Autumn in Germany

It is already getting cold in Bremen. And much to my surprise, there is even the occasional scrub of Kosmos blooming on the sides of the streets.

I took the Canyon out for a fast ride on Friday evening. Very fast indeed, only 2:07 hr for the usual 70 km loop along the Wuemme to Worpswede and Fischerhude and back. My shape was "ma ma" but I could draft behind several tractors bringing in the hay and finally I was behind a scooter (small numberplate, speed limited to 40 km-hr theoretically) for almost 8 km.

On Saturday I was too busy building up the new bikes. Yes, the plural is correct as I am working on the Union Single Speed as well as on a new Kotter frame that I am going to built up for a friend of mine, currently working in Saudi-Arabia.

The steel frame was made by Kotter, a company from the South of Germany for their own racing team. The frame was chromed first and then painted with a thin layer of lilac paint, so that the chrome is shining through the paintlayer from underneath. It is hard to see the real beauty of the frame on a photo - one has to see the frame on a nice autumn day outside in the sun. This called "Chromovelato" in Italian.

I also decided to sell my Gazelle winter bike. The new blue Olmo works very well with removable mud guards and I really don/t need two winter bikes. In case you are interested:

It is a Gazelle Champion Mondial A Frame model from 1979 with serial number 3237 359. Framesize is 60 cm, made of Reynolds 530 tubing. - Sorry Hiroshi, Sorry Tom you are out. You can see the frame in the original Gazelle catalog from 1982 on Page 13 on the top. I upgraded the components, now there is a super-light Suntour Cyclone Mk. II rear derailleur attached, plus new bar tape, new wiring and and and. Should be ready to run and be misused in the winter. 320 Euro plus shipping if you like.

On Sunday I felt the first onslaught of German virus on my body and since today I am finally confined to the house. The good thing about being sick is, that it takes away the pressure of all operational issues in normal life (clean up the garden, help daughter with her homework, fight about money wisely spend on bike components with the wife, scold wife about money uselessly spend on figure skating dresses - same wife by the way). Instead one can lean back and think about the strategic things in life, provided that the headache are not to big and the nose is not running faster than the supply of tissues will last:

So, this will be one of my last post on the Positivo Espresso blog. In the last weeks I have set up a new blog in German which will be much more handy when communicating with the other cycling guys in Bremen. Once it is completely ready for launch a will let you know.

As a kind of farewell gift David and me have published some excerpts from the "Great Kanto Cycling Book" I was writing with the help of Phil and Thomas from TCC in 2009. The original idea was to publish it as a book, but nobody was interested to pick up the threads in Japan and I was too busy organiszing my new life in Germany.

So instead of leaving it in the drawer to rot, David and me decided to make the content public. Perhaps somebody else would like to add or comment on some of the pages - plaese feel free to do so.

To see the Positivo Espresso blog growing from 0 to almost 60.000 hits has been a great pleasure. However, most of these hits had been made when I was already in Germany. So I believe it is would be better to set up something similar in Germany again before hanging on too long with the original site.

While blogging on a separate site, I still feel as a member of the Positivo Espresso Original Core Team (PEOCP) and I will continue to stay in contact and ride together with all of you. Actually most likely I will ride together with Stephen on Mallorca in two weeks time.
Read all about it ... later and elsewhere.

So long and thanks for all the fish.