Rainy Saturday … time for internet videos …
All posts by Herbert
The Mideast conflict – explained in three minutes
Sad but so true.
Found at the site of Mario Sixtus.
This Land Is Mine from Nina Paley on Vimeo.
A brief history of the land called Israel/Palestine/Canaan/the Levant.
Who’s-killing-who viewer’s guide here:
http://blog.ninapaley.com/2012/10/01/this-land-is-mine/
Performance and human perception
Today I found this video about “Performance” (speed and reaction time) and human perception. Although I knew most of the facts already, the explanations and connections between different things are really well explained.
15 minutes worth watching.
Found here: Medium.com
Hohen Neuffen
Mid of the week, the weather forecast was not very good. So it was a positive surprise that it was pleasantly warm and no rain forecasted until later in the day. So we decided to ride up the “Schwäbische Alp” at Neuffen.
Well known that the terrain before the “alp” is pretty hilly with a few rather steep climbs. But at the beginning of the tour, that’s OK. As usual, I planned the tour through small side streets and bike-ways, so we could enjoy the scenery. From Neuffen there is the climb up the Alp, with 250m altitude and 6-9% ascent. A bit of a challenge, but we are fit enough by now. We were up so early, around 11:15, that we decided to visit the old castle “ruin” of Hohen Neuffen.
I cannot remember having been here… and was very pleasantly surprised. Not only the view is great, the “ruin” Burg Hohen Neuffen is being renovated carefully, so it looks like a ruin from far away, but insight is a Restaurant and you can even rent the place for company or private events, especially for weddings this is a great place.
Then we saw birds, buzzards and hawks, on one of the elevated places. On Sundays and holidays, there is a falconer show there. So we didn’t take long to decide to stay and watch the show. Being here so early, waiting 20 minutes would be worth it. The show was planned for 12:00 with about 45 min. duration. It was fantastic!!! The Falconer Wolfgang Weller not only ran a great show with his birds, with hunting at highest speed, he also explained a lot of very interesting facts about the birds. Where they are from, how it works to “tame” and control them, and how they hunt in free nature. A real highlight!
Well, from there on, the rest is quickly told. We returned via Bad Urach and Metzingen into the valley of the Neckar and then upwards via Kirchentellinsfurth and Pfrondorf. In total the tour was 120km with 1130m altitude and average speed of 25,6 km/h (Tour at GPSies).
… made it, Hahntennjoch!
… made it! This was hard, very hard, … but everybody can do easy..
900m steady climb from Elmen to the Hahntennjoch. Today’s tour in total: 140,3km, 1870m altitude, 24,2 km/h.
Hindelang, Oberjoch, Valley of Tannheim
On Wednesday I went to the Allgäu, a region in the south of Germany, close to the border to Austria. On Wednesday and Thursday a fellow rider was also here in the same town, so we did two tours together. A small and fast one with 60km to warm up on Wednesday, small Tannheimer-Tal tour (GPSies), … and on Thursday a long one with 1330m altutide and 120km, the Namlos-Tour. Unfortunately it rained. The tour itself is great, but we had two times rain for several kilometres, so it was a hard day.
On Friday it rained, so one day to relax. Today I did again a nice tour, via Wertach to Sonthofen and Hindelang and from there climbing the pass up to Oberjoch. Picture from a view-point near Oberjoch:
From the view point I continued to Oberjoch and down into the valley of Tannheim. As I was there early, I did a small detour to the Vilsalpsee:
From there I went to Grän and returned via Pfronten to Nesselwang. Nice tour with 86,6km and 900m altitude (Route on GPSies). Will see if I have enough power tomorrow for a big one…
Good biking week
The last 5 days I collected a good number of kilometers on the bike. First on Thursday the evening tour with the “Lauftreff Holzgerlingen” (57,3km) , then on Friday a smaller tour alone, to stay warm… (41km).
On Saturday then the RSG/fratelli tour. This time a ride via Bondorf and returning via Entringen, Mönchberg and Herrenberg up via the “bee path” (80km, Tour at GPSies). Great disappointment in Mönchberg, the spring/fountain is currently “closed” for renovation. No clear, cold spring-water for refreshment in the next several weeks.
On Sunday then the planned RSG club tour into the Black Forrest, to Simmersfeld. Finally we were 5 riders, one missed the start and called us a bit later so we waited for him in Gärtringen (thanks to cell phones). The tour was the “shortest” possible Simmersfeld-tour, but with summer temperatures of up to 35°C, no detours were planned. In Altensteig we had a nice break with cake and coffee. The first time since 3 years I chose Emmingen to climb back up out of the Nagold-valley. This is a nice alternative, in the town Emmingen are a few very steep passages, but after town, the rest is a nice climb and with partial Forrest and shade. So the longest weekend-tour was 120km and 1060m altitude (Tour at GPSies).
For the holiday today (Whit Monday), we chose to do only a smaller tour with about 75km and 630m altitude. In total this week: 372,5 km and 3160m altitude. The first summer weekend nicely used 🙂
Different type of work today
The day started cold and with a drizzle. Just about right to work at home. In the last weeks, I had so much “stuff” to do, that I did not manage the household… so a lot of small things accumulated. But now that is back in order.
Only around 4 o’clock I managed get onto the bike. But still the temperature was rather low, just around 14°C … I’d call that cold while riding. Only between Deckenpfronn and Kuppingen finally the sun came out. View in direction Affstätt and Herrenberg:
Finally a nice little evening-tour, around ~50km.
Delete Blood Cancer
For a lot of years I am registered as potential donor of stem cells at the DKMS Germany (DKMS UK / DKMS US). Patients with Leukemia urgently need a stem cell donation to live. Their stem cells have to be killed/removed to cure the cancer and then have to be replaced with new ones from a donator.
Years ago, the donation was a difficult process, but this is no longer true. Today the stem cell donation is a relatively simple process and not dangerous at all. More information can be found on the DKMS pages.
For a donation, the donator has to match strict criteria compared to the patient. The likelihood for a match is in the range of hitting the jackpot in a lottery. Therefore it is important that as many people as possible register as donators!
On 28.5. is international day against blood cancer.
Join in!
Around Stuttgart
Mid of last week, Ralf asked, whether we would start at the “RTF” (organized bike tour) around Stuttgart (“Rund um Stuttgart”). In principal a good idea, but: Start/Finish in Untertürkheim, where we would have to start at the latest at 9:00 … which means we would need to take the train in Böblingen at 8:00. Hmm, that’s pretty early. And then I checked the tour… it goes via Sindelfingen/Ehningen and through Holzgerlingen, my home town!
So why not create a “Around Stuttgart Special” tour and ride the official track, but from “Böblingen to Böblingen”, great idea, right?
Thought, agreed, done: So we started at our club-house at 10:00, through the Aichtal at pretty high speed until Grötzingen where the tour started to go on roads that I didn’t know, as this is not my typical area. But with the RTF signs at every turn, it was easy to follow the roads until Untertürkheim through nice sceneries. Arrived at the start/finish area after about 50km, where we made a short break.
Then we started again and followed a sign “Tour A und B this direction”… OK, so we climbed the Rotenberg which is one of the nice hills in Stuttgart, about 200m altitude, with a great view over Stuttgart. Once being here, this is a view that you must enjoy:
A small issue with that. This was not the official route. We must have missed a turn, so climbing up here was not really intentional. OK, same way back down. Checked the GPS track on the smartphone… shortly after the sign we had missed a turn left. OK, next try. A few kilometers through the vineyards … until the next road crossing. No RTF sign, checking the SmartPhone, we are on the right track. What’s up now? Well, after short thinking it became clear. The official start was planned until 9:00, but we were at the start only at 12:00 as we had left Böblingen only at 10:00. So the organizers had already started to remove the signs. Clearly my fault, bad planning.
So at first, I started to check the Smartphone at every road crossing that was unclear. But that doesn’t work well, you have to stop each time and wait, that is not “road bike” like. But Martin, one of our team, had a bike-GPS mounted and had done this tour already some 8 years ago, and still had the old tour stored. The old tour was a bit different, but at least this would allow us to follow directions without stopping.
For the next few kilometers we first had to find to the right road of the old route and missed a few turns, so we stumbled across some of the outer parts of Stuttgart, until we reached the right track. Around Fellbach and Kornwestheim, the old route used a lot of main roads, so we had quite a lot of traffic. After about 20km we reached “outside Stuttgart” around Münchingen, Hemmingen and Heimerdingen, and things went much better. Very nice scenery again.
Shortly before we reached Magstadt, we followed known roads again, but I was a bit surprised about the road there. I already knew that after many, many years of construction work, the last bit of the new B464 was finished. However there was no side-road, and the B464 is like Autobahn, so we HAD to cycle almost one kilometer on the B464 until we could leave it and enter Magstadt. This is a bit strange. So here we left the official RTF track, as we all started to be a bit tired and wanted to take the shortest route back to Böblingen. After all, here is our home-turf.
Despite the extra-tours in Stuttgart, I think it was a nice tour, the views over Stuttgart on such a nice day were worth it. But next year we either have to prepare better by loading the official GPS track on a bike navigator,… or we don’t do the tour this day again.
Back home, I had 132,2km, 1.340m altitude with an average speed of 23,9km/h recorded. Not bad, I think we’ll all sleep well tonight.