How I Almost Went to Oktoberfest...but didn´t

Route: Bonn to Hartegasse via Cologne
Distance: about 100 km

Well, wow. Today was a mindblower! Waking up in my plush hotel room in Bonn. I showered for the first time (it’s a real luxury when your camping) and headed down for my included breakfast. Thank God the German don’t mess around with the kind of make your own Bisquick waffle “continental breakfast” that you get in the states. In a huge buffet was served, among other things, a huge pot full of scrambled and eggs along with pretty much any possible meat product that you could desire.
I know I’ve made this point many times, but food is fuel on a bike trip, so I helped myself. I also brought my backpack down with me to see if I couldn’t take a few pastry- like things with me. I managed two full plates of breakfast, and several sweet roles. This is amazingly good because the roles will last, and I don’t have to stop and pay for more for a few days. I ignored the stares of the perfectionist staff and the business people getting ready for their morning meetings. Are any of them going to get on a bike loaded with 60 pounds and ride 100 km up and down hills all day?
I left armed with a street map of Bonn given to me by the incredibly helpful dude at the front desk. He was really fishing for a tip! Anyway, I ended up finding Ippendof no problem. It makes sense that every place where grandpa fought is basically at the top of a hill. This suburb of Bonn is no exception. I went from river level up to about 250 meters in 2 km. Riding up and up into a section of hill overlooking, and thus commanding, the city. Here, the Germans put up a fight in a vane effort to hold the city west of the Rhine.
Today, it looks just like an urban neighborhood. Bonn is a large city, some 3 million people, so anywhere this close to the center is basically just another city pocket. An old church, and two old looking wood and stucco buildings are all that remain of the old town center. Perhaps grandpa walked past these very buildings. Everything else is new, not just since the war, but new since I would say the 1990’s.
From this now nondescript location, it was on to Kessinich, another suburb of Bonn. Here Grandpa had what he called in his letters “a chateau on the Rhine”, now it’s what looks like a former well to do place filled with older somewhat rundown houses. Also, the former West German government buildings seem to have been placed pretty much right in the middle of the neighborhood.
While waiting for a train to pass, along with 10 or so other people on cycles in the rain, we were all treated to a half musical, half drunk speak soliloquy given by a very intoxicated gentlemen astride a Pugeot ten speed complete with front string basket. He went on and on while those around me looked away in discust. I couldn’t help laughing quietly to myself as he tried to talk to the unfortunate truck driver next to him. I didn’t have to speak German to understand his main points.
“Allas Kaput, allas shizza!” he toned on and on standing in the rain at the train crossing at 9 in the morning on a Thursday. I thought to myself, I know man, I know. There really is nothing I like better than a good “yeller” as I call them.
Rolling across the Rhine was the start of my real km today. After I got across the third great water barrier on this trip, I realized that I had no idea where I was going on the other side. Originally, I had thought that I would role south back down to Remagen, only on the east bank, but once there, I was only going to turn right around and head back north to Cologne. So, I decided, given the time I have left, to simply head upriver to that great ancient city Koln, and go east to Schmallenburg from there. In that sense, today was another day where I had a lot of road to burn.
Riding up the river, I found the usual perfectly paved bike path running down stream and flirting with the vestigial stands of oak forest on the banks. Really, the entire length of the river from Bonn to Cologne is one large suburb. What I mean is that, in stark contrast to the forests and mountains of the past two weeks, today was primarily an urban ride. I had to dust off the riding in city skills which definitely become a little rusty, especially as the Germans seem to hate it as much as us Americans when you get on their highways with a bike.
As I approached Cologne, the first thing I could see, towering above the city, was the great Cathedral. I had hoped that this famous building would not appear small or in some other way be a let down. It did not disappoint at all. As someone who has practiced architecture for 10 years, I truly am boggled by how they built something so tall out of stone without any steel reinforcement. The towers of the cathedral have to be easily over 300 feet tall. Maybe more like 350 or 400. That is a roughly equivalent to a 25 story building! To say that this great edifice dominates the skyline of this ancient, and yet very modern city, is an understatement.
Cologne is perhaps the oldest continuously occupied city in Western Europe. It began under the reign of Octavian Ceasar as the major shipping and commercial center on the Rhine. The great cathedral, having been composed of several buildings built on top of one another, was founded at the end of the Roman Empire during the era when Christianity became the official state religion. During late antiquity and the early middle ages the city served as one of the great centers of western thought at a time when the light of civilization was dimmed in Europe.
All of this history was nearly destroyed during the battle for Cologne during World War Two. The Nazis had made a practice of blowing up all church towers in every city as they retreated because they made perfect observation posts.
Rolling on the cobblestone rail switchyard on the East bank of the river, the city lazily sliding by on left side, it occurred to me that I had no idea how to get out east to where I planned on camping that night near Lindlar. It is a big city, and it seemed that I had spend the better part of the day getting to it, getting lost in it, and trying to find my way out.
Soon my journey upriver came to the point where I had to turn east. The usual bike signage was nowhere to be seen, and the rail yards I had been riding up the east bank were ending. I had to do something, so I picked a street and turned east on it. In a matter of minutes I was lost in a maze of urban decay, graffiti and broken glass. It can’t be that bad, I thought to myself, there are still cyclists on the road, windows in the buildings, and people walking on the streets. Then it got bad, real bad.
Certainly when living in New York, you sometimes find yourself in these types of neighborhoods. The ones where all the windows are gone from the buildings, long ago replaced boards or simply never replaced. You can always tell a really bad neighborhood because no one is walking around, and generally the only people you see are hanging out in windows, or in doorways staring at you.
In situations like these, I often find that discretion is the better part of valor, by which I mean, I put my head down and get through it as fast as possible. This is no problem when your on a bike, you just keep going. Don’t stop for signs or lights, just keep up a steady pace that doesn’t betray any fear, but yet gets you out of the bad part fast.
Well, in doing this in Cologne, I ended up in a not so terrible suburb which was anybodies guess on the map because it didn’t appear. I knew kind of where I was supposed to be, and kind of where I was. As I sat studying my map over and over again trying to will street names to appear that simply weren’t there, a smiling very German looking dude rolled up on a touring bike. It was as if he appeared from a crack in the universe just when I needed a guide.
Christian had long silver hair, a full white beard, and large smiling countenance set behind plastic prescription sports goggles. He asked, in extremely accented English where I was going. After a long, and somewhat difficult conversation I gathered that Christian rode his bike everyday to work in Cologne, that rode over 1000 km per year on holiday alone, and he thought I was nuts for trying to camp where I had planned. Later events surprisingly proved him correct, but we’ll get there.
Soon we were pedaling through the forest, in the middle of the city, on a “short cut” he knew. Granted, I had just met the guy, so I at first used the pretext that I was carrying a lot of weight to keep him in front of me. Of course, he actually was a lot faster than me, and I ended up having to really pull on those pedals to keep him in site on muddy curvy trail.
We soon popped out into another suburb which looked exactly like one I was lost in, and my fears of being mugged by some gang of Christians buddies in the trees proved ridiculously wrong headed. He turned out to be just another in a long line of very well meaning people on bikes who’ve helped me along the way when I needed it.
At a roundabout, he stopped and directed me the rest of the way out of the city via a series of hand signals and landmark phrases like “big hill” and “shopping place” as indicators of where I was turn either left or right. There are so many damn little roads here. To be honest, I’m really starting to question whether I know what left and right mean any longer. With a wave and “good luck” shouted back over his left shoulder, Christian the Bike Viking disappeared around a corner and back in whatever dimension he is from.
I actually managed to follow his directions, and ended up out of town and headed on the right road. Truly a case of symbiotic minds working together, because anyone will tell you that back at home I have trouble remembering where I put my shoes, phone and wallet, let alone some geometrically complicated set of directions in a foreign country.
Once I made it out of Cologne, finally, it was getting dark and I had at least 30 km to go to what my map indicated was a set of two camp areas near the town of Lindlar. I can smoke 30k if I need to in an hour. This is no problem, if I knew which way to go. I figured, I have about an hour and a half till dark, I’ll just hammer down, follow the signs and get there.
Follow the signs.
Well, the signs seemed to lead me in circles for 30 minutes or so. I seriously went over the same river 4 times, up and down what looked like different places on the same hill, and through around 45 identical looking little towns before I found the signs for Lindlar. It was darker and starting to rain.
The signs directed me onto highways filled with rush hour traffic from Cologne just now getting out to the country. When Germans get out of the city on the roads after work, its game day; I mean, there is no speed limit, and everyone drives a BMW or a Mercedes. In short, I had my life flash before my eyes more times getting to Lindlar then I’ve ever had riding to work in Manhattan. These guys haul ass, and they don’t care that you’re on the road.
Finally arriving at the vaunted metropolis of Lindlar, I stocked up on dinner foods per normal, grabbed some cash for the campsite, and headed out of town in the dusky rain. 15 minutes later when my third attempt to find the right road to the campsite failed, I asked a very nice woman who spoke a little English. What followed were another set of arcane directions involving taking three lefts and two rights, then your first exit from the first roundabout, the third from the second one, and riding up a huge hill. Of course, by the time I actually found the hill, it was fully dark and freezing cold.
If course when I actually got to the town where the camping was supposed to be, it wasn’t. So, I did what anyone in my situation would do. I purchased half a chicken from the lone street vendor figuring that I’d at least have something warm to eat whenever I got to wherever I was going. She explained, through her large drunk friend who supposedly spoke English that the camping was actually in the next town, which just happened to be down the other side of the hill I’d just spent 15 minutes climbing up.
When I descended the hill into the spooky darkness of the German forest below, the wind froze my hands and face. I needed to find a place to get warm. Finding no camping in the next town, I knocked on a door and was greeted by a well meaning housewife who indicated that the camping was in the next town. I felt like Cortez on his quest for Eldorado talking to the Indians. “Oh you mean THAT golden city. Yeah, that’s in the next town man, just keep walking that way. Thanks for the horses and smallpox!”
Finally, it was really and truly night. I was in a town that looked just like every other town I’d seen before, and figured I’d at least go get warm and grab a beer or something. Maybe someone at the bar would know a place to camp.
Walking in, I was greeted by a middle aged guy who looked like he knew how to drink beer, a charming older bar maid in glasses, and a blonde girl about my age who spoke perfect English. Thank God! She, I think, was looking for an excuse to get away from Johny von Grabby hands at the bar, and offered right away to drive me around looking for camping at all the surrounding towns.
Stefi was a graphic designer in Cologne who literally jumped up and down with excitement when she heard I was from New York. In our brief acquaintance, she drove me all over the area and translated for me in three separate bars. No luck. Finally, she talked to the owner of a local hotel about a block from the bar where we met, and I ended up with a great room, with private bathroom, for 30 Euro! Breakfast included! That is hands down the best deal I’ve yet found. Those little hotels man!
Of course, just like ordering drinks at a club, it helps when you show up with a very attractive blonde girl. As we returned to the bar where we met, I offered to buy her a few beers for helping me. I ended up discovering that the local brew was very good, and only .90 cents a glass. This coupled with the warm cozy bar and the German conversation made for a very good ending to what could have been a very crappy night of poaching a camping spot somewhere in the forest.
She came with me back to the hotel when I got tired to make sure that I got breakfast included with my room. On the way over, she talked about how she was going to New York for Revit training soon. I mentioned that I’d be happy to show her and her friend around the city. Then, she mentioned that she and that same friend were going to Oktoberfest in Munich the next day, and that she could arrange for me to come with.
I feel the need to paraphrase Ghostbusters here again; when the blond girl asks you to go to Oktoberfest in Munich with her and her girlfriend “you say YES!” Of course, it didn’t work out with the friend. Stefi texted me later that night with “bad news”, there was no room at the place they were staying. I’m sure the conversation with her friend actually went something like this: “You want to bring a smelly homeless biker that you just met at a bar with us to Munich for 4 days? ahhhhh..and I can’t believe I have to say this to you…no.”