Day 5: Cuxhaven - Hamburg

The horror trip of the century!

Unbelievable, but the first day is even more trip-like 💯 surpassed.

It already started with the navigation system trying to convince me that the fast route is better than the 2x faster 'short' route. Oh well. Alright, short it is. I thought, until I saw the bike. Flat tire in the back. So I first mounted a new tube and after 2 bar of air pressure, I ran out of energy and desire, which meant pushing until the next open bike shop. I moved up the breakfast break while pushing. 1 hour later, finally on the road again with pouring rain until Hamburg (4:30 pm). Besides slalom-ing through naked snails, there wasn't much going on. A few squirrels threw nuts at me (in their territory), but that was it. Well, okay, non-stop to the ferry with halfway decent routes. Across the ferry, luckily only a 1-minute wait. Up until then, I thought, it's going well. But now it got tough. After Elmshorn was the only option for the short route, which is 7 km longer than Google Maps, that should have made me think, but I still followed Google. So far so good. But then I was faced with another bridge. Last crossing for pedestrians and cyclists at 12:15. But it was already 1:30 pm due to the delay. So I had to go all the way back. Bridges will probably no longer be my friends. And then it happened, out of nowhere. Splinter in my hand. So I took 10 minutes to patch it up and continued riding, injured. Tried to cross the next lake shore path. Nope, not possible. No ferry due to Corona. So now, off to Elmshorn after all. But instead of -7 km, it became +6 kilometers. Classic zero. So the journey continues, maybe only to the Panoptikum today. I kept going until suddenly I felt very weak. I hadn't taken a proper break yet, but it was dragging on. After 10 minutes, I realized the rear tire was flat again. So I hopped to the next workshop somehow and bought a new tire. Put on the second new tube and continued. Then, only Reeperbahn left. Finally arrived at 6:45 pm.

By the way, at 6:30 pm, I ran over a big shard of glass during a descent. Hopefully the front wheel holds up until the end. Otherwise... Unbelievable. At least bringing medicine and tools was worth it.

Then had something to eat again, went to the Reeperbahn, and ended up at the Elbe. Full program tomorrow.

Greetings from Hamburg, Florian