Weeknotes 33
Late
I was on holiday for 6 days, that's my excuse.
What happened
Yet again mostly working on my masters, I migth have to do a presentation about it next week, so I really want to have some results till then. Wish me luck.
Hallertau tour
The 15th of August is a holiday where I'm from, which Skate Munich, the local inline skating club takes advantage of each year by organising the 'Hallertau tour', a 66 km inline skate tour through the epynomous Hallertau area. The special thing about this tour being that you're mostly driving on the public roads.
Fun facts
Hallertau is a part of bavaria, located roughly one car-hour north of munich. It's mostly known for hops planting. According to wikipedia its the worlds largest continuous hop-planting area, producing around 34% of all hops in the world.
Anyway the tour:
Mail facts
Now my main complain about the whole tour is the lack of communication beforehand. Turns out that this wasn't entirely their fault. As I found out today, three days after the tour, a few weeks ago their mailserver had a problem and since then all their mail have ended up in my spam filter. So there was communications about most thing I would have liked to know, I just didn't see it. Unfortunate.
You start the morning at 8am in Uttenhofen a very small village that's part of Pfaffenhofen. You park at the local sports field and then get taken to the actual start in Mainburg by bus. We arrived at 7:57 which turned out to be rather close, as we were supposed to fetch our access wristbands and be in the bus by 8. Fortunately they let us in anyway and gave us the wristbands in Mainburg, where after a short bathroom break and everyone slipping into their skates the tour started.
The first leg started out quite nice, going through Mainburg downhill to the river, until we exited the second village, Sandelzhausen, where we started the longest ascent of the whole tour, 5 kilometer or so of just skating uphill until at the peak we had the first break. To remember for next year it will never get this bad again, so if you make the firts ascent you're already through the worst part.
From here on out it was smooth sailing. Some smaller hills, some sneaky gaps in the roads, some waiting in the sun for the slower members, but nothing to bad. Pair this with a small break every 8-12 kilometer, roughly every hour, where there was cold drinks, bananas and protein bars for the hungry people, and you have a really good time cruising along the streets of the hallertau.
next year
There is enough drinks and snacks in the van you don't have to bring your own. Just a small waterbottle you can carry on your body and refill on the breaks might be a good idea.
After pretty exactly half the distance we made lunch break in Wolnzach. That weekend the local fair is taking place there, where we had reserved places and could get something to eat. Due to the heat and exhaustion I had no hunger at all, but forced myself to eat something as otherwise I would not be able to get through the remaining 30km.
Finishing the lunch break, we topped up on sunscreen and resumed the journey. The rest of the journey was luckily pretty uneventfull. On more medium sized hill up to a town square, where we did an icecream break and the support vehicle hid behind the street corner, so we couldn't get something to drink which turned out to make the next leg of the tour rather exhausting. Something to remember for next year.
The last two hours where pretty flat running through the valley back to where the cars parked, you could feel how exhausted everyone was, just trying to get through it. Getting back to the car you could shower in the local sport complex and enjoy a cold beer at the grill. But this year we were just too exhausted and just wanted to get home. Maybe next year we'll stay.
Conclusion
Anyway great tour. Cruising on public roads on inline skate not something you get to do often. If I can I'll definitely attend again next year.
Media
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