Okay, we managed to reach Hannover. And how…

We woke up around 10 minutes after we went to bed. Why? Well, victors Soja milk was leaking and it spilled over Joost´bed. He learnt us a lot of new swear-words in a very small time.

After that we went to Hannover, we had a great speed and there was only rain during breaks. Awesome timing o mighty Gods of ze weather!

Here in Hannover we are staying with Sybille. A very nice young woman who offered 2 rooms to us. Yes we took ‘m.

The mood is good, we’re doing lot’s of kilometers and the spirrits are high. Let’s go further tomorrow!

More hills, more downhills, more people to meet and more villages and stuff to see.

Cheers!

Hey guys, after a long and very heavy trip we can finally reach you guys again..

Location after day 2: Bad Essen. Food is okay though.

After a very nice  start with some hills and stuff we managed to enter Germany. Around 9:30 we started looking for a place to sleep. We decided to ask a farmer if we could stay on his ground. It appeared to be one nice lady who gave us access to a local bar. We played cards, had fun, and made our beds. So we actually had a roof!

The day after was even heavier. We had the thoughest climb in our personal tour but we made it. After that we had several other climbs. Heavy to go up, awesome to go down.

We also set a new speed record. While Joost and Vic were going  down effortless, I was breaking heavily while still overtaking them lol. I didnt break my previous record of 65km h since I still have to get used to the bike, but 64 will do for now. Joost and Vic also did about 60 km h. Joost was verz excited and that made me happy.

In some very small village we asked a lady if we could place our tents in the garden. This is 10 meters in front of a supermarket wich opens at 7. PERFECT!

While setting up our campsite the woman came to us and gave us beer. Awesome! Not healthy but let´s be honnest: WHO CARES!??

Oh I just  found the ß at my keyboard.

Anyway, the days fly by and I cant wait to get on my bike. Yesterday eve and this morning my muscles were quite in a bad shape. Also for the others. But now… it feels great!

The morale is great and we’re having a great time. We didn’t take a lot of pictures so far since I didnt bring my EOS, but DO expect a full length movie haha!

Challenges

Oh yes, challenges. Yesterday we couldnt make the first challenge. But admit: finding a local specialität in the Niederlande is quite difficult. Yup. Today we found a restaurant who served a speciale frikandelle. So we took it and it was quite okay!

Also we managed to find 2 Germans who said in front of the cam “De kat krabt de krullen van de trap”, LOL nice one! One to go!!

So, thats it. And THANKS for the mails and comments, VERY appreciated!!!!

-Us.

okay we’re now in Apeldoorn enjoying our lunch. We had a great start but had some problems uphill, we didnt expect this. Downhill was great fun and eventhough im packed i did 60.5 km/h and overtook some other cyclists on professional bicycles.

Off to germany!

Okay only about 9 hours to go. What are we doing? Well Victor is back to Amsterdam to get his passport. Iam still packing. Joost didn’t sleep last night so he went to bed early today and I think we can say we’re all excited about the trip.

Today I bought a new 32gb SD card for my camera. I want to capture all of it on film and publish it afterwards, this will be very cool. Also bought a hard drive so we can store stuff if the SD card is full. Yes we have great plans haha!

We studied the route, made an overview of CS people, printed the waypoints and updated the GPS.

And now? Let’s sleep, wake up and enjoy the trip. Tomorrow our parents will wave us goodbye and that’s that. Take care and send in some comments!

- The team, Steven.

The destination has changed. The route is updated and the distance we should travel has been increased. New goal:  Poznań.

Poznań is quite a large city in Poland going about 280 km inward from the German borders. It was the year 1253 before they first had the right to call themselves a city. Since then the city has been expanding since.

During the German occupation, the city was made the capital of the Third Reich province “Reichsgau Wartheland”. Many of the habitants were executed or forced into slave-labor. Before the war, about 3000 habitants of the city were Jewish. After the war all were executed.

On a brighter sidenote, the city is also famous for it’s clubs, great music, lot’s of cultural activities, a growing economical center and many historical buildings.

For us it means another adventure-achievement. So even though we will not be adding to Poznan’s history, it will add to ours.

To Poznan!

A bit crazy? Yeah a bit crazy. It’s not very common to use race rubber during a tour trip. But I’m going to do it anyway. So I bought the Schwalbe Koyak HS 358 tire.

The tire weights only 295 grammes and is a slick tire. What does this mean?

Normally tires have groves in them to make sure dirt, water and snow can leave the tire. The thicker rubber will make contact with the ground and thus you have more grip.

A slick tire however doesn’t do this. It’s harder, has more grip and the estimation is I’ll go 10% faster than usual. Yay.

What are the downsides? Well if it rains I’ll be doomed. Uh oh!

Anyway the tires came in today so I hope after worktime I can put them on my bike and prepare them for a testride. Nice.

We’ve done a poll and the results are in. We will be doing team-challenges! What does this mean and what do we expect? Isn’t the trip on itself not already a challenge?

Yes, going to Poland per bicycle is on itself already quite a challenge. But to keep things interesting and to create some kind of distraction we think a daily challenge might really add to the fun. Anyway here are some points about how I see things:

- The team will do a daily challenge.
- Some-one other than us will select a challenge for every day.
- Every morning we are allowed to “open” a new challenge which till that morning will be secret for us too.
- Proof of finishing the challenge must be provided.

So what to do when we do not finish a challenge? No idea yet. I think it’s important that we finish them for king and country. … lol.

So what kind of challenges should we do?

I think it’s important to have some solid guidelines. That’s why I’ve created them!

• They should not take more than ~15 minutes to do. These challenges could be seen as a break.
• They should not cost money (or at least not more than several euro’s. Also only 1-2 assignments may cost anything)
• The challenge should be how to do them, not doing them. We should talk/think/discuss them during cycling.
• They should not be exhausting. We will NOT collect 30 kg’s of rocks and create a mountain.
• It’s encouraged to give us social challenges that are fun and adds to the trip.
• They should not bring us to shame, we will NOT run nakid through a shoppingmall.

How to submit them?

Simply fill out this form and be sure to fill in all fields!

Streetracing is quite popular amongst lot’s of people with pimped cars. So why write here about it? I have to say that we can remove the car part and make that “Streetracing is quite popular amongst lot’s of people with pimped rides”. Since my ride is pretty much pimped, I decided to do some streetracing myself.

I’ve been a big fan of Formula One racing for quite a while now so the racing track really is a thing for me. I like to ride my recumbent bike and I’ve always associated these 2 interests of me. I mean, riding a recumbent is racing. You are low to the ground, just like in a F1 car. Everything is tweaked to the max, just like in an F1 car. You try to be as aerodynamically as possible… just like an F1 car. And it’s nice to cut corners, accelerate as fast as possible and break as late as possible….. just like in an F1 car.

So that’s why I today decided to point out a track of about 2 km, and ride 5 laps on it. Just to see if I like it. With my new Garmin 60Cx device I was able to record laptimes, see my average laptime, total laptime and afterwards see the captured track results. This gave me a good insight of where I went what speed and when I lost a lot of speed. This information is incredibly handy! I’ve seen that when I steer in pretty late compared to what I’m used to, I take turns a lot faster. Great fun!

Anyway tomorrow I’ve set out a different “circuit”. It’s close to the one I did today but instead of 2.1 it’s 1.5 km. Also it’s safer cars-wise and has a few slower turns. Can’t wait to try that circuit out!

I remember when I bought a recumbent bike for the first time of my life. It is still the only recumbent I ever bought.  It was the Optima Stinger in a light greenish blue edition combined with silver parts. No additional gadgets, one chainring on the front, no headrest and brakes that merely braked.

Times have changed. I’ve gained more experience and am demanding more and more every day from my bike. I couldn’t have it in the state as I bought it so I added additional components. From that awesome simple bike I went to the bike as it is today. Readers, fans, family and friends, I present to you my Optima Stinger in it’s current, awesome, shape:

What did I do today to it?

I’ve painted the rims and some other parts black. It now has a nice blue-black color scheme. Also I’ve added the GPS mount. This will hold my newest gadget of all.

The Garmin 60Cx

I knew it, I had to get a gadget. Something new, something that would make life easier. Something cool, something i could regularly use. Then I came across another recumbent bike fanatic and saw the GPS system on his bike. I was happy, I had a goal. My sweet female friend Emma stayed at my place and we’d be shopping on Saturday. What a great time to get the GARMIN 60Cx!!!

We went to the shopping center, visited all the shops who could possibly have it but alas, none had it. Until I had the great idea to call Bever Zwerfsport. They had one Garmin left, and we were on our way.

I saw it, fell in love, bought it, felt happy, bought a apple-cider-home-brew-set, went home, launched the GPS device and knew I bought something I wanted. This made my bicycle complete.

It not only made my bike complete, it works. I was delighted to see that I had the maps I wanted added to the device quite fast. The device itself is awesome. It’s water proof and since I once threw my camera under water, this is a feature I love. Also if the backlight is off, the visibility gets better when you hold it in the sun. Speaking of battery-saving-awesomeness! When it’s dark I’ll just put the backlight to 10%.

In no-time I had the whole route added to the device. Oh and don’t forget: there’s also games on it!

So just to round this post up, I really tweaked the bike. It’s nice now, I have a nice GPS unit and it rocks.

And finally, my bike is back. My recumbent has been away for a while but today I could finally pick it up. My dad, Joost and me went to Dronten to collect the bike. So here lemme show you some of the new parts. Enjoy!

Okay as you can see on this picture, the bike looks a bit more cooler. The front boom is now black. This is a new part so I could add a mechanism on the front so I can change gears. I’ve also added the derailleur. This will give me way more gears while driving, awesome!

Also the brakes are new. I have BB7 Avido discbrakes now. They are awesome! I think these 2 are the major changes. The rest is just replacement of old parts. The chainguard has been improved and replaced, the rear casette has been replaced giving me a wider gear choice. And some other awesome small fixes.

Here some pics of the other new parts:

That’s it for now!