Seen on Urbanstr. as the first snow started to fall, proper German hoonage of an Audi TT RS Mk2 Coupé in winter camouflage white riding slammed on black RoadForce centerlock rims (or at least pretending to be centerlock). “Guys better show respect / If they see man pullin’ up in a TT”
The trees along the southern perimeter road which I know so well. I haven’t sat under all of them only because I have my favourites.
This storm line slipped to the south-west of Tempelhofer Feld. The next one to the north-east. Threading the sunny needle between downpours all afternoon.
The Flugfeld doing that pretty late-summer bloom of lilac-lavender chicory flowers. I sat under a tree reading Fatimah Asghar’s If They Come For Us.
Seen on Weser Straße up Kottbusser Damm end, looking well stunting in Vegas Yellow, old habibis giving me the suss eye from Köşgeroğlu restaurant. I’m not really a huge fan of contemporary German hoonage, but the Audi R8 is a tasty slab of a whip, and that yellow is the brightest colour in X-Kölln. “Guys better show respect / If they see man pullin’ up in a TT”.
Once again at Tempelhofer Feld. Walking in the fields, sleeping under a tree on the grass with fingers dug into their roots, Kestrel perched on an upper branch above me.
’Cos obviously I haven’t blorged for a month, but I have biked to Tempelhofer Feld a few times a week and gone for one or two-hour walks, sat under trees, read, talked to birds and the earth, and on a couple of occasions the sheep. And the Feld is a riot of grasshoppers, insects, birds, flowers, and apples. The fields come up to my boobs and when the wind blows, it’s achingly beautiful.
Tempelhofer Feld getting windy.
Got my arse out the door and into Germanic nature today. First time in a long time. Balcony / kitchen riding on my trainer has been the default I’ve fallen into for the last few months. But I needed to actually ride and wear all that fancy gear I bought earlier in the year and do those fun things like get lost, are we there yet? and surprise! here’s a bridge where you need it.
Pink socks I wore for the first time and managed to smear my chainring all over. Lucky I was using dry lube (not the name of my sex tape) and it washed out. Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado kit. Riding outdoors with a cadence sensor makes me really wish I had a power meter (or maybe Crank Brothers would make power meter pedals?). One banana for 3 hours was cutting it fine. Two bidons was actually about right but both should have been electrolyte.
The riding though. Funny how being bolted in place on an indoor trainer makes you forget how to do things like ride on sand and roots. I’ve got weirdly strong from all the indoor trainer riding and weirdly weak in holding a good riding position. Cars are still scary, even though German drivers are generally pretty considerate — if you also make like a car and be very literal in describing what you’re about to do. Forests are the shit. East of Berlin is fucking beautiful. Lakes are also the shit. The houses out there make me yearn for living in an actual house surrounded by trees and stuff. Getting whistled at by the boyz in their whips on Sonnenallee is … cheers lads, good to know I’m home.
Seen on Framstraße, Neukölln. Entirely for the green. Truth I am not much into German autos post the boxy tight era, buuuut … that green. In the pushing-30° of a warm and grotty Berlin summer … ok if it was mine, I’d swap out those rims, but that green? I’d have the brake rotors painted the same colour. “Guys better show respect if they see man pullin up in a TT”
