The Hunt

This years spring classics are in full swing and besides the huge and legendary “Paris-Roubaix” and the “Ronde van Vlaanderen” there are a lot of small races and cycling events in Europe and especially in Germany taking place which are worth visiting. One of these small and pleasant races is “Die Hölle des Ostens” or as we lovingly call it, the “Paris-Roubaix of Saxony-Anhalt”. This little race is a small, non-commercial and beautiful event organized by a guy named Maurizio. We heard about the race before but unfortunately never visited. Shame on us because we obviously missed a lot. This year the opportunity arose to accompany our good friend Marcus. Besides racing the “Ronde van Vlaanderens” a week before, he decided to take part on this years 7th edition of the race starting on a cloudy and chilly Sunday morning a week ago.

Everyone who ever saw the cobblestones from Paris-Roubaix with his own eyes should knew what to expect from a race named “Hell of the East”. 190km road with around 40km of finest Pavé awaited Marcus. The plan was made. We wanted to catch the riders on three different locations along the route. We decided to go by bicycle and wanted to ride ahead of the Peloton. It worked our pretty well. We passed the Peloton as planned, we took a lot of pictures, chatted with riders and we had a great day on the bike. Thanks to Marcus for again supporting us and congratulations for the 1st place outside of the official score. It was a fun day and it seems everybody attended the race enjoyed riding the hardest Pavé around Halle (Saale). So thanks to everybody for smiling into the cameras. Please enjoy some pictures we took of the event. Ride safe!

We did it! After five days of cycling trough Poland and Russia we finally crossed the Russian / Lithuanian border and met with Michel and Boris again. We were happy being back together but we were a bit exhausted because we all had to wait quite a long time before getting trough the customs and the temperatures on this day were hot as hell. Passing the border with bicycles was easier then expected. As long as you have a valid passport and visa for getting in and out of russia everything is easy. Looking back i have to say that entering the European Union from a Non-European state takes longer than vice versa. Even the Lithuanian border officials were very friendly and besides checking our bikes very accurately they gave us good advises what we have to consider when riding through Lithuania. For example they told us we had to wear those yellow cycling vests on official streets. If not, the police can pull you over and give you a penalty fee. The vests only cost a few Euros and you can buy them literally anywhere.

Klaipeda, our next city on our way to Latvia lies 50km ahead of us. Since the border to Lithuania is right in the middle of the Curonian spit we had to decide either to stay or to leave the spit. We decided not to leave because we where really looking forward to sleep outside again, and the best way to do this was finding a nice hidden spot at the beach. This was no problem at all because the beaches are literally endless in this region and after 6 in the evening you are the only one around. Before we got to the beach we stopped in Juodkrantė situated at the bodden, the eastern coastline of the spit, bought some food, beer and shandy and once again crossed the spit to find our place to sleep.

Unlike the non-existing cycling paths in Russia, Lithuania is a more bike-friendly country and had a lot more bike paths in good conditions to offer. The route to Klaipeda was beautiful. Pinetree forests, dunes and the sound of the sea accompanied us all the way up to our next stop. We took a small ferry from Smiltyné to Naujoji perkéla in Klaipeda and stopped for breakfast and coffee. We followed to route along the coastline for about 60km and finally stopped in Šventoji. Soon we found a small and private camping ground, we put our tents up and headed to the village to grab some food. The evening meal was cheap and simple and the snacks were served with garlic bread and dried pig ears. Yummy.

Our plan for the next day was crossing the border to Latvia and heading towards Liepaja. This was our second last day of the tour and we had to catch the ferry from Liepaja to Kiel on the next day. We knew we had to cover quite a distance that day before reaching our last camping ground and we also wanted our last day to be relaxed. We immediately started cycling on the federal road and only stopped when we were hungry. This time we took a break in Nīca and we stopped by nice little restaurant called Nīcava to have some lunch. The food was really good and we finished the meal with fried ice cream. This was great.

We were tired that day and it got late so we only wanted to find a camping ground for our last night in Latvia. A few kilometers later we found an official camping ground called Vērbeļnieki and we decided to stay there. They had everything we need so we set up our tents, we took a shower, grabbed some snacks and beer and went to the beach to hang out. This was the place were the idea was born to not cycle the federal road to Liepaja the next day but instead to cycle along the beach.

With the baltic sea on our side, dunes on the other side and a breeze on our faces we were cruising to our final destination. We cycled on solid sand, sometimes in the water feeling the waves on our feet and we only stopped to collect baltic amber. It was a appropriate finish and we wished we had had a few more days. Once we arrived in Liepaja we only had to grab some food and find the harbor were the ferry departs. In the beginning we thought about how to get back to Germany a lot. We talked about taking a train or even a bus back to Germany but we thought it was a great idea to take the ferry not only because the price was fair but also because of the more relaxed way of traveling. And we were absolutely right. The journey lasts approximately 24h.