Dangerous Roads & Night Riding 🔦 Winter Bike Touring in Germany

Day 274. 72km (93,565kms 8yrs)

I enjoyed such lovely chats with Tobias and Paula over breakfast that I set off rather later than I’d planned. I had another Warm Showers host locked in and so 70 pretty hilly kilometres to go.

At first the route west out of Fulda went through sweet ‘fachwerk’ villages and past fields of chickens and llamas(?). But before long my navigation put me on the main road network. There was no shoulder and fairly heavy traffic. An ambulance zoomed by, the motorists and I all pulling over to allow it to pass. But within minutes I’d caught up with it; a very fresh car crash was causing traffic to build up in both directions. On the bike I was able to slip by but seeing such a recent crash up close was unnerving; I couldn’t wait to get off this road.

Drivers are very courteous to cyclists here; descending a lovely sweeping curve I could see that a slowly climbing cyclist, an approaching car, and I were set to pass at the same point on this narrow road. But the driver slowed and waited for the two bikes to pass before he took his turn. Very classy. Cyclists too are very friendly, most returning my Guten tag.

By sunset I was still 13km short of Ute’s place. My dynamo-powered lights are always on, but I added a blinking LED to a rear pannier for the remainder of the ride. In the countryside there was no street lighting and soon it was only my not great headlamp illuminating the white line and reflective marker posts. Fortunately – now around 5pm – the road was quiet, but the accident I’d passed played on my mind.

I arrived safely to Ute’s place to find she’d made a superb dinner of cheese & veggie quinoa casserole and an apple crumble with the fruit from her garden. The fire flickered silently in the potbelly stove as we chatted politics, bike touring, and the state of humanity.

Many thanks to Chris for buying me coffees on the Buy Me A Coffee app! If you too enjoy my vlogs, blogs, and photogs please consider buying me a coffee or joining me on Patreon 😃
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