Rodvig to Stege

An even better day today!

So what when wrong today? The ride itself was generally ok. Unfortunately that minor fall I had a few days ago has made a return L I think I’ve torn, or severely bruised, the Pectoralis major (I looked that up) and yes Ken I do have pec muscles. It was a bit sore yesterday when I turned suddenly or the wrong way but last night it was getting quite bad. I tried to sleep on my left side all night but this morning it was aching. Tony gave me a couple of pain killers so we’ll see how that goes.

We decided to have breakfast at the hotel since it is Monday which can be a problem in some countries. We probably didn’t need to but it was nice to see what it was like. More German than what I remember of Norwegian breakfasts. Rolls, bread cereal, jams, cheeses, meats and even boiled eggs. I had a modest feast (don’t want to be bloated when we leave), and tea.

We set off a bit later than normal, 8:45, but today is a shorter ride as well. The route today is mainly on quite lanes with only a few bike paths. It is nice and lumpy, plenty of little villages (albeit with no shops) and a few forests and twisting and turning a lot. The last bit is important because it is also very, very windy. When the wind is behind you it is awesome, and we had some great runs with no peddling at all. You generally paid for it of course J

The weather, aside from the wind was better today. It was funny when I paid for last night’s hotel the lady at the hotel looked out over her shoulder at the weather, saw the clouds and general gloominess and said the weather was ok! The weather forecast on the internet said chance of rain around 1pm.. What actually happened was a squall went through (we hid under a tree) around 11 and then about quarter of an hour later it started pouring. I put on my rain pants and then about 500m later Tony got a puncture. He fixed that and the rain stopped!

We made our way into the town of Praesto for lunch. The town was rather disappointing as we ended up in a hamburger stall for a quick fatty meal. It was warm inside so that was ok.

After that we continued on and the weather improved into quite a pleasant, wind aside, afternoon. There were a few places where we turned into a full bore gale force tail wind. Spectacular! We paid for it at the next turn of course. On one sweeping descent a red squirrel ran out onto the road, Tony missed it. There were some nice flowers at the side of the road and even a field, Tony thought they were poppies.

We stopped to check out a 17th century church, but alas it was being renovated and was gutted; so onwards to our destination town. The last challenge was getting over this very high bridge. The wind was gale force from the side and so we were riding leaning into the wind to stop ourselves getting blown off the bike path. I stopped at the top for a couple of photos; it was challenging getting going again with the gale force wind.

From there we pretty much had a tail wind the entire way into town (on a moderately busy road). Once in town we stopped for a snack (naturally) then made our way to the hotel. I’d booked a second room last night so that Tony could get a good night sleep, but they sent an email during the day to say that they were full; so we are sharing again.

Then back to a pleasant afternoon; shower, Tour, diary!

While we were watching the Tour (Peter Sagan won) it started pouring! We even lost the TV signal for a while. The question is do we walk into town for dinner?

After the tour finished we had a while to wait and we got talking to two German guys, friends who once a year go for a short tour (3-5 days). We never did get their names; but they did explain that there worked in their respective town halls and another English speaking cyclist once called them ‘Pen Pushers’ J They knew of a nice place so we thought we’d go there. One of them checked the weather radar and said the rain should stop by 7:15, so we went after that.

They rode but we walked so we met them there. The restaurant is actually a butcher shop with a buffet and eating area. It is quite nicely set up and Tony and I both had rib-eye steaks. The steaks were extremely good; so good I forgot to take a photo L The buffet was reasonable and I mainly pigged out on the potatoes, carrots and bread!

After the meal we headed back to the hotel and continued to talk about touring with the other guys. Then I went up to give Ken a call and then tidied up and bed around 11pm.