Helmstedt to Brandenburg, Germany

It was quite cold this morning as I started out of Helmstedt, but not raining, although rain was in the forecast. I was anticipating a 133 km ride, but before I really got going, I wanted to visit the old East Germany border control point which is just outside of Helmstedt. My first stop was down this trail, past what looks like a century-plus-old guard tower . . .

. . . to find this decades-old East German guard tower.

Further along, I came to the Marienborn German Division Memorial where much of the border crossing infrastructure is preserved. 

You could definitely spend quite a long time here, as they have exhibits and so on, but they do not open until 10:00 and anyway I had a lot of kilometres to ride so I was not about to linger. I was, however, very cold already, so I drank a coffee and warmed up in a coffee shop here. Then, I set out, back into rural Germany.

Eventually I joined a road alongside a canal, again.

Unfortunately some bridge construction forced me to detour, past a herd of sheep.

Near a village called Burg bei Magdeburg construction got me again and forced a much longer detour, this time adding something like 15 kilometres to my route. It was a nice day now, thankfully, but I was definitely not making good time!

Somehow I ended up on a dirt, actually, sand, road and needless to say this did not make for rapid progress! I literally had to push my bike on sections of this. 

In fact, I was progressively losing faith in my Google Maps directions. Yes, this is scenic, but not the sort of road I want to spend much time on when I am trying to cover close to 150 kilometres in a day.

Late in the afternoon, with the sky darkening, I passed this map and decided to follow it instead of Google.

Really, this did not help as it took me along more dirt roads, and then when I emerged back onto a highway at a village called Parchen the rain had started. I still had nearly 40 kilometres to ride and it was already 16:00. The rain was quite hard for awhile and there was a nasty cold wind, and I was getting very hungry as I had not eaten lunch. I sheltered under a tree briefly and ate a lot of my nuts and dried fruit, but mostly I just carried on.

Once I reached the outskirts of Brandenburg the rain stopped and I removed some of my wet clothing with just about 15 kilometres left to ride. I began reaching decent speeds, finally, but then there was a construction crew on the bike path. One of the crew was oblivious to my ringing bell and as I geared down approaching him, my chain snapped.

It was a really crappy way to end what had been a rough day, but at least I only had about 6 kilometres left to go. As I pushed my bike I was checking on my phone to see if any bike shops were open, but all seemed to close at 18:00 or earlier so I was not going to be able to get my chain fixed tonight. May as well just head to the hotel. 

As if my "ride" could get any worse, Google let me down again and took me up a dead end overpass that used to cross railway tracks, forcing me to backtrack and detour. 

Finally, at 19:00, after a 10+ hour day covering 147 kilometres, I reached the hotel. 

Thankfully, Diana was waiting for me with some warm take-out to eat. I showered, then borrowed a bike she had rented to ride to do laundry, which I very much needed to do after the rainy, sandy, dirty day. After laundry we ate a proper dinner in the Neustadt neighbourhood of Brandenburg. Neustadt translates as "new town," but it seems quite old, at least by Canadian urban standards! 

Anyway, mostly I did not get a chance to see much of interest in Brandenburg, other than what I walked by on the way back to the hotel from the restaurant. But, after what had been one of my toughest days cycling ever, I was too tired to mind much.