As announced in my previous post, we spent a week in Hochsauerlandkreis from June 28th to July 5th.
Although I cycled every day – duh – the weather was not what I hoped for.
Friday and Saturday it was scorching hot, after which the temperature dropped over 15 degrees and we had rain every day.
On the bright side, I collected a lot of new kilometers but that will now be a lot harder when I cycle the area again…
I had planned to cycle 8 stages, but Friday’s Stage 7/Epilogue was cancelled due to car trouble which meant we had to get back home earlier.
| Moving | Dist | D+ | D- | Garmin | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stage 6 | 2:54:27 | 76.5 | 977 | 1,063 | Stage 6 |
| Stage 5 | 3:50:49 | 101.8 | 1,630 | 1,722 | Stage 5 |
| Stage 4 | 2:32:16 | 65.5 | 935 | 955 | Stage 4 |
| Stage 3 | 4:03:21 | 100.7 | 1,672 | 1,634 | Stage 3 |
| Stage 2 | 3:11:28 | 80.0 | 1,086 | 740 | Stage 2 |
| Stage 1 | 4:32:08 | 120.9 | 1,267 | 1,283 | Stage 1 |
| Prologue | 3:51:09 | 95.7 | 1,659 | 982 | Prologue |
The nifty VeloViewer wheel:
I covered 641 kilometers (91.6 kilometers average) with 9,226 meters (1,318 meters average) of elevation difference.
Those totals are less than last year’s, but in 2023 I did cycle 8 stages…
Total moving time was almost 25 hours, average speed was 25.7 kph.
Considering I’ve been to the area four times before, the total of 429 new kilometers is not bad.
While Hochsauerland is a large area, much of it cannot be cycled, let alone that it is accessible by car. There are many up-and-down the hill dead ends that I could add as new kilometers, but I did not want to do that, not yet anyway.
And as I – despite the frequent visits – do not know the area very well, plotting a course is always tricky, lest I end up on goat trails.
I ended up on paths not much more than that anyway and Paula had to commit a few – minor – traffic violations to be able to follow me along the way too.
Despite the lousy weather, I enjoyed cycling here as much as I did the previous times. It was often harder for Paula to get out of the car for a picture than it was for me to keep on cycling 😂
And as you never know what the weather will be in the Alps, this week was good practice for either hot – Friday and Saturday – or rainy and cold – the rest of the week – conditions.
That said, I sure hope I will have at least better conditions during my Tour de France. Not as hot as in 2022, but I can do without the constant rain that we’ve had much of the year so far.
