showers in the morning with sun later on.

After breakfast, we went to see the viking long houses. The areanear our camp ground had been one of the largest and most important viking settlements. They ancient town had been excavated and a sunken viking ship in the harbor had been salvaged. We skipped the museum, but went to see the reconstructed dwellings. There was a tie up post outside for dogs, so we left xena there.

I think the non-stop barking gave the reconstruction some added authenticity.

They had 5 viking buildings, a viking sidewalk connecting them, viking cattle grazing nearby and a vikng dock going to a viking ship. All of it, we were assured, made as faithfully as possible. Those vikings had some mad skills. They had thatching and adobe and a dock not too much different than a modern one. The booklet pointed out how the village was  a lot like a medieval city. Nicole observed that it greatly resembled a contem’orary dutch village with the tiny thatched houses packed close together with cows adjacent.

After the long houses and some food, we started onward and the promised shower materialized. And then turned into a gusty downpour and then hail blowing right against us! Agh. I was soaked to my skin. Nicole’s feet didn’t dry out all day.

Our route took us up several saand paths. Uphill on wet sand. Towing a dog. Wih wind. Today was a heck of a workout. At least it actually did get sunny.

Still, the scenery just gets more and more incredible as we pass rolling meadows, corn fields, cows grazing, forests, etc.

Tonight, we are camping again in a tiny little campground. Charming.

When we took the ferry across the elbe a few days ago, the toll collector took a look at us, the bikes, xena and just spoke dutch to us. I laughed all the way across the river.

Yesterday, we encountered a family also on a bike trip. They were: two adults, four kids and two dogs. One of the dogs much bigger than xena, the other much smaller. And i thought WE were crazy.

Today is our easy day. We went to a viking museum. I bought a viking shield and hung it from the side of the dog trailer. I want to hang an axe from the other side, but nicole says this would be overdoing it. Maybe a carved dragon thing for my handlebars.

We also went to the huge cathedral in schlesswig. I don’t know if i spelled that right. I might fix it later or not. We had more plans for today but got side tracked by spacing out. I think i read that the gold miners who didn’t keep the sabbath died from exhaustion. This is my viking sabath. Appropriately enough, we are camping in odin’s campground. Keep His day holy. There’s also an odin biergarten. I love germans. I hope they have honey beer.

My pledge to never eat cheese isn’t going so well. Not for lacking of wanting. The spirit and flesh are strong, but the food selection is week. It’s eat cheese or don’t eat. Meh.

Happy to be camping again. Happy to be slacking. My morale is high in general. Nicole’s too, i think. I don’t know about xena. She is always inscrutable. Today, she got to run along side some and play with another dog and eat a bunch of stale bread left for birds and then vomit that same bread. Eww. I don’t know how dogs feel about barfing. I hate it, but it doesn’t seem to bother xena as much.

As for my spacing, well, i think it’s sometimes the case that white anglophones get more upset about hearing about racism than by racism itself. They’re sorta fine with it as long as they don’t have to hear about it. I was thinking about some old flamewars and it seems to explain them. I dunno. Maybe this is way obvious, but, you know, i don’t HAVE to think about racism if i don’t feel like it, which can make me slow on the uptake. Also, that’s privilege. Not having to worry about things.

I get really random thoughts while biking, when i have enough spare braincells to think and especially when i can think but not talk. The rythm of the spinning wheels repeats over and over again with my slightly uneven pedalling. It says “stop typing on that thing and eat so we can go get beer already.”  Oh, no, that’s nicole.