I expected that waking up after the first day will be hard.  It turned out that I was wrong.  An hour before the alarm clock was set to ring I already opened my eyes, a little confused, and found myself in an acceptable state in the hotel room.  It was not even 7AM and breakfast was going to start was at 07:30.  I used the time to clean up the bike and send a few quick emails.  Next on the agenda was a massive breakfast which actually also served as dinner of the night before.  It was fantastic as only breakfast in a vacation hotel could be.  I did manage to consume massive amount of eggs and gluten-free toast and fruit and industrial quantity of coffee.

After breakfast I repacked, collected the bike clothes that spent the night on the radiator getting dry and hit the road.  It was 08:30AM and the morning myst was still floating over the lake and its surrounding.  For a brief second I felt sorry for having to ride back south and not being able to spend any time in the little city by the lake, but with some 200km ahead, I knew that there is not much room for meandering.  The Garmin was fully charged and my behind was still feeling like it was holding on to some skin.  I quickly got on the path and this time followed the curve of the lake on the west side.  The day’s route was mostly along lakes until pretty close to Berlin.

After about an hour of riding I suddenly got the sneaky suspicion that I was riding in circles.  In retrospect, it would have been hard to ride completely around the biggest lake in Germany in one hour, but something was not sitting right in my stomach and it was was not breakfast.  I consulted the Garmin and my cell phone and decided to ignore my gut feeling and try to follow the route I had planned.  This was also an instance where the Garmin was convinced that a line clear across a river was a valid route option.  It’s entirely possible that the problem was between the screen and the saddle and not with the device itself, but given that at the end of the day I did end up in my final destination, I guess the Garmin did its job.

Riding alongside lakes does get a little repetitive after several hours.  With all the peacefulness of the lake, at the end of the day it’s nothing but a very large body of water that’s pretty quiet – I was wishing for waves breaking on the shore, but this is Germany after all, waves are not our expertise really.  So southward we continued covering good ground and keeping close to the water.

Several hours later I realized that I am very tired of the lake.  I could not wait for a sign that will announce my departure from water land, from the state I was in and into the state surrounding Berlin.  As the day progress the amount of skin on which I was sitting was dwindling and the energy was low.  As opposed to the way north, I only allowed food intake from the saddle and the powerbars were running low.  At around 17:00 while riding through a very picturesque village cursing the cobblestones that were accelerating the loss of skin on my behind, I spotted a fetching coffee shop and decided that this was as good a point as any to take a coffee break.

This turned out to be exactly the energy source that I was lacking.  After a 10 minutes cappuccino session spent sitting in a seat other than my bike’s, I was ready for the last stretch.  This took me through some remote and very deserted roads deep in east Germany.  At some point, no longer that far from the ring road around Berlin, I actually found myself on a very old and deserted cobblestone path curving into the unknown.  A house was hidden in that curve and between wild grass and trees.  This was the only instance in which I felt like maybe the ride was not safe, but soon after turning the corner and crossing a rusty bridge I suddenly realized how close to Berlin I was and with that knowledge and a big smile on my face I headed to the city and then home.

Water World Double Century was a fantastic experience.  Riding 400km in one weekend, through one of Germany’s most beautiful landscapes was the kind of fun activities you only realize are fun when you completed them.  Connecting to places that are “around the corner” and yet far from the public view was also a highlight on the weekend.  Riding through villages that end before you finished reading their names, hearing the gravel crunch for hours under the tires and knowing that in any distance you are the only person around build a certain connection to the land and nature.  And yes, doing WWDC by myself, not giving up, and hoping that next year the ride will enjoy some more support, certainly is a source of pride.

Next year, WWDC#2 August 2-3, 2014.

Two days after I completed the ride and I still walk funny.  It’s a little bit mechanic or perhaps a scene from Monty Python’s silly walk sketch, but it just does not feel like the normal walk.  Completing the Water World Double Century ride feels like a huge achievement, a battle won and an epic adventure to boot.  It involved a massive storm, two days of riding a total of 390 km (that’s 242 miles you imperialists), 3 power bars, 2 oat bars, a very German apple, massive hotel breakfast, 25 hours on the road and roughly 8 small deers.  Oh yeh, there was a proper rainbow, just you know, ’cause they sometimes pop up after the storm.

The first Water World Double Century started from a link a family member shared about an area in North Germany called The European Route of Brick Gothic.  The name is of course a marketing disaster, but I conveniently ignored the name and focused on the area.  I had already ridden in parts of it, but when I looked at the map and did some investigation, I realized that this was a Water World.  The whole area is a little bit of landed surrounded by canals, lakes and waterways.  One lake leads to another which leads to a river and the story just continues.  It also includes the biggest lake inside Germany – Müritz lake.

So I spent several nights practicing “the best way to learn is by doing.”  I poured over GPS routes both on Ride With GPS, GPSies, and some other less known sites.  I plotted two routes: one going north and one heading back south.  The north ride was a combination of well known European bike routes such as the Berlin-Copenhagen way, as well as forest roads and loads of what looked like gravel.  The second day was a tour along the curves of the lakes.  Based on the map this was about half the ride and the rest was a ride through the deep unexplored corners of the state of Mecklenburg and its neighboring state Brandenburg.

Invitation to the very small group of other cyclists were sent. But… Well, the answers, encouraging and excited as they were, led to no takers.  So the ride included exactly one participant – yours truly.  While conceptualized as a Brevet, without any awards or checkpoints, it ended up being an endurance test and a hell of a way to see a beautiful corner of the country that gets a lot less advertising than it deserves.

We (that would be Hunter and me) left on Saturday morning.  Based on some back of the envelop calculations, I figured that the northern ride will take about 10 hours, and since the sun only sets at 21:30, there was no real rush to start the ride at an uncivilized hour.  Initially, while planning the tour, I debated if the tour should start from the center of Berlin or if a train ride out will be advisable.  I figured that the 30 km out of the city could also be interested if a different route was taken than the usual route so that distance was added and the ride started from one of the best cafes in Berlin: Cafe am Ende Der Welt.

As soon as I left the city the ride delivered on its promise: Water World!  I followed a water way which turned into a lake, which turned into another waterway and…well you know the drill.

The road turned into a gravel path in the forest with large bodies of water to the right.  It was cool in the forest shade and hardly any people were to be seen.  At this point with the road turning into the following image, I suspected that this might be a rather boring route.

But before I realized it, the road opened up and I was actually riding the Berlin-Copenhagen bike path.  Typically this would have been the easy part of the ride, but not when the road turns into this:

This scene looked like a giant ran through the bike path knocking all the trees on the side of the path into the road.  It was definitely no longer the Berlin-Copenhagen path. While I was doing my best to ride around, the few other cyclists that were stumped by this sudden outburst of massive tree suicide, did not seem to have that option.  So I decided, in the spirit of Brevet of course, to stop and help.  This was a massive karma point collection since a fellow that was stuck between one tree and the next was about to give up on his plan to make it to Copenhagen. His bike, loaded to the max with the latest Ortlieb bags, weighted so much that he could not lift it.  We carried his bike together over the tree carcasses and slowly made progress.  After about 2 kilometers of walking his steel touring bike we reached the end of the tree carnage area and I bid him good luck and jumped back up on Hunter and continued.

The scene alternated between tiny villages, a constant theme during the whole ride, fields in various degrees of harvest and of course lakes!  Never was there a period longer than 30 minutes where a lake or some waterway was not accompanying Hunter and me.

The road also included other riders.  These were characterized by an abundance of Ortlieb bags, Shimano dynamo hubs, flat bars and orange Garmin GPS devices that looked like a walkie-talkie.  As opposed to my fellow riders on other weekends, they all admired Hunter and made comments on the speed in which I was touring.  Now here was a welcome change – a group of riders that think that I’m actually fast!  That was a new experience not to mention a nice complement.  At certain locations along the path there were even little cyclist snack/coffee bars.  They reminded me, even thought it sounds absurd, of travel coffee shops in Thailand or India – unassuming places where the company and crowd play a bigger role than the menu.  Thumbs up, I only wished I had time for a coffee and a chat.

At some point, as I was riding the path between relatively high shrubs and overtaking a group of three men, one of which riding a Salsa, a very sudden change in scenery occurred.  The shrubs disappeared all of a sudden dead tree stems were sticking out of a swamp, looking menacing.

As I stopped in my track and took the iPhone out I realized that the threatening nature of the swap was softened by the appearance of a rainbow in the distance.  It was massive and, possibly for the first time ever, I could actually see the place in which it touched the ground!

But I promised a storm now didn’t I?  Well…rainbows mean water in the air, so I was not concerned, but not 30 minutes went by and some nasty looking clouds were arriving.  After living in this part of the world for 10 years, I believe that I developed a sense of “oh I’m so going to get it.”  I tried to push onwards as fast as I could knowing that a city called Strasen was not far away, but the rain, coming at me from the north, was faster and about 3 km before said sanctuary, the clouds opened and massive amount of rain started pouring down.

Now, I have a certain policy about getting wet.  You can only get so wet and then you’re already wet and getting wetter is not an option.  Nice theory when in the city, but sadly it did not work in this case.  I was hiding under a tree on the side of the road, trying to find the bigger leaves to cover Hunter and myself.  Looking on the road that was not 30 centimeters away, I realized that I was standing in a waterfall.  And just as I thought “wow this is the most fierce rainfall I ever saw” it started raining harder and lightening and thunder arrived.  I did hope for an adventure and I certainly got it.  As many storms in North Germany, I knew that it is just a matter of minutes before it will leave and indeed 15 minutes later the clouds continued on their way south-east and I jumped back on Hunter, completely soaked, shivering, and rode onwards.  As I suspected Strasen was just up the road.  I stopped for tea and to squeeze the water out of my shoes, warmed up, and continued north.

The rest of the day was an exercise in trying to stay warm and making it to the destination before nighttime.  With the trees-covered road, the rain storm and the tea, I had lost significant time and still had the best fire roads ahead of me.  I’m used to riding alone in the forests, but in the dark, without any lights, that notion seemed less appealing.  The fire roads though were fantastic!  They were wet, misty and made that crunchy sound of tires eating gravel.  I was stoked to come out of a fire road, which turned into a gravel road by the train tracks, just as the sun was in the right position to paint the air yellow and leave the trees painted green.  Yep, that’s the image at the top of the page.

I rode into Waren and checked into the hotel around 21:00.  Light was already very dim and the temperatures dropped.  I was grateful to have a working heater in my room where I could dry my everything.  Instead of dinner, I snacked on dried fruits and before long I was heading to sleepland.  The first 181 km were done.  199 km to go.

Lessons Learned from Day 1

• If you’re going to bring a lock and carry all that weight, you should really make sure that you also have the key for said lock.  Otherwise, you’re just transporting weight around.
• Weather is a very fickle think here in Northern Europe.  It can get cold in August and massive rain storms do decide to visit now and again.  Be ready!  There is a reason why knee and arm warmers exist and why rain jackets weight only a few grams.  Take them with you!
• Stopping for a nice meal of fish and potatoes is not a good idea.  It might be the fact that your body is focused on generating energy for the legs and is neglecting the stomach which then complains and has its own way to revenge.  Oat bars, dried fruits and energy bars proved themselves to be excellent food supply.
• Before the next tour, get a rack.  Hunter certainly has enough rack-mounts.  Carrying anything in a backpack for long distances really takes away from the feeling of wind at your back.  Your back is there to schlep the bag and that’s just not cool.
• If you’re carrying stuff with you, put them in a water resistant bags.  Yep, my SAG bag was not water resistant enough.