About Myself

Ever since I started bicycling in the USA [in 2003] I have wanted to establish a webpage and/or a weblog to advise my cycling friends about bicycling in the US and in Germany, keep them up-to-date about new developments, interesting news and my personal cycling experiences.

I hope that this weblog and my websites [see blogroll on the right hand side] will serve this purpose.

Btw, the picture to the right shows me and my Marin Mill Valley in front of Mission Espada in San Antonio/Texas.

My bicycling history:

When I was a young child still [age 5 or thereabouts] my parents went to the local bike shop in the small town of Krefeld-Linn where we lived and got me a small used bike. It was a minimalist affair, but still served its intended purpose: to get me used to riding a bike. With some mishaps, though, to tell the truth. I vividly remember one afternoon, when my parents were working in our garden [adjacent to the moat of the castle], with a path down the middle leading down to the moat. I was riding my bike down that path and … you know what’s going to come, don’t you? Yep, you’re right: my bike went faster and faster and with that simple brake it had [just pressing a rubber pad down on the front tire] I was unable to stop it. [At that time I had nit yet mastered the technique to use the pedals to apply the rear brake.] Well, I shot down that path, clean through the little hedge we had at its end and down the steps to the water’s edge. And in I went: completely. Luckily for me, it wasn’t too deep, since my parents hadn’t even noticed the accident. Only when I re-emerged, copiously dripping and covered with green slime did they realize what hat happened. And while mother by her hand led me home to get into dry clothes my father used his rake to fish for the bicycle – which finally he got out.

Later, at around age 14, I got a new [brand new] and bigger [of course] bike with a 3-speed transmission in the rear hub – quite an upscale item at that time – as a Christmas present. This bike I rode for many years, to school and back [in nearly all kinds of weather] and on longer tours [camping out or staying in youth hostels] all over Germany. I’m still convinced that riding this bike [I never was able to go slowly] accounted for my physical fitness which I have been able to preserve all through my life – to a certain extent.

But as much as I liked this bicycle, my (secret) longing had always been a road bike. And that wish came true – well, I fulfilled it myself – in the middle of the 1980s with my first Dancelli [see next page, "My Bicycles". I rode the "Red Arrow" for many years, more first, less later - as my job took more and more time and as I started jogging, too.  And for a few years in the second half of the 1990s I didn't ride it at all.  But after my retirement on May 31, 2003 I started riding it again and with that, bicyling in earnest.

And that year, 2003, was also the year I bought my second bike, a Marin "Mill Valley". I bought that bike in the US [in Denver, to be exact], as I wanted to ride a bike during my frequent stays in the US and it would have been  too expensive to always bring theDancelli over from Germany on the plane and take it back again.

to be continued