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Bike touring the coast of the Baltic Sea in Germany

By Erik Plankton

June 13^th, 2016

Springbreak

Our annual traditional May biking trip headed to the shores of the Baltic Sea in Germany accompanied with a relaxing sea voyage from Helsinki to Travemünde and back.

Disclosure: This trip report is done in co-operation with Finnlines. We received the ferry trip and cabin free or charge, but paid for all food and drink on board by ourselves.

all aboard!

Travelling by boat is super easy and relaxing because you can pack everything at home and just ride in. Luckily we left home with some spare time for a coffee break… since Johanna’s bottom bracket suddenly came loose and needed tightening. After a hasty lunch and some back tracking home with a taxi to get tools everything was fixed and we got to the Vuosaari harbour in time. After enjoying the weather on deck it was time for dinner. The Finnlines ships have a reputation for serving great food and it really did not dissappoint us. The overall atmosphere on the ship was nice and relaxed. You can also enjoy a sauna and a jacuzzi during the 30 hour voyage.

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from sunset to fog

After a beautiful sunset we woke up to a foggy day. Visibility was considerably low and you could barely see other ships in distance. We had the possibility to visit the bridge and see whats going on there during the voyage. The two men crew on duty were very alert and constantly scanning all directions for other ships with binoculars in addition to monitoring the radar and other systems. With a cruising speed over 22 kts the Finnstar is one of the fastest commercial ships on the Baltic Sea. The ship is built in 2006 so the interior if fairly new and in good shape. They are now (June 2016) making some renovations so it should be even nicer in the future.

arriving in travemünde

We arrived on schedule and had a nice view of the town and historic ship Passat from the upper deck. After disembarking we navigated our bikes through the parking lot full of trucks and found a cycle path that took us almost directly to the camping ground that is just a few kilometers from the harbour.

heading east

Quite many European camp sites have the possibility to sign up for fresh bread in the morning by putting your name on the list the previous day. This is a highly recommended way to start your day. After breakfast we started to follow the Northern coast line and headed East. Our goal was to reach the island of Rügen some 3-4 days later. We met a guy riding a 36” unicycle with full camping gear. He had already ridden 1400 km from Prague if I remember correctly. His plan was to ride all the way to Iceland and then back down through Norway and Finland. Talk about an epic 5-6 month adventure!

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gravel roads and green fields

The route for the entire week consisted mostly of nice gravel roads and paved bike paths.

dynamics

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Wismar

We stayed in the town of Wismar in a hotel because we wanted to watch the icehockey world championship final Finland vs. Canada. The game was boring and we lost.

big breakfasts and cheap schnitzels

We usually had breakfast in a cafe or at the campsite. You can find a calorie rich schnitzel for around 6€ which makes for a satisfying bikers lunch.

OSTSEE Küsten radweg

The bike route follows the coastline all the way from Denmark through Germany to Poland and beyond. It has excellent signage and is easy to follow.

zen fucking everywhere

The trailer developed an annoying rattle. The fender had lost a bolt that had to be replaced to ensure peace on earth. Some of the roads were pretty zen too.

strandkorb

Virtually every bigger beach area had these nice beach “baskets” you could rent to enjoy the sun. The concept is great, since you can turn it to block the wind and stay warm.

forest

I was surprised that the route went through so many forest sections. It was nice variation from the paved cycle paths and coastline.

Old school vs new gen

All the young guns seem to be stuck to their phones, while the old guys have a proper chat and do some fishing in between.

sea captain Plankton

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Graal-Müritz rHodo park

On Johanna’s birthday we came upon a beautiful park with thousands of flowers.

trailer parks and off road touring

A good thing about touring with the trailer that it doubles as a nice tent table. It also makes a lot of noise bouncing around when going on rugged trails. Some of them were pretty steep.

steilküste

In some parts the path went almost dangerously close to the cliffs with no rails to prevent a fall. Lot’s of swallows lived there and put on a great aerial acrobatic show. Higher up hawks and eagles were using the thermals to effortlessly glide along and stalk prey.

sunny days

Endless beaches and a signage test site for paint durability.

Darßer Ort Lighthouse

We made a slight detour to visit the Darßer Ort Lighthouse. Otherwise the roads had been very quiet despite of a sunny Sunday, but we soon learned why. Everyone had come to see the lighthouse. It was actually a bit difficult to find a parking place for our bikes and the queue was long. So we just had a look from the outside, filled our shoes with sand and continued on.

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The german way of road building

1. Make a long straight line
2. Now the road is complete

A special shout out goes to the German way of saying “I love you!” in the form of concrete block roads. They are super annoying to ride on since the gap is quite significant and the trailer wheels makes a small bounce every 2,5 meters.

Refueling

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Stralsund - Rügen bridge

The bridge is only for cars and trucks. The smaller old bridge is for cyclists.

Dinglespeeding

After Stralsund we crossed the bridge to the island of Rügen. We decided to skip the interior which looked a bit boring on the map and took the train to Sassnitz on the East coast. Maybe my bike leaned on a another bike on the train or some other mysterious and hideous crime happened, but my rear derailleur was pretty badly bent and I couldn’t get it to work properly. When shifting up it threw the chain into the spokes. It was happy on the 4th cog so I left it there and used only the front two rings for the rest of the trip.

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prora

After a short ride we arrived at Prora which is a massive building complex built by the Nazis between 1936 - 1939. It was supposed to be a holiday complex for 20.000 people but it was never used for that. Now some parts of it are torn down, some are in ruins and some a refurbished as apartments and a hotel. The scale of the place is staggering and I was unable to catch it in photos.

camp vibes

Since we were travelling in the end of May the season was not in full swing yet. But I started to understand the magnitude of people that is visiting these places during the european holiday season when we arrived at Regenbogen Göhren camp site. The serviced included a wellness spa, supermarket, restaurants, play ground, 5 restroom buildings and a movie theatre.

sunset shots

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thief!

After enjoying the sunset on the beach we came back to camp to cook dinner. During our absence some critter had stolen our bread. The perpetrator was never caught, but our list of suspects included a gang of ravens and a couple of dogs.

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Heading back west

From Göhren we rode to Samtens and took the regional train to Bad Kleinen via Rostock. A nice historic steam engine runs on the island and it seemed to be popular. You can also take your bike on that train too.

slippery when wet

We headed North towards Boltenhagen in the rain. The stone roads are really rough on the bike and pretty slippery when wet. Johanna had both of her wheels out of true and an alarming creak was a constant annoyance. We could not accurately pin point where it came from, but I suspected that the headset was about to go bust. It held the whole way back home but when servicing the bike we found out that the fork had a fracture and needs to be replaced. Luckily it didn’t fail on the road.

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cheap breakfast

The Liebeslaube camp sites supermarket / cafe was just being built (should be open by now) and the Italian restaurant did not understand the concept of breakfast. The only thing we could get was fresh bread in the morning. This was fine since we had some pesto left from the previous night and Johanna had the great idea to melt some chocolate as the sweet option.

caravan

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last day

On the last day of riding we had plenty of time to lounge around and have a couple of glasses of wine in a strandkorb on the terrace of a beach side restaurant.

back in travemünde

We found a boat restaurant right next to the harbour. The Finnstar came in while we were eating. We had plenty of time before the check in would open so we cruised around town for a bit. They let the bikes and motorcycles in quite early so we didn’t have to wait for too long in chilly night.

boarding

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tips for travelling aboard finnlines

1. Take a book with you.
2. Enjoy the food.
3. Relax.

That’s really it. I really liked the longer than normal sea voyage since you actually had time to sit down and read a book for once. The mood onboard is calm and nobody is in a hurry. Friendly service and good food.

vuosaari

The ship arrives after breakfast service and you have good time to pack your stuff before leaving. We underestimated the efficiency of the operations and thought we could take a little nap after breakfast, but soon they called that now deck 5 would be clear to disembark. Not surprisingly we were the last bikes to get off the ship and got a private escort through the harbour area behind the safety car.

Sipoo special

Feeling energetic after the full day of rest on the boat and a healthy breakfast we decided to try out a new route home to Sipoo through the forest. It started out great but soon turned to a stone road which was not optimal for the touring bike. A bolt snapped on Johanna’s rack but luckily it did not catch the brake disc. So we just installed a new bolt and carried on home.