The past two months have been a frenzy of tile bagging, spurred by the 9-euro ticket that allowed unlimited travel on German (non-express) trains for an entire month. (as an aside: this offer is also available for August, if you're interested).
3000km of cycling in two months in a total of nine rides: one 400km BRM and eight dedicated tile bagging rides with four of them over 400km. A grand total of 1929 new tiles. I need another ride to connect those to the cluster, but this I can do starting from a Dutch railway station. Which was the point of these two months: getting all the "far away" tiles for a 100+ square.
Random selection of pictures:
With a total area of about 192 km² the Bundeswehr Technical Center for Weapons and Ammunition (WTD 91) is
huge. Fortunately most of it is publicly accessible (most of the time).
Serious rain was predicted for the night. I didn't want to rely on finding a (bus or picnic) shelter to lay my bivvy and brought my Lofoten tent. Modus operandi on these 400+km rides was to find a somewhat secluded spot after 11:30pm or so then sleep until 4am.
Breakfast. Bakeries must be the staple of German society. Even on Sunday they open early (often at 7am) with freshly baked stuff and
coffee.
Schützenfesten during the month of July; traditionally festivals or fairs featuring a target shooting competition, it's very much a social thing (drinking beer...). To maximise the fun each village organises their's on a weekend different from the neighbour's so they can visit each other.
Taking a few hours rest in the changeover from forest to arable land under the whooshing sound of slowly turning windmills.
A decent effort of blocking this railway crossing, but no match for a tile hunting randonneur. Look thrice, cross once (and live to tell)
Large moors in Northern Germany, I think nowadays they mostly cater soil for plants. Sandy and muddy roads which defeat mudguards.
The road went from paved to gravel, then turned into a farm track which ultimately vanished into a wall of nettles and brambles. I wished I brought a machete. But soldiered on, dressed in a harness of raingear, blazing a trail by crushing the nettles and brambles to the side for some 200m then coming back for the bicycle.
How my feet usually look after a tile ride.
Some comedy off-roading on the last ride. There wasn't a track perse, but with the high grass and foliage being freshly cut it it was ridable even though the mudflap scooped up a lot of it.
All the activity of the past two months. The "missing" tiles to the South and East of Münster were bagged in previous years with audax rides.
