Let’s go back to Jana’s brake.

The brake was squeaking. This was not because it was wet everywhere from all the rain, because fortunately it wasn’t raining at all.

Nope, that problem was homemade. It wasn’t such a smart idea of Jana to change the brake pads prior to a 3-day tour AND not to test drive and possibly readjust them. Unfortunately, bad weather and a sinus infection right before our trip threw the plans for it overboard.

To dismount the wheel and check what the problem might be? That would have been possible, but in the middle of nowhere we wanted to avoid that. So we just held out and kept going.

Along the beautiful roads through fields and meadows, our path was very often framed by cornfields. Cornfield on the left, cornfield on the right.

The corn season is in full swing, so corn fields will accompany us not only on our first 140 km, but for quite a while.

“Where did all this blood come from? And more importantly, why am I pedaling in such a strange way?”

Björn had chafed both thighs on his top tube bag. However, it apparently looks worse than it is.

And that damned brake was still screeching. And as if that wasn’t annoying enough, it was getting louder and louder. Luckily, it did brake.

Speaking of nerve-wrecking, we had to take a 2km detour for a 100m construction site, since German traffic planners often don’t take cyclists into consideration.

But we unfortunately had no choice to avoid this detour.

We met a donkey and realized that donkeys are just the better horses.

A little further on we took a break and Jana tried a new bar called Spinatpirat (pineapple spinach) and spit it right back out. Yuck! To calm down, we had another delicious chocolate protein bar.

Not far from our destination for the day, we were approached by a nice road cyclist who asked us curiously what we were up to, so we asked him for a bike store in Bremen that could help us with the squeaky brake: he confirmed our fears, unfortunately: on a Saturday afternoon, all the small local stores were closed.

Once we arrived, we were greeted by a refreshing shower, followed by a non-alcoholic beer and a large baguette.

At Jana’s dad’s place we were welcomed by two little Chihuahua’s, served with baguette and non-alcoholic beer.

We were knackered, tired but very happy and glad to have survived the first day so well. But we still had the problem with the brake …

We still had to solve the squeaking brake issue. We took the front wheel out, put it back in, put the brake pads in and took them out again. After an hour of back and forth, it helped to loosen the brake calliper and screw it tight again. The noise was gone. Luckily, because otherwise we wouldn’t have made the next 130 km the next day.

Björn saw the continuation of the journey already endangered, because in between the front wheel did not move at all. Fortunately, after a long 11 hours on the bike, this problem was solved.

Exhausted, we fell into bed, however, not before planning a french fry break for the next day …

Our learning from this day: plan a break to eat something real. Dry pretzel sticks and bars alone are okay for pulling away, but nothing really close (not that French fries are, but at least they motivated us).

So we planned a fries stop for the next day. Since our way led us past the Dümmer lake it offered itself almost to take this lake as cause for a break. Especially because we planned to be there around noon, about halfway through our route.

Afterwards, all important devices were charged and we closed our eyes to also charge our batteries for the next day.