Bike Abandonment

After our night of imaginary hell, we rode the 22 remaining kilometers to Mannheim. Needing security and comfort, I figured that because I used to live there 6 years ago, that would be the closest we could get to proverbial chicken soup from across the ocean. It's amazing how little the town has changed in all these years; my favorite cafes are in the same place, the awesome antique jewelry store is still on the corner, the medical library still has free Internet, and ice cream cones are still 1 euro-the cheapest we found the whole trip.

The first stop we made was to the medical library Internet where Kat scoped out hunky doctors-in-training and cheap hotels, because there was no way we were getting on our bikes again to camp. It turns out the most affordable hotel in the center of town, Hotel Luxa, was the one my mom and I stayed at when she first dropped me off in Germany, and which I had totally forgotten about. Kat and I were so worn out since we got in to town that we ended up staying 3 days when we only planned for 1. The thought of moving at all filled us with dread. We became very, very boring. Our idea of a perfect day was to spend several hours reading at Star Coffee, followed by several hours of Internet, some window shopping, always to retire to our room by 7pm for dinner, a bottle of wine, and watching music videos - some cheezy, some brilliant, and some just with fun songs.

On the 2nd day we had to finally deal with getting our bikes home. The plan was to ship them back to the States and then frolic on Croatian shores sans cycle. Getting the bikes to Europe was not really a huge problem, the bike shops in Austin even offered to send them from the store and then there was always taking them on the plane. Getting them back to the States proved to be a greater issue. Kat investigated through a few shops around Mannheim and they all said they would provide a box but we would have to deal with the German freight companies ourselves. Total pain in the ass.

One of the boys at the bike shop said he would buy Kat's Crosscheck because they're coveted in Europe and apparently olive green and gray are super rare colors over there. She sold it for just slightly less than she had hoped, but not by much. Success for Kat!

Mine was a slightly different story. Because my bike was homemade, it didn't fetch any buyers. I decided to do a little cycle surgery and take all my 'good' parts with me. Armed with a large glass of wine and my multi-tool, I went down into the hotel basement junk area where we stored our bikes-the part they don't want the customers to see. I took off the tire tread and tubes, my girl seat, the rear rack, and the derailleur and chain; unfortunately I had to leave my peddles because they were welded on and despite my best efforts of my newly formed biceps, they wouldn't budge.
The parts combined were more than the $50 frame and my boyfriend, Conner, said in a worse-case-scenario to just leave it and we'll build another one back in Austin.

Afterwards, on our way to get one last ice cream cone, I unceremoniously left the poor remnants by a dumpster and quickly walked away before anyone saw. It was actually really sad; we rode over 1,500 miles on those bikes and well, damn it, parting..yadda, yadda...sweet sorrow. End of a biking adventure.